Its UK release last fall got rave reviews:
Nikolai Starikov, head of the Russian Great Fatherland Party, said the film was an "unfriendly act by the British intellectual class", and said it was very clear that the film was part of an "anti-Russian information war" aimed at discrediting the figure of Stalin.
In September 2017, the head of the Public Council of the Russian Ministry of Culture said the Russian authorities were considering a ban on the film which, they alleged, could be part of a "western plot to destabilise Russia by causing rifts in society".
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Russian Culture Ministry’s lawyers, such as the daughter of Marshal Zhukov, Era Zhukova, cinematographers Nikita Mikhalkov, Vladimir Bortko, Sergei Miroshnichenko, Igor Ugolnikov, Alexander Galibin, Head of the Russian State Historical Museum Alexey Levykin and others, petitioned Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky to withdraw the film's certification, saying "The Death of Stalin is aimed at inciting hatred and enmity, violating the dignity of the Russian (Soviet) people, promoting ethnic and social inferiority, which points to the movie’s extremist nature. We are confident that the movie was made to distort our country’s past so that the thought of the 1950s Soviet Union makes people feel only terror and disgust."
The authors defined the movie as insulting, parodying the history of Russia, and denigrating the memory of Russian citizens who fought in World War II. They also pointed out that the National Anthem was accompanied with obscene expressions and offensive attitude, decorations were historically inaccurate, "and the release of the film on the eve of the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad is a spit in the face of all those who died there, and all those who are still alive".
The movie was banned in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. Armenia is the only member of the Eurasian Economic Union to showcase the comedy.
Historian Richard Overy noted in The Guardian that the film "is littered with historical errors", which can be "viewed as cinematic licence", but was most critical that the film did not appropriately honour Stalin's victims.
Samuel Goff, at the Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Cambridge, cited several justifiable historical inaccuracies with the ranks and roles of Stalin's inner circle, but found the film missed the overall point and was unable to locate any of the inherent humor contained in Stalinism.