Only two minutes' walk from the exhibition of American prints is a smaller, less flashy exhibition with much narrower scope. As its title suggests, Windows on War: Soviet War Posters 1943-45 looks at the development of a particular kind of propaganda poster in a narrow but significant period.
The collection of posters survived in Nottingham by a mixture of chance and generosity. A university professor - Vivian de Sola Pinto - was posted to Moscow on war service and collected a number of the window posters and printed posters which were produced by TASS (the Central Soviet Telegraph Agency). He collected more than 100 big window posters as well as some smaller printed posters and brought them home with them. Eventually he donated them to Nottingham University. They're a fragile collection and rare too - although major artists and poets collaborated on the work, the posters were a response to the war and intended to have an immediate effect.
I've never worried that artists of all kinds create work that is labelled "propaganda." Every work of art is propaganda for something, whether the work is loudly and ostentatiously political or quietly insists that art itself matters. All artistic creators have views, beliefs and prejudices - not necessarily comfortable ones - and these inevitably leak into their work. I'd rather deal with the unpleasant beliefs of Pound or the jingoism of Kipling, which are openly proclaimed, than the respectable-sounding class and racial sneers of T.S. Eliot or the deeply embedded prejudices of Philip Larkin. But it's the Eliot and Larkin who make it into school syllabuses while Pound and Kipling are judged too propagandist.
On the whole I can deal with overt propaganda, though I may dislike it and disagree strongly. I'm less comfortable when artists have been forced to produce propagandist art, not just because of the danger of bad art (though insincere art isn't necessarily bad; the compliments to Elizabeth I in A Midsummer Night's Dream are as delightful as they were - almost certainly - insincere). What I dislike is the power structure that harnesses art in this way and treats its effects as utilitarian and quantifiable. There's almost always something brutal about governments that do this.
The Soviet posters disturbed me for a range of reasons. Few of these were to do with power structures. To my surprise, Soviet leaders were rarely present in the posters though there was one in which a child held up a picture of Stalin as if brandishing an icon for veneration. The posters in the collection were largely focussed on hatred of Germans and the desire for vengeance. I suppose that in the years since World War II we've become so used to the evils of Nazism that we expect war posters to assert some sort of moral high ground. Looking back on British posters and cartoons of the period, they probably show the same desire for hatred and vengeance. I notice it less because it's rooted in traditions with which I'm familiar. But that desire to inflict known and unbearable pain on other human beings makes me feel sick and hopeless.
Occasionally the posters were gentler in tone. A headscarfed woman held her finger to her lips, warning that careless talk costs lives. A nurse gave water to a wounded soldier. A sturdy blond woman stood surrounded by her sturdy blond children. She was a "heroine of the Soviet Union," officially honoured for giving birth ten times. Her children, it was implied, would grow into new soldiers, replacing those who had died repelling the invaders.
Invading armies are not loved. It's not a new thought. From Sparta to the present day, mothers have sent their children to kill or be killed - and poets have praised vengeance as wel as lovel.
The first vote I cast was for a communist. It was in the Greater London Council elections of 1973.
Back in those days, I had great hopes of elections. I attended the public meetings - there were several and they were packed. I interrogated canvassers about their beliefs. I met the candidates as they campaigned in shopping centres and asked my questions. In that first election, I didn't make up my mind till just before polling day. I never agonised so much about a vote till 1997, when an encounter with Tony Blair finally persuaded me that I couldn't vote New Labour.
Back in 1973, there were four candidates. I can't remember who the Tory was. Records name a Mrs Williams. The Labour candidate was Marie Jenkins, wife of the MP standing in what was then a safe Labour seat. I didn't consider voting Liberal as I'd never met the candidate, Walter Hain. (Later I came to know, like and respect him and his wife, especially for their opposition to apartheid which cost them so much.) The communist candidate was called Dave Welsh.
I must have wanted to vote Labour because I sought out Marie Jenkins and asked her about her policies. Perhaps she thought I was younger than I was or perhaps I took her manner the wrong way. I can't remember what she said but I burned with shame at what I read as her condescension. In my memory, which may be false, she is wearing a fur coat - not necessarily real fur - and was visiting the council estate in a large car. I am certain she didn't take my earnestness seriously. I was eighteen and very intense. And I'd come across several people who assumed council tenants were stupid and criminal. I saw no reason to vote for someone who saw me, on the evidence of my address, as an inferior.
Dave Welsh was different from the other candidates. He lived in a council flat and, like my dad, worked for London Transport. When he spoke, he spoke with knowledge and experience about council housing and public transport. He also spoke approvingly of the Soviet Union, suggesting things were much better there. I wasn't convinced about Russia - films of tanks on the streets of Prague in 1968 suggested a grey oppression far from the optimism of the Communist Manifesto. But the Greater London Council wasn't concerned with foreign policy. I cared about council housing and public transport. I wanted a councillor who would speak with knowledge on behalf of other working people. I voted for Dave Welsh and, for a few hours, hoped that enough other people would vote as I did. He didn't win.
Communist councillors and councils are pretty rare in Britain. It's different in France. My friends in France have communist councillors and, when I last visited, I saw their announcements of a forthcoming communist barbeque in the public square.
As a non-tenant and non-voter, I was a little hesitant about turning up. I also realised that, in France, there wouldn't be anything for me to eat. But I could at least see what a communist barbeque looked like.
