Shostakovich was considered at the time to be some sort of evil stooge for the Soviet government, to the point that when he traveled to New York there were protests against his arrival. But then, after he's dead, once he can no longer speak, and once his contributions to classical music can no longer be denied: Only then everyone starts proclaiming his deep hatred of the Soviet Union, with evidence akin to interpolating his body language. Solomon Volkov just so happens to have been entrusted to his secret diary, despite only having met him three or four times, where he reveals that all of his music had the one singular ambition of hurting Stalin's feelings somehow.
Thus he became great hero of anti-Communism, he dreamed of killing Stalin, in fact Stalin wanted dearly to kill him. Perhaps we are to believe all of the Stalin Prizes he received throughout the 40s and 50s were all laced with bombs, but they all happened to be duds. Curse the evil Soviets for their repression of this musical martyr, the head of the government-affiliated Composers' Union. Communism destroys all musical culture, evidenced by how Shostakovich was only given free musical education and state funding.
I really like Shostakovich, he's one of my favourite composers. I kind of went a little more cold on him because I heard he was anti-communist from my mum though.