Visualization of Data in the Soviet Union:
Informational Posters and Pictorial Statistics of the 1920s and 1930s

In capitalist society, statistics were entirely a matter for “government servants,” or for narrow specialists; we must carry statistics to the people and make them popular […]. We have scarcely yet started on the enormous, difficult but rewarding task […] of transforming dry, dead, bureaucratic accounts into living examples.

V. I. Lenin, Ocherednye zadachi Sovetskoi vlasti (The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government), March-April 1918

As early as 1918, Lenin recognized that facts could be activated as a powerful tool. Data conveyed in visual forms such as graphs, charts, maps, and technical diagrams, could be deployed in books, posters, and other print media to inform, motivate, and persuade the masses. Visual representations of this kind existed in Russian visual discourse prior to the widespread embrace of faktografiia (factography) across genres in the late 1920s. Today, we might use the terms “information graphics” (infographics) or “information design” to describe such modes.

In the first half of the 1920s, artists gave visual form to data for a range of purposes including pedagogy, advertising (during the NEP), the promotion of literacy, and to convey various government goals. With the implementation of the first Five-Year Plan in 1928, government projections for the control and development of the economy, goals for production, and motivational reports of perpetual successes became predominant subject matter. On March 11, 1931, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued the watershed decree O plakatnoi literature (Regarding Poster Production), which centralized poster production under IZOGIZ (State Publishing House for Visual Art), setting off a series of debates on best practices, and a move toward codification and standardization in poster production. In 1931, two centers for pictorial statistics were established in Russia: the short-lived Otdel izobrazitel’noi statistiki (Department of Pictorial Statistics) within LENIZOGIZ (Leningrad Fine Arts Department of the State Publishing House), and Izostat (Institut Izobrazitel’noi Statistiki; Institute of Pictorial Statistics) in Moscow. Otto Neurath (1882–1945), the Viennese economist and social scientist who had developed a standardization of visual language for statistical information known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, was hired as a consultant at Izostat between 1931 and 1934. Izostat continued to function after Neurath’s departure until it was disbanded in 1940.

The selection of works presented here chronicles the visualization of data in the USSR between 1920 and 1939, within what can loosely be described as three periods: its ad hoc use prior to 1931; its codification and standardization at Izostat under Neurath between 1931 and 1934; and Izostat’s production after Neurath’s departure from 1935 to 1940.

All works are in Russian unless otherwise noted.

Manifestoes and Constitutions

 Annual Reports

The Berman Collection includes numerous annual reports in poster form, dating between 1925 and 1930, a selection of which is presented here. Printed in modest editions of about 2,000 copies, these posters gave public form to the budgets and various activities—such as healthcare, employment, education, childcare, housing, and insurance—of regional committees and workers’ cooperatives.

Individual Posters

Many statistical posters were issued in series. While it is likely that the posters by Bulanov and Lavinsky in this group were issued as single posters, the others may have belonged to series.

Related Documentary Materials

The History of the Communist Party, c. 1926

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891–1956)
lstoriia VKP(b) v plakatakh (The History of the All-Union Communist Party [of Bolsheviks] in Posters), c. 1926
Set of 25 numbered posters
Publisher: Izdatel’stvo Kommunisticheskoi Akademii i Muzeia Revoliutsii Soiuza SSR (Communist Academy Press and the Museum of the Revolution of the Soviet Union), Moscow
Printer: Tipo-Litografiia V.T.U. imeni tov. Dunaeva (V.T.U. Lithography and Printing Works, named for Comrade Dunaev), Moscow
Edition: 20,000
Each: lithograph
Each: approx., 27 1/16 x 20 1/2" (68.7 x 52 cm)
Formerly the Merrill C. Berman Collection; now The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Gustav Klutsis

Klutsis, one of the leading Constructivist artists, frequently incorporated economic statistics in the form of diagrams, charts, and maps within his photomontaged compositions.

History of the International Trade Union Movement, c. 1928

Two books of 1926 by the Russian labor historian S. Sorbonskii formed the basis of a series of pedagogical posters on the topic of the History of the International Trade Union.[1] Like Rodchenko’s series, the poster set was to function as a portable exhibition.

