As is discussed above, the art style during the early period of the Soviet Union (1917-1930) differed from the Socialist Realist art created during the Stalinist period. Artists were able to experiment more freely with the message of the revolution.  Many Soviet artists during this period were part of the constructivist movement and used abstract forms for propaganda posters, while some chose to use a realist style. Women artists were significantly represented in the revolutionary avant garde movement, which began before 1917 and some of the most famous were Alexandra Exter, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Varvara Stepanova, Olga Rozanova and Nadezhda Udaltsova. These women challenged some of the historical precedents of male dominance in art. The historian Christina Kiaer has argued that the move away from market based forms of art production after the revolution benefited female artists’ careers, especially before 1930 when the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR) was still relatively egalitarian. Instead of an elite, individualistic group of disproportionately male “geniuses” produced by the market, artists shared in the creation of a common vision.