begs forgiveness, she has him arrested by the authorities. By vilifying kulaks, Stalin aimed to diminish public sympathy for them. Socialist realism is promoted since, at the end of the movie, her loyalty to the party takes precedence over her romantic feelings; therefore, Stalin approved its production. However, not all films earned his approval. One example is the 1940 film, The Law of Life, which was retracted from cinemas after ten days because it negatively portrayed a Komsomol leader by depicting him as hypocritical and abusing his power. Stalin organized a military tribunal which castigated the scenarist Aleksandr Avdeenko, accusing him of inaccurate representations of Soviet reality. While nothing was said of the director, Avdeenko was jettisoned from the party. However, directors were not always spared, as in the case of Margarita Barskaia. Her film Father and Son features a factory director who prioritizes his work over educating his son, Boris. Portraying Boris as an unhappy child and the father—a war hero—as a slothful parent was regarded as slanderous by a film reviewer. After her movie was removed from cinemas she was arrested, and died in the gulag. While Glavlit censored literature, Stalin micro-managed the film industry. He made "recommendations" on what should be included, edited, or deleted entirely. If ignored, similar consequences to those that befell Margarita were meted out. However, while he was obsessed with films, Stalin was uneducated on film production. Due to this ignorance, Stalin thought of the director as a mere technician who carried out instructions. Therefore, he dictated that camera angles should not be shot from below, or above the actor, but always at eye level. Stalin's callowness over the importance of the director's work was of great benefit to the filmmakers since, "with few exceptions, they survived." The centrality of Stalin in film censorship lasted to his death in 1953, but the strictness of Soviet censorship did not survive him. Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as the USSR's Premier, and articulated de-Stalinization in his secret speech to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. At this point, censorship finally began to diminish; this was known as the "Khrushchev Thaw." Film output grew to 20 pictures in 1953, 45 in 1954, and 66 in 1955. Movies now introduced themes that were formerly considered taboo, like conflicted characters. In the 1959 film Ballad of a Soldier, Alyosha, the main character, experiences a conflict