The commission was to have been shared between El Lissitzky and Lydia Naumova, a recent graduate of VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops) and a member of Lissitzky’s thirty-eight artist collective preparing displays for the Russian pavilion of the 1928 Pressa (International Press) exhibition. Writing from Cologne, where he was busy installing Pressa, Lissitzky reported, “Naumova wishes to do the posters by herself. I am glad to be rid of them.”[2] The finished series would constitute at least twenty-seven posters in total. Of the sixteen presented here, only four are by Lissitzky suggesting that Naumova produced the greater number.

The Austrian section of Pressa contained work prepared by Otto Neurath’s Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Museum of Society and Economy). Upon leaving Cologne, El Lissitzky traveled to Vienna where he met Neurath and visited the Museum. Lissitzky may have played a role in facilitating Neurath’s involvement with VOKS (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries), which culminated in Neurath’s consulting work for Izostat between 1931 and 1934.[3] Lissitzky’s own work for Izostat, namely his album for the Soviet pavilion of the 1939 World’s Fair, postdated Neurath’s tenure.

[1] Devin Fore, “Lydia Naumova: History of the International Trade Union Movement Poster Series, c. 1928,” in Jodi Hauptman and Adrian Sudhalter, eds. Engineer, Agitator, Constructor: The Artist Reinvented, 1918–1939 (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2020), pp. 94–98.

[2] March 14, 1928 letter from Lissitzky to Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers translated in Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), p. 85.

[3] Ibid, p. 86.

El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890–1941) and Lydia Naumova (Russian, 1902–1986)
Istoriia mezhdunarodnogo profdvizheniia (History of the International Trade Union Movement), c. 1928
Set of at least 27 numbered posters
Publisher: Vydavnytstvo Komunistychnoi Akademii i Vydavnytstvo “Ukrains’kyĭ Robitnyk” (Communist Academy Press together with “Ukrainian Worker” Press), Moscow
Printer: Knizhnaia fabrika Tsentrizdata Narodov SSSR (Book Factory of the Central Publishing of the People of the USSR), Moscow
Edition: 15,000 in Russian, with an additional two thousand translated into Ukrainian
Each: lithograph
Each: approx., 28 1/4 x 20 7/8" (71.7 x 53 cm)

Series Related to the Economy and Industry of the First Five-Year Plan (1928–1932), 1930

This series of uniformly sized posters was published in Leningrad. Based on the numbering of the nine examples here, the series extended to at least twenty-two posters. Eight of the nine posters in the Berman collection (all except poster no. 22) formerly belonged to the Albertina Museum in Vienna and bear the Museum’s typed labels visibly adhered to their surfaces. The Albertina presumably acquired these posters around the time of their publication in 1930, at which time Vienna was governed by the Social Democratic Party. During the period known as Rotes Wien (Red Vienna; 1918–1934), the city had strong ties to Soviet Russia and supported social and cultural projects including Otto Neurath’s Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Museum of Society and Economy), which existed between 1925 and 1934.

Designer unknown
Series Related to the Economy and Industry of the first Five-Year Plan (1928–1932), 1930
Set of at least 22 numbered posters
Publisher: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo (State Publishing House), Leningrad-Moscow, 1930
Printer: Gos. Tip. Im. Ivana Fedorova (State printing shop named after Ivan Fedorov). Leningrad
Edition: 15,000
Each: lithograph
Each: approx., 20 3/8 x 27 5/8" (51.8 x 70.2 cm)

Museum of Society and Economy, Vienna, 1925–1934

The Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum (Museum of Society and Economy), or GeWiMu, was established with support of Vienna’s Social Democratic government in 1925. The designation “museum” is something of a misnomer. It functioned primarily as an institute for scientific and pedagogical research, as a publisher, and as an organizer of exhibitions at multiple venues including Vienna’s Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), storefronts, and other locations within workers’ neighborhoods. Otto Neurath (1882–1945), an economist and social scientist, led a team of statisticians, cartographers, ethologists, medical doctors, and other specialists, who worked in close collaboration with the artists Gerd Arntz and Peter Alma to develop the “Vienna Method” of pictorial statistics—later designated ISOTYPE (International System of Typographic Picture Education), in 1935. Another member of the team, the architect Josef Frank (1885–1967), established a system of modular, collapsible, transportable exhibition display furniture which facilitated the display and circulation of exhibitions as nomadic, reproducible pedagogical tools.

