The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: what he considered a bitter affliction due to the Department
of Proletarian Culture, who, in the beginning, for the
decoration of his trains, had delivered him bound hand
and foot to a number of Futurists. For that reason
he wanted us to see the "Lenin" first, in order that we might
compare it with the result of his emancipation, the "Red
Cossack," painted when the artists "had been brought under
proper control." The "Lenin" had been painted a year and a
half ago, when, as fading hoarding in the streets of Moscow
still testify, revolutionary art was dominated by the Futurist
movement. Every carriage is decorated with most striking
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