Dakhno, A. I. (technical and creative editor) and Dukovich, Pikalov, Fedotov and Fitingov (artists).

[APPARENTLY UNRECORDED SOVIET DATA VISUALIZATION ALBUM CHARTING THE EARLY PURGE] V gody velikikh rabot: k otchetu V.O. raikoma VKP(b) XVIoi raipartkonferentsii [In the years of great achievements: for the report by the V.O. Raikom of the VKP(b) at the 16th Regional Party Conference].

Leningrad: Izdanie V.O. Raikoma VKP(b), 1934. Oblong folio (23.3 × 33.5 cm). Original decorative card wrappers; [137] pp. With 27 leaves of full-page illustrations of visual statistics in color printed to rectos only. Numerous tables and photographs throughout. Professional restoration to wrappers and spine extremities, lightly toned throughout due to stock, else very good. Item #55855

A rare album of infographics, photomontages, and numerous tables with statistical information of the first and second Five-Year Plan, with Constructivist design by a team of artists working for the Leningrad branch of Izostat, a research institute and publishing house which specialized in creating easy to read visual statistics. The album was printed in only 800 copies for the 16th district Party Conference by the Regional Committee of Vasilievsky District, one of the largest neighborhoods of Leningrad, with the infographics providing information on the work of local factories such as Baltzavod (ship building), Pnevmatika (mechanization of coal mining), Komintern (radio manufacturing), and Radishchev (leather goods). Other infographics show “social statistics” such as the growing number of women working in local factories, growth of local schools, technical colleges and daycare centers, worker’s canteens, increased local book publishing, the growing number of Komsomol members in the district, etc. The visual statistics were printed to rectos only, with the leaves intended to be removed from the album and used for wall newspapers at factories and other public buildings, making complete albums of this kind extremely rare.

This album is especially notable for containing several infographics promoting the purges of the Communist Party early in the development of this practice, prior to the worst of Stalinist purges unleashed in 1937–1938. The first infographic chart shows the “number of party members who actively participated” in the purge hearings vs those who “were passively present”. The second chart shows the reasons for the purging of specific party members, ranging from “violating the rules and protocols of the party” (40.9%), to “suppression of self-criticism” (0.6 %) with the second most common reason for expulsion from the party being “passive presence in the party” (20.9%). The final infographic shows the number of party members who were identified as “most active” in the course of the party purge, and were “designated for promotion” as a result. The accompanying text explains: “The purge is an expression of Bolshevik self-criticism of our party. It must be carried out “without regard to individual status” from the standpoint of verifying the fulfillment of party directives by the party members and candidate workers, their participation in competition and shock work, the active struggle for the industrial and financial plan, the plan, for the fulfillment of the most important economic tasks, the fight against absenteeism, and the fight against the theft of socialist property (From The Central Committee’s decision on the purge).”

The album was created by a team of artists who worked for the Leningrad branch of Izostat, which according to Vladimir Laptev was distinctive from the Moscow branch for its use of “realistic backgrounds” behind the simplified diagrams which were supposed to “reveal the social essence of the figures and statistics” (Russkaia infografika. St. Petersburg: Izd-vo Politekhnicheskogo Universiteta, 2018, pp. 222). A research institute and publishing house, Izostat operated in 1930–1940, creating easy to read graphics for Soviet posters, newspapers, and albums such as this one, using the “Vienna method” developed by the Marxist economist and sociologist Otto Neurath and the Constructivist designer Gerd Arntz. The “international picture language” or pictograms (isotypes) developed by Neurath and Arntz democratized the visualization of statistical data by using images, de-emphasizing the use of exact numbers, information which they claimed did not stay as easily with the viewer. By contrast, the aesthetics of Izostat have been compared to those of a board game, with the objective of communicating simply, often to illiterate audiences.

Prior to making this album, the same team of artists V. Dukhovich, M. Pikalov, and G. Fitingof collaborated on U nas i u nikh [What we have and what they have], one of the early albums of infographics designed by the Leningrad branch of Izostat as it developed a style of its own. “Despite the obvious influence of the Vienna method of pictorial statistics, this album is considered to be, undoubtedly, an independent work of Soviet artists, whose supervision in the part of drawing up diagrams was carried out by I. P. Ivanitsky, and not by isostatists sent from Vienna” (Russkaia infografika, pp. 224). Little is known about the head designer on this project, A.I. Dakhno, who seems to have designed the wrappers for one other local Leningrad publication Molodezh v sovetakh [The youth in soviet councils], also in 1934. The author of the introductory text, a district party boss Villi Voltsit (1895–1938) was himself purged from the party and arrested in 1937, and eventually executed in 1938.

This volume not in Laptev. We were not able to trace any other copy of this album worldwide, likely due to the intended local use, small print run, and the eventual purging of the author of the introductory text.

As of July 2026, not in KVK, OCLC. Not held by the Russian State or National Libraries.

Price: €12,000.00

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