In 1966, the collected thoughts of China's communist leader became an unexpected best-seller around the world. A compendium of pithy advice and political instructions from Mao Zedong, it was soon to be found on student bookshelves everywhere. (Photo: Front cover of Mao's Little Red Book)

In November 1994, the Russian conceptual artist Oleg Kulik posed in front of an art gallery in central Moscow, naked, pretending to be a guard dog and attacking passers by. It was his way of highlighting the fact since the collapse of the USSR three years earlier, Russians had lost their ability...