after the war, soviet politicians again began to control and criticize artistic life very hard. in 1948, there was a big meeting at which shostakovich, prokofiev, and several other composers were criticized. their music was called “formalist”, “anti-democratic”, and lots of other things which had nothing to do with music. there was nothing the composers could do except to say how sorry they were. for the next five years shostakovich was careful not to write anything the politiciones would not like. he wrote songs such as "the sun shines on our motherland". some of his other compositions in which he expressed his real feelings were kept in a drawer so that no one could see them.