“As at the Filippovs”: emulation from the moment of its initial critical rator in the media empire, “AIZ’s
emulation from the moment of its initial critical
The Foreign Origins of the Soviet
Narrative Photographic Essay
Erika Wolf
Within months of its initial publication, “24 Hours
in the Life of a Moscow Worker Family” was hailed
in the Soviet Union as a major innovation in the
application of photography to agitational propa-
ganda and was celebrated as the first Soviet narra-
tive photographic essay. Paradoxically, this origi-
nal photo-essay was not introduced in the Soviet
Union but was first published in the German mag-
azine AIZ.1 Following the Berlin debut of “24 Hours
in the Life of a Moscow Worker Family” in Septem-
ber 1931, positive critical writings about the suc-
cess of the serial began to appear in the Soviet press.
Both the newspaper Pravda and the journal Pro-
letarskoe foto heralded it as a new type of photo-
graphic genre, the photo-essay (fotoocherk), and
a major innovation for agitational propaganda.
Shortly after the dramatic foundation of the fo-
toocherk abroad, similar narrative photographic
essays began to appear in the Soviet press, and a
related body of critical texts concerning this new
genre proliferated.
The AIZ essay presents the everyday life of the
Filippovs, a “typical” Moscow worker family. The
photographs and accompanying text are structured
in a morning to evening narrative that provides an
inventory of the superior living, working, and cul-
tural conditions of Soviet workers. The family is
well fed and housed, affordable consumer goods
are available, progressive labor and educational
practices are shown, and the improved conditions
of Soviet women are highlighted. In short, the essay
creates a positive, glowing image of daily life in the
Soviet Union. However, this representation was
clearly at odds with actual conditions in 1931. Col-
lectivization and industrialization had created im-
mense social and economic problems. By the
124 THE FILIPPOVS
rator in the media empire, “AIZ’s most important
summer of 1931, forced collectivization was nearly
complete in the grain growing areas, and by the
spring of 1932 famine broke out. Industrialization
led to burgeoning, uncontrolled growth in the urban
population that strained to the limit housing, food
supplies, and transportation in cities. Simultane-
ously, the labor shortage and poor social conditions
led to high worker turnover as people moved fre-
quently in search of better living conditions. Ba-
bette Gross, a German who traveled frequently to
Moscow during this period and was affiliated with
AIZ, commented later on the disparity between
actual conditions and the images in the Filippov
essay:
Seen against the background of 1930, 1931, and
1932, this serial becomes positively macabre.
Compulsory collectivization had resulted in ter-
rible food shortages everywhere. Patient queues
waited day and night outside shops for some-
thing edible. The housing conditions of the av-
erage wage earner in Moscow were terrible.
Each family was entitled to one room, no more.
As for public transport, anyone who had lived
in Moscow could not but laugh at the sight of
the Filipovs [sic] in their tram. Trams were
always overcrowded, with people hanging from
every door. Senior Russian officials were sar-
castic among themselves about the Filipov [sic]
serial. Such blatant propaganda annoyed them
and the saying “as at the Filipovs” [sic] became
their synonym for Potemkin village.2
Despite the extreme split between actual and de-
picted conditions, this photo-essay was designated
a canonical work and presented as an exemplar for
reception in the Soviet Union. To the present day,
“24 Hours in the Life of a Moscow Worker Family”
remains an important albeit little studied event
in the history of Soviet photography.3 How is it that
such a patently untrue piece of propaganda, reviled
by “senior Russian officials,” was celebrated as the
foundation of an entire genre of Soviet photogra-
phy and photojournalism?
