Lash of the Czar was one of several English-language titles for the Russian film Belyi Orel. The film was based on The Governor, a play by Leonid Andreyev. V.I. Kachalov plays the governor of a small Russian province who tries to treat the people under his authority with kindness and equanimity. But when a local factory goes on strike, the governor buckles under to pressure from the Czar and orders the wholesale slaughter of the strikers. He pays for this betrayal of his trust with his life -- at the hands of a courageous Bolshevik spy. Anna Sten, who in 1934 was brought to the U.S. as Sam Goldwyn's "answer" to Greta Garbo, appears as the governor's wife.
Hal Erickson, www.allmovie.com
It is precisely him, the governor, ‘the best representative of tsarist power’, whom the director places at the centre and entrusts this role to an actor of exceptional charm and profound intelligence, Vasily Ivanovich Kachalov, a member of the Central Drama Theatre. Finally, he gives his name to the film, introducing a colour that was detested at the time: white. This was based on the name of the Order of the White Eagle, a high tsarist distinction. The audacity of this act must be viewed in parallel with the name and fate of the director. Yakov Alexandrovich Protazanov was one of the greatest directors of pre-revolutionary cinema, himself a recent emigrant.
He conceived a film about the inevitability of the old world, which he intended to show without resorting to a vulgar and caricatural sociological tone. In doing so, he came into conflict with the Glavrepertkom, which immediately banned the first and second versions of the script. Protasanov then wrote a new version with O. Leonidov and Y. Urinov. He obtained permission to shoot.
