Things we believed during the Cold War that ended up being wrong

Only capitalist nations could produce great cultural works
In the Cold War, Americans were taught that Socialist art meant singing about tractors and wheat production while the censor sent anyone with any individuality to the gulag. It's even alleged the CIA bankrolled Jackson Pollock's exhibitions to prove American individuality produced greater art (via BBC). This illusion only lasted so long as no one in the West was willing to experience Socialist art firsthand. So many great Eastern Bloc artists created strikingly individual works that it's hard to know where to start. You could begin by checking out Czech New Wave cinema, which Empire has called one of the "movie movements that defined cinema." Or you could look into the similarly regarded Polish School. Or you could watch Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera (above), a USSR film so experimental it'd give Frank Zappa nightmares.