The photographs of the Filippov family were ini-
tially commissioned by the Agitation and Propa-
ganda Sector of the Comintern for Der Land des
sozialistischen Aufbaus (The Country of Socialist
Construction), an exhibition that traveled to Vienna,
Prague, and Berlin in the late summer and autumn
of 1931.4 The German communist photomontage
artist John Heartfield, who was in Moscow in the
summer of 1931, may have played a role in organ-
izing this exhibition and commissioning the shoot-
ing.5 This series was one of the first major endeav-
ors of Soiuzfoto, a newly organized unified Soviet
photo agency, which produced the series on com-
mission for the Austrian Society of Friends of the
Soviet Union.6 Working under the guidance of the
photo editor Lev Mezhericher, Maks Al’pert,
Arkadii Shaikhet, and Semen Tules photographed
the Filippov family and the Red Proletarian fac-
tory early in July 1931.
The exhibition opened in Berlin in October in
concert with the tenth anniversary celebration
for Workers International Relief (Internationale
Arbeiter-Hilfe, hereafter IAH), an organization
founded by Willi Münzenberg at the initiative of
Lenin. The IAH’s activities quickly spread from
Soviet famine relief, its original mission, to es-
tablishing a publishing network in Germany. By
1931, its media empire included newspapers, mag-
azines, film distribution, and publishing houses,
and AIZ was at the peak of its success, with a cir-
culation nearing 500,000. Part of AIZ’s appeal was
the slick, positive image it provided of the Soviet
Union and of proletarian life. According to Babette
Gross, Münzenberg’s companion and a collabo-
duty was to keep its readers informed on Soviet
Russia. The reporting was wholly uncritical and
used the most questionable means. Many work-
ers wanted to read about a dream world, not re-
ality . . . in 1931 this culminated in a successful serial
on the daily life of a Russian family, the Filipovs
[sic].”7 Using the Soiuzfoto photographs as raw ma-
terial, AIZ created a powerful utopian image of daily
life in the Soviet Union.
Shortly after the publication of the photo-essay
in AIZ, the Friends of the Soviet Union organized
a delegation of German Social Democrat workers
to visit the country, so that they themselves could
see conditions in the USSR.8 In response, the Social
Democrat newspaper Vorwärts warned about the
recruitment of Social Democrat workers for this
fact-finding mission, exposing it as a treacherous
maneuver of the German Communist Party—a
“four week tour with good food and drink” as “Judas
money.” Vorwärts warned that the true aim of the
trip was to create communist cells within the Social
Democrat Party.9 The Filippov essay thus became
part of this elaborate media stunt orchestrated
by IAH amid vicious feuding between German
Communists and Social Democrats. An article in
the newspaper Pravda described the arrival in
Moscow of a delegation of German Social Demo-
crat workers on October 15:
Already at the train station the delegates dis-
played an issue of AIZ, which they had brought
with them, and asked to visit the Filippovs.
On the next day the entire delegation visited
the Red Proletarian, from where together with
Filippov they set off for his home. All was con-
firmed, right up to the documents. And all found
it truthful to the last detail.10
In November, a spread in AIZ featured photographs
of the delegation with the Filippovs and letters sent
to the family by foreign workers under the headline
“AIZ Speaks the Truth! German Social Democrats
“AS AT THE FILIPPOVS” 125
Visit the Filippovs” [fig. 1]. Similarly, a photograph
of John Heartfield with the Filippov family was pub-
lished in Magazin für Alle, another IAH publica-
tion [fig. 2]. Subsequent Soviet evaluations of the
series deemed it a success because of the tremen-
dous impact it had in Germany. This impression,
however, was a false construction of the German
communist press—it was a media campaign.
The photo-essay was first praised in the Soviet
Union in Pravda, the organ of the Central Commit-
tee of the Soviet Communist Party. On October
24, an anonymous article reported on the publi-
cation of the photo-essay in AIZ and its favorable
reception in Germany. Pravda commended it not
for its narrative structure, but for its reality, typical-
ity, and didacticism. Due to the unexceptional nature
of the family, it “told, in effect, a story about the
situation of the working class in the USSR.” 11 Pravda
encouraged further application of photography in
Soviet agitation and propaganda work: “The clear-
ness and convincing concreteness of the photograph
in unity with the ‘accompanying caption’ gives to
the hands of the press an additional weapon for the
mobilization and organization of the masses.”
