History in the Soviet Art was represented by paintings devoted to revolution and portraits of Vladimir Lenin — the leader of the revolution. In Smolny is the work of Vladimir Serov — a painter, a graphic artist, an illustrator, laureate of many state prizes, President of the USSR Academy of Arts, founder and first secretary of the board of the Russian Union of Artists and a public figure. Serov said,‘The choice of profession, which is a difficult task for many people, was made by me at a very early age — I did not have any other dream but to be an artist’.In April 1932, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a resolution cancelling all associations of artists and their former participants became members of the Union of Soviet Artists. Then, at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Socialist realism was proclaimed to be the universal artistic approach,

For many artists it was the final point of their creative career, because art ended just where government order began. Yet, some of the painters were successful in realizing their artistic potential in the new social and historical context. One of the best-known social realism artists was Vladimir Serov, who devoted his works to the subjects of history and revolution. Partyness, nationhood and realism — the three axioms of Socialist realism — became the main principles of Vladimir Serov’s artistic approach. He implemented them starting with one of his first works Arrival of V.I. Lenin to Petrograd in 1917, painted for the 20th anniversary of the Soviet state. It was followed by a series of paintings depicting the “leader of the world proletariat” in different aspects of his state role. The painter said,“A close look at what I have done in my life reveals what I have got in all of my works, what has been of great interest to me — it is our people during great events, amongst fights”.