The great leader declares a splendid victory for the revolution

I have a small collection of Mao era Chinese revolutionary art. I can't bring myself to buy a guy in a stockade, next to a sign listing his sins (a bit too much reality). But I have a straight couple astride a long dong warhead, some very pretty paper cuttings of happy farm workers, and scene-by-scene postcard sets of operas and ballets, like "Red Detachment of Women," which begins with an evil male landlord torturing a smolderingly rebellious member of the working class. (It's a classic straight porn shot of a helpless but uppity woman with arms tied above her head.)

"'Red Detachment of Women' describes the birth, growth and maturing -- through brave struggle against the enemy under the brilliant leadership of Chairman Mao and the Communist Party of China -- of a women's company of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army." The martyr cries: "What does death matter? Communism is the truth."

And the landlord gets his comeuppance. It's a perfect drama for the stage.

Skip a few countries over. Entertainment, it turns out, was not necessarily inherently bourgie. Mass murderer Stalin liked musicals. Some 40 were filmed in the early years of Russian Communism, it sez here. "[M]usicals are usually associated with images of happiness, fun, and sheer froth. And communism has never exactly been a great source of fun.... In fact, in his 38 volumes of writing, scholars agree that Lenin never really said anything about entertainment. On the other hand, Lenin did claim that movies were one of the greatest art forms ever made, since it was an art that could reach the masses."

Sample lyrics of the working class musical:

"In the hot blast of the coal oven,
The water turns to steam!
Soon a new sound will ring out!
The coal press begins to stamp!
Raka-daka, raka-daka,
Raka-daka, raka-daka,
We sing the song of the coal press!"

This is taken from the 1997 documentary "East Side Story." "The first Iron Curtain musicals started to come out in the 1930s, when Joseph Stalin firmly had a hold on the Soviet Union." Turns out there was more than just revolutionary propaganda: "When the Hollywood-influenced Grigori Alexandrov made 1934's 'The Jolly Fellows' (which greatly resembles the plotless all-singing all-dancing Hollywood musicals of the time), it was initially banned by the censor board. But after Alexandrov made a personal plea to Stalin and showed him the movie, Alexandrov not only got a medal but an unofficial blessing to keep making movies like that that would be just as pleasing to Stalin....

"One of the most ironic things that happened after Stalin died, when the new Soviet government subsequently became more open, the light and pure entertainment Iron Curtain musicals essentially died as well, since the new government wanted to get back to the true roots of socialism."