The Red Flag and the Red Mask Paul Neuberg explores the Communist project which sought to use the arts to remould people's minds so that they would join in reshaping the world. In the course of the century, this project involved thousands of writers and artists, who had to redefine their own artistic agendas and sometimes their very personalities.
1: It Couldn't Be Helped, Comrades The suicide of Mayakovsky in April 1930 symbolised the defeat of the Russian avant-garde. Almost since the Revolution, the avant-garde had been battling with so-called proletarian artistic movements which were sworn to realist agendas and which demanded popular and Party approval as the true voices of the new world. Producer David Perry