Dear Comrades!

Set in the Soviet Union in 1962, Dear Comrades! centres on Lyudmila, a committed communist party official in the industrial town of Novocherkassk. When the government raises food prices, workers at the town's main plant walk out demanding lower prices and better wages, and employees from other factories soon join them. Troops sent in by the authorities open fire on the demonstrators. Lyudmila, who believes sincerely in the society she is helping to build and has little patience for the strikers, sees her world overturned when her teenage daughter disappears in the chaos. With the city sealed off and the crackdown concealed, she begins a desperate search for the girl.

Andrei Konchalovsky directed and co-wrote the film with Elena Kiseleva, and produced it with Olesya Gidrat and Alisher Usmanov. It is the sixth of his features listed here, arriving after Maria's Lovers, Runaway Train, Tango & Cash, To Each His Own Cinema and The Nutcracker. Yuliya Vysotskaya plays Lyudmila, with Sergei Erlish, Yulia Burova, Andrei Gusev, Vladislav Komarov and Alexander Maskelyne in supporting roles.

Made for about two million dollars, the film has found a warm response: on IMDb it holds 7.4 from roughly 6,400 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.1 from a much smaller sample of 163. A critics' rating of 8.1 from 59 reviews places professional opinion noticeably above the audience scores.