Paintings from Russia, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, Kirgizia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova selected in the USSR by Matthew Cullerne Bown for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, 12/1 - 15/3 1992.

Socialist Realism appeared in order to proceed towards what was then conceived as a bright new future - the Communist paradise on earth.

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the new government took control of Russian art, nationalizing art collections and laying down the principles that were to govern the creation of new art. Soviet Realism was the result. This book traces the style from its artistic and intellectual origins in 19th-century Russia to its decline at the end of the Soviet period. 184 color and 346 b&w illustrations.

From the ruins of communism, Boris Groys emerges to provoke our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists’ goal of producing world-transformative art. In this new edition, Groys revisits the debate that the book has stimulated since its first publication.