Could Buster Keaton have starred in Battleship Potemkin?*BR**BR*Did Trotsky plan to write the great Soviet comedy?*BR**BR*And why did Lenin love circus clowns?*BR**BR*The Chaplin Machine reveals the lighter side of the Communist avant-garde and its unlikely passion for American slapstick. Set against the backdrop of the great Russian revolutionary experiment, Owen Hatherley tells the tragic-comedic story of the cinema, art and architecture of the early 20th Century and spotlights the unlikely intersections of East and West.