Eisenstein’s follow-up to Strike, again part of the push of propaganda films, and shows the power of editing in filmmaking, especially with the scene on the stairs as he intercuts a Baby carriage falling down the steps while the throng of poor masses are being massacred by the Tsar's Troops. The intercutting creates not just inherent tension where you as the audience want to impulsively reach out and stop the carriage but also creates ideological juxtapositions between the innocence of the baby being hurtled towards his death and the innocence of the crowd being massacred by the Imperialist Tsarist forces.
This film is definitely the cementing block in the power of film as a medium of propaganda, which supports several arguments about the unwitting power that films hold over audiences and thus the accompanying responsibility of every filmmaker to their audience.
The film inspired Joseph Goebbels, who later hired Riefenshtal to use this form of filmmaking for worse effect as he understood how powerful associative editing was at manipulating mass thought.
The film is in cinema history for the odessa steps sequence. Again, the true brutality of the 1920’s being presented starkly to the public. It seems that there was a lot of artistic freedom in the 20’s and that audiences were willing to go on these extremely brutal yet rewarding emotional joyrides.