How I fell under the spell of Soviet propaganda posters

It’s hard to admire communist art with an entirely clear conscience. The centenary of the October revolution, which falls this month, marks a national calamity whose casualties are still being counted. When my father-in-law comes to visit, I have to hide my modest collection of Russian propaganda: he grew up under the Soviets and has few fond memories of the experience. He can’t work out why old agitprop is so popular today. But the simple fact is, for all the disaster they wrought, the Bolsheviks did leave a legacy of images so striking that, even now, they can draw thousands into a museum. As Tate Modern is about to demonstrate.

Its new exhibition, Red Star Over Russia, showcases one of the greatest collections of Soviet propaganda posters. It’s the work of a former Sunday Times journalist, David King, who fell in love with the genre and spent decades recovering posters that the regime discarded.