Sergei Eisenstein was a Russian film director. An architect by training, he joined the Russian Revolution and became a set designer at the Moscow Proletkult theater. His first film was in 1924, Strike , but it was his next film which propelled him into film history with Battleship Potemkin. He was constantly having to fight Soviet politics, often having parts of his films reedited ( October ) when Trotsky fell out of favor, or even withheld ( Ivan the Terrible ) if it did not meet Stalin's approval. His classic films included The General Line, Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible .