"Commissar" features strong themes of feminism and motherhood in the backdrop of the Russian Civil War of 1918, and when completed was censored by the Soviet Union due to the subject topic being deemed: "a force that opposes the very essence of human existence, a phenomenon that destroys personal ties by causing alienation, despair, and uncertainty about the future." In effect the censors saw the subject content and focus too negative for a state mandated heroic realism style, as in the opening scene a singing Madonna is passed by a marching regiment that eclipses the sound of her singing with their march. For the censors at the time, to portray the revolution as anything other than a positive change in society was a dangerous risk. "Commissar" was the only film ever made by the director Aleksandr Askoldov, and it nearly had him arrested by the KGB.