The study of the iconography of Lazar Lissitzky's poster "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge" is the first attempt to comprehensively analyze this textbook work of the early Soviet era. The narrative unfolds following the path of avant-garde art: from futurism to non-objectivity and a new sign system. Extensive illustrative material convincingly shows that the circle and the wedge were the most important formal motif of the 1920s. And if Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" is a kind of emblem of the Renaissance, then for the avant-garde such an emblem became a wedge cutting into a circle. The stability of this combination in Russian art of the 1910s-1920s convinces us that revolutionism was graphically depicted in precisely this way. Geometry in the simplest way reflected the struggle of the elements, the abstract form became symbolic. The poster "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge..." is associated with many phenomena in avant-garde culture. Many names arise around him - artists, poets, thinkers, politicians.