Perhaps the key to this paradox lies in the two faces of indifference.
In the most sustained satiric attack on the culture of the new State,
Denis Johnson’s 1929 expressionist play The Old Lady Say No!, the
second act is a burlesque on the arts scene.

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This is a very good description of what we might expect in a
revolutionary State, an ideological regime using the arts to bolster
its authority. And yet, as satire, it is wide of the mark. There was no
Deserving Artists Act. There was not even a minister for arts and
crafts – or even so much as a humble parliamentary secretary.