>I could not understand why this film was allowed, since the camp is an obvious metaphor of the USSR. there are couple of aspects here: - the movie was allowe

>I could not understand why this film was allowed, since the camp is an obvious metaphor of the USSR. there are couple of aspects here: - the movie was allowed by Khruschev who had [to a significant degree] dismantled the "Gulag regime" of Stalin, so one could make a case at the time that the movie was a metaphor of that dismantled regime - there is a kind of political poker with censorship - who the first would associate the satire work with a sensitive political metaphor. If the artist doesn't do it directly themselves, then it is the censors who should declare that they see say a USSR in such a grotesque work, and that would expose the censors' own disrespect of the USSR. It is better described by the joke from the time: Stalin (who had a prominent mustache) orders to the great [in USSR WWII history view] Marshal (4-star general) Zhukov an impossible task : "Take the city by tomorrow morning!". Marshal Zhukov leaving the meeting mutters in frustration: "F-king ass with a mustache!" The KGB chief Beria overhears it and reports about it to Stalin. Stalin calls Zhukov back and asks whom Zhukov had in mind when saying that. Zhukov answers : "I had Hitler in mind of course!". Stalin turns to Beria and asks "And whom did you have in mind?"