Among the most significant publications of the GeWiMu was a wide-ranging atlas or encyclopedia on “Society and Economy,” presented in the form of a portfolio of one hundred loose (thus exhibitable) plates, which covered areas including “Forms of Production,” “Social Order,” “Levels of Civilization,” and “Standard of Living.” A selection of sheets from this portfolio are shown here. When the Social Democratic government was voted out in 1934, Neurath was forced to relocate to The Netherlands and the Museum ceased operation.

Gerd Arntz (German, 1900–1988)
Otto Neurath, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft: Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk. Das Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien zeigt in 100 farbigen Bildtafeln: Produktionsformen; Gesellschaftsordnungen; Kulturstufen; Lebenshaltungen (Society and Economy: Reference Resource in Pictorial Statistics. The Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna Presents in 100 Color Plates: Forms of Production; Social Order; Levels of Civilization; Standard of Living). Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut AG, 1930
Outer box: cardboard with adhered lithograph; 12 1/4 x 18 1/2 x 1 1/2” (31.5 x 47.5 x 4 cm)
Portfolio: cloth-covered carboard, letterpress; 12 1/8 x 18 1/8 x 1 1/8” (31 x 47 x 3.5 cm)
130 loose plates: lithograph; 12 x 18” (30.5 x 45.7 cm), each

Wendingen vol. 11, no. 9 ([August] 1930)

This issue of the Dutch journal Wendingen includes a single essay by Peter Alma on “Pictorial Statistics and Social Graphics.” Its frontispiece, shown at center below, is a reproduction of Gerd Arntz’s painting, The New Vienna of 1929 (oil on plywood), created for the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna and lost with the Museum’s closure in 1934. This issue also reproduces twelve plates from Arntz’s and Neurath’s Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft portfolio.

Department of Pictorial Statistics, Leningrad, 1931
Izostat Institute, Moscow, 1931–1940

Following the March 11, 1931 decree O plakatnoi literature (Regarding Poster Production), LENIZOGIZ, the Leningrad branch of IZOGIZ (State Publishing House for Visual Art) established the Otdel izobrazitel’noi statistiki (Department of Pictorial Statistics). Ivan P. Ivanitsky (1896–1970) oversaw the department’s initial foray: a cycle of images entitled Dognat’ i peregnat’ (To Catch Up and Surpass). According to his own account, Ivanitsky was familiar with Neurath’s Vienna Method and with the Vienna museum’s 1930 album in particular. Dognat’ i peregnat’ combined aspects of the Vienna Method with Soviet innovations, such as multi-colored lentochnye diagrammy (strip charts).[1]

On September 12, 1931, the People’s Commissars of the USSR decreed to adopt Neurath’s methods of visual statistics and to organize “a special institute” for which Ivanitsky was to be a senior Soviet “transformer” of statistics into visual form. In November 1931, Izostat (Vsesoiuznyi institut izobrazitel’noi statistiki sovetskogo stroitel’stva i khoziaistva; All-Union Institute of Visual Statistics of Soviet Construction and Economy) was established in Moscow. It was contractually agreed that Neurath would act as an advisor, and, between 1931 and 1934, would be present at Izostat for sixty days per year, often accompanied by key Viennese collaborators such as master “transformer” Marie Reidemeister (1898-1986) and the artists Gerd Arntz and Peter Alma (included in the photograph at right ).[2] One poster presented below dates from this period of Neurath’s tenure at Izostat.

After Neurath’s contract was terminated, Izostat continued to produce books, posters, and albums until its closure in 1940. The large volume edited by Ivanitsky and overseen by El Lissitzky prepared for the New York World’s Fair in 1939 dates from this later period.