Pravda attacked the inattention of some Soviet pub-
lications towards the agitational power of photog-
raphy. Lauding “24 Hours” as a “first work” of the
newly founded Soiuzfoto, further efforts along this
“correct path” were urged. The article concluded by
commenting on the function of Soviet photogra-
phy: “The task of proletarian photography is to
tell and to show to the entire world the concrete vic-
tories of socialism: to tell and to show with a con-
crete and irrefutable language that is characteris-
tic of photography and film more than any other
art, and that is accessible to broad masses in their
millions.” Ironically, the essay was produced by the
photography agency Soiuzfoto and was not, strictly
speaking, an example of worker photography, as it
was made by professional photojournalists.
Pravda’s high estimation of the series and en-
dorsement of photographic innovation for Soviet
propaganda set the tone for much subsequent crit-
126 THE FILIPPOVS
ical coverage of the Filippov family fotoocherk in
the Soviet Union, including a special issue of Pro-
letarskoe foto published in December 1931. Previ-
ously published as Sovetskoe foto, this magazine
was renamed in September 1931 in order to reflect
the magazine’s commitment to the class war and
the proletarian photography movement. With the
change of name, Proletarskoe foto became the cen-
tral organ of both the press agency Soiuzfoto and
the Society for Proletarian Film and Photogra-
phy (Obshchestvo za proletarskoe kino i foto), the
organization that provided ideological and orga-
nizational leadership to the worker photography
movement.12 The Filippov coverage included an
editorial, a reprint of the Pravda article, commen-
taries about the series by various individuals, crit-
ical articles, and fifty-two captioned mezzotint
reproductions of photographs of the Filippovs.
While largely affirming Pravda’s appraisal of the
Fig. 1 AIZ magazine with the title “AIZ Tells the Truth!”
Fig. 2 John Heartfield with the Filippov family in
Magazin für alle
series, discussion of the essay in Proletarskoe foto
also generated diverse theoretical points about new
photographic forms and their application to the
representation of workers and the construction
of socialism. Collectively, the responses champi-
oned the narrative aspects of the series and its
breaking free from the limitations of unique, in-
dividual photographs. In the previous issue of Sovet-
skoe foto, Semen Evgenov noted that the efficacy
of singular portraits of workers, a commonplace in
the Soviet press, was increasingly questioned: “It
is impossible to show with one photograph of a
shock-worker, a hero of the Five-Year Plan, what
two or three (minimum!) manage to show—except
the nose of the hero!”13 Various writers in Prole-
tarskoe foto credited the concept of the sequen-
tial photographic series to Sergei Tret’iakov, a writer
and photographer previously associated with the
Left Front of the Arts (Lef ). Due to the inability
of singular portraits such as billboards of shock-
workers to do more than record visual appearance,
Tret’iakov proposes the accumulation of photo-
graphs of the same subject over an extended period.
This method, “the extended photo-observation,”
would enable the fuller representation of Soviet re-
ality and enable the depiction of dramatic changes
taking place during the construction of socialism.14
The special issue of Proletarskoe foto included
a series of fifty-two photographs of the Filippov
family.15 Unlike the anonymous presentation in
AIZ, credits appear prominently at the start of this
essay: “Photo-essay. Survey by the Soiuzfoto brigade
comprised of L. Mezhericher (editor), M. Al’pert,
S. Tules, A. Shaikhet.” Proletarskoe foto did not
simply print a Russian language version of the
German photo-essay. While retaining the basic nar-
rative sequence and thematic groupings of AIZ, it
employed diverse captions and a different selec-
tion of images. Comparison of the two versions re-
veals the relative poverty of the Soviet series and
simultaneously exposes the artifice of both vari-
ants. The layout of the two versions is quite dis-
tinct. AIZ is carefully designed, playful, and appeal-
ing to the eye. The layout of “The Women of the
Filippov Family” plays with geometric forms while
creating an ordered and visually pleasing effect.
