Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

In 1921, the Cheka became aware that gold and jewelry were stolen from the treasury of Gokhran, and that a special organization was involved in transporting the stolen to Estonia. Scout Maksim Isayev is sent to this country. He establishes that the cipher of the Soviet embassy Olenetskaya works for the German resident Nolmar, with whom employees of Gokhran Kozlovskaya and an appraiser Yakov Shelekhes are associated. As a result of the provocation, Isayev was arrested. In the prison cell, he finds himself together with the famous Russian writer Nikandrov, who could not find himself in post-revolutionary Russia and went abroad. Released soon by the efforts of his comrades, Isayev continues the struggle for the fate of Nikandrov — for his return to his homeland.

Our read · Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1975) reads as a sombre, kinetic, grounded thriller · historical · spy entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.