This lucid and generously illustrated study explores the effects of the complicated relationship between Soviet artists and their patron, the state. Tupitsyn argues that purges and repression, issuing forth from the top of the society, resulted in self-censorship and the reining in of the great modernist movements, finally leading to the death of the Revolutionary avant-garde. She uses many previously unpublished letters and images to show that the Soviet avant-garde's last great attempt at politically addressing the masses was made with the camera.