The geometric shapes of the drafting instruments
play off the round photograph of Volodia being es-
corted to school. The layout for this section of the
Soviet version is comparatively lackluster and ap-
pears to have been a secondary consideration. In
Proletarskoe foto the photographs were of primary
interest, while graphic presentation and montage
clearly remained secondary or unconsidered. The
distinct layout, captions, and image selection pro-
duce radically different readings. For example, a
photograph of a man with a hose spraying water
bears the following captions:
AIZ: At six in the morning the spraying man,
who keeps watch over the thriving young green
spaces at each apartment block, is at work.
“AS AT THE FILIPPOVS” 127
 Proletarskoe foto: From six in the morning the social and educational aspects of state childcare, director of the children’s village.” A recent print
little town of Shabolovskii wakes up. Street while showing clean, happy, well-fed, creative chil- from the same negative reveals that the scene was
flushing begins. dren. The Soviet captions give the kindergarten an shot in a medical clinic, where children were being
authoritarian air; the future for which the Soviet vaccinated.16 There is also evidence that photo-
These captions create vastly different readings of state prepares these children requires strict disci- graphs were staged. Both the German and Soviet
the same photograph. AIZ draws attention to the pline and silence. The captions structure the read- versions of the essay include a photograph of work-
creation of green urban environments, of livable ing of the group of photographs differently. The ers playing checkers during the lunch break. This
cities; the man is watering the plants. In contrast, single paragraph in AIZ encourages a spontaneous, image is distinct and memorable, since the players
Proletarskoe foto draws attention to urban sani- associative reading of the text and images, while use lug nuts instead of traditional game pieces. This
tation; the man is cleaning the street. While these the numeric sequence in Proletarskoe foto acts photograph strongly resembles a picture by Arkadii
are subtle differences, some captions change the against this. The numbering of the pictures im- Shaikhet that had already been published exten-
interpretation of entire narrative sections. Com- poses a strict narrative order. Finally, the Soviet sively in the Soviet Union and Germany; it appeared
pare the texts that accompany the kindergarten captions descend into inane saccharine prose in Der Arbeiter-Fotograf in 1927 [fig. 3] and was
spreads: through their commentary on the relative drawing included in an exhibition of international prole-
ability of the two children, something that is not at tarian photography in Germany.17 Shaikhet evi-
AIZ: The kindergarten in which the youngest all visually apparent. Comparison of the kinder- dently incorporated this highly successful and crit-
Filippov spends the greater part of the day is garten texts reveals another striking difference: the ically celebrated composition into the new photo
a nursery school of the new life, for which the child is called both Volodia (diminutive of Vladimir) essay by staging the checker game at the factory.
Soviet state is already training the little one. and Vitia (diminutive of Vitaly). This glaring dis- The entire Soviet discourse concerning the suc-
When Volodia is handed over by his mother, he crepancy extends to two other family members, in- cess of the Filippov family fotoocherk required will-
must first—as the inscription on the wall cluding the father—the central figure of the story. ful suspension of disbelief by its participants. The
reads—thoroughly brush his teeth and care- Close scrutiny reveals numerous other factual dis- image of worker life that the essay created was
fully wash his hands before he can play, sing, parities, including the family’s address. The flu- clearly at odds with existing conditions in the Soviet
and do handicrafts until it is time for the com- idity of both the names and ages of the family mem- Union. As suggested by the use of the derogatory
munal lunch. When the mealtime approaches, bers reveals that they are being considered more expression “as at the Filippovs” among top Soviet
the boys and girls set the table, one child brings as types than as specific individuals. officials, the critics, photographers, and editors en-
the food around, and they are all fed, until all The Soviet version of the essay places much gaged in the promotion of the photo-essay were all