I arrived too early, just as they were setting up, but the communists didn't look intimidating. They were busy cooking sausages and dispensing cans of drink. I'd hoped there would be a sale of badges or stickers so that I could find a gift for my son but there was nothing like that. Instead there were leaflets advertising the latest communist initiatives: sales of fruit and vegetables at fair prices.
The French communist party has formed an alliance with some French farmers who, like British farmers, complain that they are forced to sell their produce at low prices so that it can be sold on at a high price in the shops. Communist leaflets suggest that, as a result, fruit and vegetables are becoming a luxury. The Communist response was simple and practical: they were transporting 60 tonnes of fruit and vegetables from the countryside and selling them at 100 stalls in the Paris area. The aim was fairer pay for the farmers and cheaper produce for hard-up Parisiens. Apparently they do this regularly.
I was impressed. My local councillors may hold surgeries, but they don't hold public barbecues in the High Road. Instead of helping small farmers make a living, they agree planning permission for yet another large supermarket and tell their angry electors that it's all for their good.
My French still isn't great but I managed a conversation with some of the communists. Mostly we compared rising prices in France and Britain. I remember that I characterised New Labour as "Les Pseudo-Travaillistes", speaking of the government's current fondness for big business. A communist ventured the opinion that Sarkozy and Thatcher were the same. I think I can detect differences but I saw his point. Anyway, my French wasn't up to a more detailed discussion.
I looked at the prices on the list of fruit and vegetables for sale. They were definitely cheaper than the supermarket. And they seemed to have a lot of nectarines. I'm allergic to nectarines. In any case, the sales were meant for the local people and I was getting ready to go home.
It was the first preview, but I'd seen the play before. I had memories of the original production in the Pit in the Barbican, when the Royal Shakespeare Company premiered Stephen Poliakoff's Breaking the Silence. That made me hesitate before booking for the new production. I recalled impressions and atmosphere rather than substance and performance but I couldn't forget the railway carriage set or the single-minded arrogance of the play's central character. I think 1984 was the year when I worked out I'd attended more than a hundred performances. If that one stayed with me, it was among the best in a good year for drama. "No," I thought, when I heard about the revival. "I probably shan't go.
But cheap ticket offers always lure me and £5 a seat for the first preview was too good an offer to miss. I rang up so promptly I secured good seats too - in the fourth row - and arranged to attend with a friend. It was a good excuse for wine and a meal before the show.
I like going to Nottingham Playhouse. It's not too big, the staff are friendly and the theatre-goers don't seem so posh or fancily dressed as the slightly scary clientele of the nearby Royal Centre. When I book for the Playhouse, the box office staff like to talk about the play - they seem part of the whole enterprise, which is always a good sign. This time the young woman who answered the phone talked about the various seating options and added her reflections on the first act of the play, which she had seen in rehearsal. Her enthusiasm reminded me how much I like theatre-going.
I was caught up in the play at once. When I saw that the first half lasted 90 minutes, I wondered whether my attention space was good enough. But as soon as the first actor entered the railway carriage set, I wanted to know what happened to these people. And it didn't matter that I had seen the play before.
Nikolai, the central character (based on Stephen Poliakoff's grandfather) is a Russian Jew with two passions. One is for ordered, elegant, private living. His wife must dress formally, defer to him and follow restrictive conventions, even though the family is living in a single railway carriage with bullet holes in the walls. The Russian Revolution has just taken place but Polya, the servant, still waits at table where meals are served on silver plates. Nikolai's other passion is the urge to capture sound on film - a surprising pursuit since he cannot imagine mingling with the public to attend a cinema.
At first, Nikolai's survival seems improbable. Equally unlikely is his appointment to supervise the inspection of the new telephone system of the northern region. But his wife, son and maid seize on their opportunity for survival in a changing world. As we watch, Nikolai's charm, single-mindedness and state funds seem to give him the chance to invent the first "talkies". Meanwhile his wife Evgenia forms an alliance with Polya, the maid, which provides both with opportunities for happiness and a fuller life. As they develop and Sasha, the watchful son, grows up, Nikolai seems unchanging.
The railway carriage passes close to danger and the great events of history. When the play was first performed, Thatcherism was on the rise but the world gained some uneasy sense of stability from the tension between the super-powers. Now we live in an even less certain world. Millions of people are displaced and many more are struggling to understand or survive.
Breaking the Silence doesn't downplay the risks or brutality of those early years of the Russian revolution. But through one family, it shows a time when change and danger co-existed with an urge to create, invent and imagine. It conjures up excitement at technological change as well as nostalgia for a lost way of life. As for the end of the play ... well, I'm not going to spoil it by saying.
I'm going to name all the cast, because every role contributed to the success of the performance I saw. Jonathan Wright and Jim Findley were guards who were also human, whatever they did and witnessed. Owen Aaronovitch as Verkoff, the ex-butcher who becomes Nikolai's unlikely employer, was a suitable contrast with the family; without ever upstaging them, he suggested there was more to the character than we saw on stage. Diana Kent and Celia Meiras developed convincingly as Evgenia and Polya - it will be a long while before Polya's final appearance fades from my mind. As Sasha, Ilan Goodman grew convincingly from spoilt pet clutching a teddy bear to a youth desperate to fit in with Soviet society. Philip Bretherton, as the apparently unchanging Nikolai, offered a process of slow revelation until, at the end, the audience came to see beneath the arrogant exterior a man who loved his country and cared about its people.
Estelle Richardson is a relatively young director. After a production as good as this, I'll be watching for her name on future playbills.
The play runs till the end of the month. I don't know if it's moving elsewhere - only that it should.
