A documentary about ordinary life in the Soviet Union that is running all summer on public TV's Frontline series raises anew television's core question: Should I believe what I see with my own eyes?
The series, called Comrades, was made by the BBC over a 21-month period. The British filmmakers were allowed unusual privileges to photograph inside a Red Army barracks and a Soviet courtroom, and to spend days trailing ordinary citizens around. Inevitably, what is shown is often appealingly human, so even in Britain, where there is more tolerance in such matters than in this country, there were complaints of...