Eisenstien was one of the 3 most important people in film history. He can't be ignored anymore then Newton could be in Physics if he happened to live in a Communist country. He was persecuted by Stalin btw.
"Eisenstien was one of the 3 most important people in film history."
One of three? That's quite a statement and makes no sense at all given the scope of film in the last 100+ years.
As for Eisenstein: Eisenstein never forgot his political agenda as a committed Marxist/Trotskyite. His greatest admirer and practitioner today is Michael Moore.
For more info on this topic and film history under the Soviet regime coming out of the recently opened KGB archives see the following below or read Montefiore's books.
http://www.arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/06/04/bfstalin04.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/06/04/ixartleft.html