ring the line between observer and observed, a
hotly debated tenet in contemporary art analysis.
A view eventually emerged that photographers
were to be invisible in the process. They simply
observed and recorded. This also was intended as
a marker of objectivity. This was not accepted uni-
formly, however, and it was long a matter of much
debate. The innovative constructivist El Lissitzky,
for example, only adopted the view that documen-
tary production should supercede the author’s indi-
viduality in 1931. Prior to that he was a vocal
opponent of perspectives that privileged the collec-
tive priorities/impulses of factographic approaches
at the expense of the artist’s expressivity. Favored
images, such as sports parades, work crews con-
structing massive industrial projects, and farmers
producing cooperatively, were all symbols for the
Soviet collectivity, in which the individual, with the
exception of select heroes, gave himself or herself
over to the community.
Despite the relative openness and diversity of
socialist photography in the first decade-and-a-
half following the revolution, there were early indi-
cations of state intrusions and attempts at control.
A censorship body, the Chief Literary Department
or Glovlit, reviewed subjects with supposed mili-
tary significance, including railroads, bridges, and
high rises, and these photos were only published
with formal approval.
The first photo agency in the post-Revolution
years, Bureau-Cliche, supplied regional presses with
photos. Through the early period of Soviet bureau-
cratic consolidation, this organization merged with
the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS).
The All Union Society for Cultural Relations with
Foreign Countries (VOKS) established the Russ-
Foto agency around the same time to serve public
relations concerns abroad.
In 1931, the massive SoyuzFoto organization was
created, incorporating VOKS and TASS. It also
took in the Amalgamation of State Publishing
Houses (OGIZ) and the Magazine and Newspaper
Amalgamation (ZhurGazOb’yedineniye). SoyuzFoto
organized branches in the Soviet republics and in the
industrial centres. Dozens of photographers were
sent out to document events in the furthest reaches
of the Soviet empire. SoyuzFoto took responsibility
for all Soviet press and public relations pictures,
sending upwards of 600 copies of selected pictures
to Soviet newspapers as well as the foreign press.
Under Lazar Mezhericher’s management of
SoyuzFoto’s Foreign Department, notions of the
power of photojournalism for popular political
education became predominant. Mezhericher close-
ly studied photographic practices in other countries
and tried to encourage and implement new ways to
use the powerful photos being produced by Soviet
photographers. He expressed great appreciation for
Western commercial photography, sensing that
advertising techniques held great potential for con-
veying Soviet messages. Mezhericher proposed the
postcard, which in the West was wasted as mere
entertainment, as a medium for Bolshevik informa-
tion dissemination.
Rather than the privileged presentations of gallery
shows, photos were intended for wide dissemination
through newspapers, magazines, and posters. These
provided an effective way to transmit the Soviet
message, and special posters appeared on bulletin
boards, on buildings, and in metro cars. Other
socialist realist proponents among Soviet officials
were also impressed with the persuasive powers of
Western advertising techniques. They saw advertis-
ing as superior in this regard to American documen-
tary photography as exemplified by President
Franklin Roosevelt’s Depression-era public works
programs such as the Farm Security Administration
and the Works Progress Administration.
The magazineUSSR na stroike (USSR in Con-
struction)made its appearance in 1930. The maga-
zine, which included one of Russia’s literary giants,
Maxim Gorky, on its editorial board, was intended
to show Soviet photography to a foreign audience,
and was published in various editions, including
English and German. In its pages contributors
such as Max Alpert, Alexandr Rodchenko, and El
Lissitzky offered photo stories and montages exult-
ing Soviet accomplishments and pointing towards
the new world in the making. Striking socialist
realist portrayals of industrial development and
collectivization, including Rodchenko’s stunning
White Sea Canal photo story, profoundly influ-
enced magazine design worldwide, especially that
of the American publicationLife, whose first cover
(by Margaret Bourke-White) showed a black-and-
white industrial subject that through its composi-
tion conveyed grandeur and awe, overlaid with the
bright red graphic elements so integral to El Lis-
sitzky and Rodchenko’s constructivist style.
In USSR in Construction’s first issue, Gorky ex-
pressed the magazine’s vision of socialist photography:
In order to keep our enemies at home and abroad from
belittling the testimony of words and numbers, we have
elected to employ the work of light and sun, that of
photography. You can’t blame the sun for distortion. It
gives light to what exists, as it is.
(quoted in Bendavid-Val, 1999, 65)
Photography in other magazines such asOgo-
nyukandSoviet Fotoaimed at both the foreignSOCIALIST PHOTOGRAPHY