While the porcelain plates' blocky constructivist artwork conveyed energy, explosions and destruction, the requisitioning of the factory was part of a softer approach to demonstrate the communists' respect for Russian patrimony, and ingratiate the precarious new regime with the powerful upper-middle classes whose support they depended on in order to govern. ''The main reason for the Bolsheviks to maintain the porcelain factory was the preservation of cultural heritage,'' historian and guest curator of the Hermitage exhibition, Dr Sjeng Scheijen, tells BBC Culture.
