Communism in colour: Vivid photographs portray life in the Soviet Union in the final year of the Stalin era




These revealing pictures shed light on life in the Soviet Union right at the end of the rule of despot Joseph Stalin.

Published in Soviet Union Magazine, they were distributed across Europe and the Americas in an effort to generate sympathy for the Communist country's ideals.

The pages of the magazine offer some of the greatest examples of early 20th-century photo-montage as propaganda.

Communism in colour: The Volga-Don canal is pictured on the cover of the September 1952 issue of Soviet Union magazine, a propaganda title - published in Russian, French, English, German, and, from 1938, Spanish - that was intended to visually extol the virtues of the Marxist state to audiences abroad



Propaganda: The images were published in Soviet Union Magazine, which was distributed across Europe and America in a bid to garner sympathy for Communist ideals