You seem to make the rather strange mistake of thinking these photos portrait a purely negative view of the political system of the time, which you consider rat

You seem to make the rather strange mistake of thinking these photos portrait a purely negative view of the political system of the time, which you consider rather positively. I believe the best, and actually somewhat obvious, message of these photos would be to show the humanity of the people of the time, without hiding their relative poverty. That way, they would challenge the clichés on both sides of this particular ideological divide. The comments so far mostly prove me wrong. But as they say in both communism and Disney movies: there is always hope.