are full and are soon so tired that they gladly greater emphasis on facts and documents. Many aware of its lack of conformity to existing Soviet
take an hour nap. Now that Volodia is again of the photographs reproduced only in Proletarskoe conditions. The two versions were reproduced in
fresh and cheerful, he sits to do his favorite foto are of documents (a grocery receipt, a sav- very different types of publications. AIZ was a pop-
activity at the table and paints with bright colors ings account book, a savings bond, and a receipt ular illustrated magazine for workers, while Prole-
whatever occurs to him at that moment. for a man’s suit). The accompanying captions in- tarskoe foto was a specialty journal devoted to cre-
clude more factual information, much of which is ative, technical, and political issues confronting
Proletarskoe foto: 24. Before lunch, it is nec- specific to a reader familiar with the Soviet con- Soviet photography. As a publication backed by the
essary to wash the hands. 25. At lunch, chat- text. This indicates an attempt to confirm the re- Comintern and aimed at establishing international
ting is forbidden; it is a health hazard. 26. After ality of the family to a Soviet audience. Neverthe- support for the Soviet Union, AIZ sought to create
lunch and a nap—games. 27. Then a very inter- less, close scrutiny of these essays undermines their as great an impact as possible on its readers through
esting thing, drawing. Vitia draws somewhat credibility, contesting their claims of reality. One striking montage layouts and accompanying cap-
worse than Liza, but all the same rather well. photograph reproduced only in Proletarskoe foto tions. In creating a positive fantasy image of con-
is particularly suspicious. In the spread entitled ditions in the Soviet Union for distribution to work-
Again, these captions provide a thoroughly dif- “Evening at the Park of Culture and Rest,” a pho- ers in the West, AIZ was not concerned with actual
ferent commentary for the same four photographs. tograph of Filippova and her youngest child is cap- conditions in the USSR. Proletarskoe foto show- Fig. 3 Der Arbeiter-Fotograf 1, 1927
The German version highlights the progressive tioned: “Vitia is received into the supervision of the cased the photographs in order to publicize the ac- Fig. 4 USSR in Construction, 1932, cover

“AS AT THE FILIPPOVS” 129

128 THE FILIPPOVS
tivities of the new Soiuzfoto agency. Unlike the
German version, the series published in Prole-
tarskoe foto was not for broad consumption by a
mass audience within the Soviet Union. The dis-
parity between the fantasy world shown in the essay
and actual Soviet conditions in 1931 made its wide
distribution impossible.
The IAH’s creation of an elaborate media stunt
around the verification of the existence of the Fil-
ippov family and the reality of the essay was em-
ulated by the Soviet critics, editors, and photog-
raphers who supported the further development
of the fotoocherk in the Soviet Union. The Filippov
essay also became fertile ground for various agen-
das, and a departure point for theorization about
photography. Claims were made on behalf of pro-
letarian photography, professional photography,
and divergent creative approaches in an attempt
to secure increasingly limited opportunities for
work, international contacts, and resources during
a time of tightening centralization in Soviet cul-
ture. This creative discussion also stimulated fur-
ther exploration of the narrative photo-essay within
the Soviet Union and prepared the ground for the
reception of the first native narrative fotoocherk,
which made its debut in the magazine USSR in
Construction in January 1932 [fig. 4].
NOTES
1. “24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer Moskauer Arbeiter-
familie” (24 Hours in the Life of a Moscow Worker Family),
AIZ 38 (September 1931): 749–67.
2. Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg: A Political Biography
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1974), 150.
130 THE FILIPPOVS
3. Two recent exceptions are: Inka Graeve, “Klassenauge 24 Hours in the Life
versus Neue Sehen: Zur Rezeption sowjetischer Photogra-
phie in Berlin,” in Irina Antonowa and Jörn Merkert, eds.,
of a Moscow Worker Family
Berlin-Moskau/Moskau-Berlin, 1900–1950, (Munich: Pres- “24 Stunden aus dem Leben einer
tel, 1995), 221–25; and Nina Klingler, “‘24 Stunden aus dem Moskauer Arbeiterfamilie,” AIZ 38
Leben einer Moskauer Arbeiterfamilie’: Eine Fotoreportage (September 1931): 749–67
als historische Quelle,” Fotogeschichte 24, 94 (2004): 31–42.
