The demise of Raduga coincided with the state's push toward social realism, which forced Lebedev toward a more naturalistic style.

[6] From 1920-1922, only a few years after the Revolution, Lebedev was hired to create more than 500 posters, or placards, for the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) and the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (Agitprop).

[6] Lebedev's posters were notable for their stark, simplified imagery: a single figure, in bold color, built from spare geometric forms, and engaged in varying kinds of labor.

[6][8][9] In the 1910s and 1920s, he kept company with many of the most influential figures in the radical Soviet avant-garde art movement, among them constructivist Vladimir Tatlin, cubo-futurist Ivan Puni, suprematist Kazimir Malevich, futurist Vladimir Mayakovsky and acmeist and formalist literary critic Nikolay Punin.

The latter form, unique to the Soviet Union, told stories that taught children about "the world of workers and how things are made"[3][12] Their titles included: Circus, Ice Cream, Tale About a Foolish Mouse, Moustached and Striped, Book of Many Colours, Twelve Months and Luggage, as well as The Table, How a Plane Made a Plane, Bread, My Little Book about the Seas and the Lighthouse, the Mail, and On the River.

Nikolai Punin, who wrote the first monograph on Lebedev, considered him one of the most important illustrators of the era:After his brilliant experiments with "Circus" and "Ice Cream" ... bookstores burst into color with numerous imitations of his examples, and book illustrations in the receding cultural tradition—all the 'World of Art' illustrations—paled in comparison ... in terms of form, [they] began to seem impotent, overly concerned with aesthetics, and unexpressive.

As social realism began to dominate arts and letters, and "acquir[ed] the status of state policy in 1934," Lebedev was among the artists who "became victims of frequent attacks.