Soviet censors made Aleksandr Dovzhenko eliminate a number of scenes from the film, including the scene of peasants urinating into a tractor radiator, and the scene of nude woman mourning over her dead fiance. The original uncut version was screened in Ukrainian republic when first released, and then in the Museum of Modern Art (New York City, USA) about 40 years later, on 10 October 1969.
This film was voted one of the 12 greatest films of all time by a group of 117 film historians at the 1958 Brussels World Fair.
When the film was shown on BBC Television on 25th October 1974 a Member of Parliament made a fool of himself by complaining that the BBC shouldn't be showing Communist propaganda. It was pointed out to him that 'Earth' was considered one of the great classics of cinema.