4. “Fotopropagandu—na vysshuiu stupen’,” Proletarskoe
foto 4 (December 1931): 2. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv
sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 495 (Ispolni-
tel’nyi komitet Kominterna), op. 30, d. 730, l. 31. See trans-
lation on p. 48.
5. John Heartfield, “Privet brat’iam po klassu,” Sovetskoe
iskusstvo (June 18, 1931): 2.
6. A. Shaikhet and M. Al’pert, “Kak my snimali Filippovykh,”
Proletarskoe foto 4 (December 1931): 46. See translation
on p. 160.
7. Babette Gross, Willi Münzenberg, 150.
8. “Sozialdemokratische Arbeiter, fahrt in die Sowjetunion!”
Die rote Fahne, September 17, 1931.
9. “Spazierfahrt nach Russland,” Vorwärts, October 2, 1931.
10. “24 chasa iz zhizni moskovskoi rabochei sem’i. ‘Arbei-
ter Illustrierte Zeitung’ (AIZ). (“Rabochaia illiustrirovan-
naia gazeta”),” Pravda, October 24, 1931.
11. Ibid.
12. Founded in 1926, the initial name of this organization [Cover] Here are Vera and Nadezhda,
was the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema (Obshchestvo the daughters of the worker Filippov
druzei sovetskogo kino). In late 1930, the name was changed from Moscow, Donskaia Street 59.
to mark its explicit alignment with the proponents of pro- Through pictures we will illustrate how
letarian culture during the Cultural Revolution. these girls, their parents, and brothers
13. Semen Evgenov, “Perspektivy mezhdunarodnoi prole- live today. It is a report of reality that is
tarskoi fotosviazi,” Proletarskoe foto 3 (November 1931): 2. so many-sided and gripping that it will
14. Sergei Tret’iakov, “Ot fotoserii—k dlitel’nomu fotonabliu- be of special interest to all those living
deniiu,” Proletarskoe foto 4 (December 1931): 20, 45. This essay outside the Soviet Union.
appears in English as “From the Photo-series to extended
Photo-observation” in October 118 (autum 2006): 71–77.
15. “Den’ iz zhizni moskovskoi rabochei sem’i,” Proletarskoe
foto 4 (December 1931): 22–44.
Several weeks ago, a special number of AIZ showed to midnight and to compare it with the capitalist
16. An. Vartanov, O. Suslova, and G. Chudakov, eds., An-
tologiia sovetskoi fotografii: 1917–1940 (Moscow: Planeta, the new Moscow, the red capital of the first worker routine in which we vegetate. Precisely because
1986), 97. and farmer state: its new buildings, factories, hous- these pictures refrain from any glossing over, be-
17. Sovetskoe foto 2 (May 1926): 54, 60–61. Der Arbeiter- ing developments, clubs, children’s homes, great cause they tell the truth and nothing but the truth,
Fotograf 1, 9 (1927): 8. Bednota, May 1, 1928. Ernst Glae-
kitchens, and cultural places. Today we want first they pose to all working people living in capitalist
ser and F.C. Weiskopf, Der Staat ohne Arbeitlose (Berlin:
Gustav Kiepenheuer, 1931), 67. of all to look under the roofs of this city; we want countries the great question: Do you want go down
to follow the everyday life of a Moscow worker with the barbarity of capitalism or do you want to
family. Here is the Filippov family, who live on Don- fight for the construction of socialism?
skaia Street in house number 59, apartment 638. (The photographs published here are but a frac-
Father, mother, three boys, and two girls. They are tion of the approximately 500 images that make
quite indistinguishable from millions of other work- up the extensive exhibition The Country of Social-
ing class families, who live like the Filippovs in the ist Construction, which the Friends of the Soviet
many cities of the Soviet Union. And that is pre- Union displayed with great success in Austria, and
cisely what interests us! We want to observe in these which will be on view in a series of German cities
photographs Soviet everyday life from morning in October.)
AIZ 38 (1931) 131