In this essay Galina Yankovskaya explores the economic aspects of Soviet artistic life, which were often as important as political factors or censorship in determining the formal features and content of art production. Yankovskaya considers a complex of multisided trends: Russian artists' egalitarian imagination, the expectations of a new art audience, and the authorities' intentions. Exploring the confusing history of art institutions (mostly Vsekokhudozhnik, but also the Union of Artists and the Artistic Fund) within the everyday routines of the Soviet planned economy enables Yankovskaya to examine the clash of economic, ideological, and political motives in Stalinist culture and to look at how artists escaped from official ideology or exploited it for their own goals of appearing “busy.” Certain specific practices from this system of art production and distribution, such as the state's financial support as well as regulation of the art market, copyright law, and the mass production of handmade copies, survived into the post-Stalinist period.