[1] Ivan Ivanitsky, Izobrazitel’naia statistika i venskii metod (Pictorial Statistics and the Vienna Method) (Moscow-Leningrad: OGIZ-IZOGIZ, 1932), p. 30.

[2] Emma Minns, “Picturing Soviet Progress: Izostat 1931-4,” in Isotype: Design and Contexts, 1925-1971 (London: Hyphen Press, 2013), pp. 257-81. See also, Olivia Crough, “Isotype in Moscow” (October 27, 2020). https://thederivative.org/isotype-in-moscow/#010302en_ftn12. Accessed June 15, 2021.

To Catch Up and Surpass, 1931 (Department of Pictorial Statistics, Leningrad)

Ivan Ivanitsky, the leading proponent of Neurath’s methods in the Soviet Union, described this poster series, which he edited, in his 1932 book Visual Statistics and the Vienna Method:

[1] Ivan Ivanitsky, Izobrazite’naia statistika i venskii metod (Pictorial Statistics and the Vienna Method) (Moscow-Leningrad: OGIZ-IZOGIZ, 1932), pp. 18, 33.

Dognat' i peregnat' v tekhniko-ekonomicheskom otnoshenii peredovye kapitalisticheskie strany v 10 let (To Catch up with and Surpass the Leading Capitalist Countries in Technical and Economic Affairs in 10 Years), 1931
Edition: 15,000
Each: lithograph
Each: approx., 14 1/2 x 21 1/8" (36.8 x 53.7 cm)
Editor: Ivan P. Ivanitsky
Publisher: LENIZOGIZ (Leningrad Fine Arts Department of the State Publishing House), Otdel izobrazitel’noi statistiki (Department of Pictorial Statistics)
Printer: Gos. Lit. im. Mikh. Tomskogo (State printing shop named after Mikhail Tomsky), Leningrad

Note: In 1931, this series was published as a set of 72 postcards (a second edition contained 70 postcards). It is unclear if the entire set, or just a selection from it, was published in poster form.

Rabbit Meat for the USSR, c. 1932 (Izostat Institute, Moscow)

This rare poster is the only item in the collection to have been published at Izostat during Neurath’s tenure.

Album for the New York World’s Fair, 1939 (Izostat Institute, Moscow)

The hefty English-language volume USSR: An Album Illustrating the State Organization and National Economy of the U.S.S.R., co-edited by Ivanitsky and published by Izostat (after Neurath’s departure), was one of a number of English-language publications issued in Russia to accompany the Soviet pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Others included four photobooks by Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova—Soviet Aviation; The Red Army and Navy; A Pageant of Youth; and Moscow—and Solomon Telingater’s Lenin.

Lissitzky, who worked on various projects with Izostat between 1931 and 1940, oversaw the design of this album, working together with the artists Alexander S. Grigorovich and Mikhail V. Nikolaev. Their task was to demonstrate in clear, comprehensible ways the modernization of the USSR, its technological advantages, superior social programs, and the conquest of nature. The album is divided into four sections: “State Organization of the U.S.S.R,” “Economic Construction in the U.S.S.R.,” “Welfare and Culture in the U.S.S.R.,” and the “Position of Women in the U.S.S.R.,” with an addendum on “Moscow—Capital of the U.S.S.R.” Each spread offers a visually dazzling composition in color. Lissitzky’s masterful abstract compositions are layered with statistical information rendering them fully instrumentalized.

In addition to featuring the work of Soviet Constructivists such as Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and Stepanova, the 1939 World’s Fair included contributions by European artists such as Alvar Aalto, Max Bill, Marcel Breuer, Salvador Dalí, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius, Fernand Léger, Karel Maes, Xanti Schawinsky, and Ladislav Sutnar; as well as Americans including Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, Phillip Guston, and Willem de Kooning. In September 1939, while the exhibition was in progress, Germany invaded Poland catalyzing the Second World War. The cross-section of participants—many of whom had already emigrated to the United States—represents a tipping point: a last gasp of the European avant-garde and the emergence of artistic developments to come in the United States.