Nikolai Nikolaevich Kogout was one of the preeminent artists of the poster genre during Russia's early revolutionary period. In 1913, Kogout graduated from the Stroganov Central School of Industrial Art in Moscow and subsequently attended VKhUTEMAS [Higher Art and Technical Studios]. He contributed works to the seventh exhibition of the art group L'Araignée and exhibited at Galerie Devambe in Paris in 1925. During the Russian Civil War, Kogout designed posters from 1918 to 1920 in the Revvoensovet-- the propaganda department of the Red Army. He also created illustrations for the journals Bezbozhnik u stanka and Daesh'.

The MSNKh (Moscow Council of National Economy) 5th Typography Workshop was located in Moscow. It was transferred (around 1920) to the MSNKh. As with other state-run printers during the 1920s, it was likely placed (for a time) under Mospechat’, a state-owned printing trust. Documentation from 1922 indicates the 5th Typography Workshop was operating under the Mospoligraf Trust.

The State Publishing House had its origins in Imperial Russia as the Royal Print Yard in St. Petersburg. The Soviets nationalized the print yard in 1917 and requisitioned its presses. From requisitioning emerged the Publishing House of the Petrograd Soviet that was formed in the winter of 1917 by the Literary and Publishing Department of People's Commissariat for Education. As the Red Army controlled more provinces and cities in former Imperial Russia, the State Publishing House developed additional offices outside St. Petersburg. For example in May 1919, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee created the State Publishing House of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) in Moscow. Publishing offices were later created elsewhere around Soviet Russia as well as in the outlying republics. In 1919, the State Publishing House changed its name to Petrogosizdat, and in 1924, it was named Lengosizdat (A.K.A. Lengiz) when St. Petersburg changed to Leningrad in honor of Vladimir Lenin.