8
The Proletkult as Postscript, 1923–1932

The Proletkult never recovered from the attacks leveled against it in the early 1920s. Despite considerable effort, participants could not overcome its poor reputation as a politically suspect and socially restrictive organization. The membership shrank still further during the New Economic Policy as the Proletkult struggled to define a place for itself in the new cultural and political environment. To be sure, during the First Five-Year Plan, when the state's direct appeals to the working class rekindled proletarian movements, the Proletkult began to expand again. But even then it was overshadowed by newer cultural organizations that had much closer ties to the regime.

In contrast to the Civil War years, the period of the New Economic Policy did not favor proletarian cultural projects. In its search for talent and resources to help rebuild the wartorn country the government extended itself to social groups that had been alienated during the bitter years of the Civil War. Both the peasantry and parts of the intelligentsia benefited from this change of policy, but many workers experienced worsening conditions.^[1] Groups like the Proletkult,

[1] On state policies toward workers during the New Economic Policy see William J. Chase, Workers, Society, and the Soviet State: Labor and Life in Moscow, 1918–1929 (Urbana, 1987).

with their message of working-class hegemony and proletarian dictatorship, raised dissonant themes out of step with the dominant ideology of the 1920s.

Nonetheless, new cultural unions seeking proletarian forms of expression took shape in all artistic media. The Proletarian Writers' Union, known by its acronym VAPP, was an aggressive advocate of working-class literature. A special group for proletarian music, RAPM, was founded, and artists opened the Association of Revolutionary Russian Artists, AKhRR. The theater also had its circles, including the Blue Shirt (Siniaia Bluza) and the Theater of Working Class Youth (TRAM).^[2]

Although they were reluctant to acknowledge it, these groups owed a debt to the Proletkult. Their participants believed that art was a powerful ideological weapon through which to organize society. In their search for uniquely proletarian artistic forms they believed they could help consolidate working-class power. And like the Proletkult, these new organizations had tenuous ties to the class that they claimed to represent. Less than a quarter of VAPP's members were industrial workers in 1928.^[3]

Despite these similarities, there were marked differences between the Proletkult and its successors. The new circles were concerned with specific artistic media, but the Proletkult viewed culture broadly as a combination of art, ideology, and daily life. None of the organizations established during

[2] On these groups see Edward J. Brown, The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928–1932 (New York, 1953); Hubertus Gassner and Eckhardt Gillen, eds., Zwischen Revolutionskunst und sozialistischen Realismus: Kunstdebatten in der Sowjetunion von 1917 bis 1934 (Cologne, 1979); I. M. Gronskii and V. N. Perel'man, eds., AKhRR—Assotsiatsiia Khudozhnikov Revoliutsionnoi Rossii: Sbornik vospominanii, statei, dokumentov (Moscow, 1973); L. A. Pinegina, Sovetskii rabochii klass i khudozhestvennaia kul'tura, 1917–1932 (Moscow, 1984); and Boris Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia , Rev. ed. (Bloomington, 1983), chapters 3–5.

[3] "Na Vserossiiskom s"ezde proletarskikh pisatelei," Na literaturnom postu , no. 19 (1928), p. 71.

the New Economic Policy could boast the same large following as the early Proletkult, and none manifested the same political independence. Each had close ties to state and party institutions: AKhRR worked with the Red Army; some circles of VAPP made party membership a requirement to join; RAPM was sponsored in part by the state publishing house; and TRAM was allied with the Komsomol.^[4]

Proletarian culture remained a controversial issue in the 1920s; debates about its significance and place in Soviet cultural life continued unabated. The foes of working-class art found an eloquent advocate in Leon Trotsky, who insisted that the whole concept had no place in Marxist historical development. Although the bourgeoisie had developed its culture over centuries, the transition period between capitalism and socialism would be too short for the proletariat to find its own unique modes of artistic expression.^[5] Trotsky's views were elaborated in well-funded state journals like Red Virgin Soil (Krasnaia nov '), edited by the brilliant critic Aleksandr Voronskii. Voronskii's publication served as a forum for talented nonproletarian authors, known as "fellow travelers," and also for those who had a skeptical view of working-class creation.^[6]

However, the new artistic groups did not suffer in silence. Instead, led by the Proletarian Writers' Union, they clamored loudly for more party support and for a dominant position in Soviet cultural life. VAPP's major journals—On Guard (Na

[4] On AKhRR see Elizabeth Valkenier, Russian Realist Art (Ann Arbor, 1977), pp. 150–52; on VAPP see Brown, The Proletarian Episode , pp. 12–20; on RAPM see Schwarz, Music and Musical Life , p. 54; on TRAM see V. Mironova, TRAM: Agitatsionnyi molodezhnyi teatr, 1920–1930kh godov (Leningrad, 1977).

[5] Leon Trotsky, "Proletarian Art and Proletarian Culture," in Literature and Revolution , by Leon Trotsky (Ann Arbor, 1975), pp. 184–214.

[6] The classic study of this important journal is Robert A. Maguire, Red Virgin Soil (Princeton, 1968). For examples of the journal's stance on proletarian literature see A. Voronskii, "O gruppe 'Kuznitsa,'" Krasnaia nov ', no. 13 (1923), pp. 297–312; on the visual arts see Fedorov-Davydov, "Tendentsii sovremennoi russkoi zhivopisi v svete sotsial'nogo analiza," Krasnaia nov ', no. 23 (1924), pp. 329–48.

postu ), succeeded by On Literary Guard (Na literaturnom postu )—tirelessly attacked Voronskii and Trotsky in the 1920s. But the many artistic unions never presented a united front. Divided by serious aesthetic differences and internal power struggles, they lashed out against one another almost as much as they did against the fellow travelers.

In the ongoing cultural debates the Proletkult served as a negative reference point. Its theoretical foundation and cultural practices had been explicitly denounced by Lenin, and his statements were periodically reprinted during the New Economic Policy. Because Lenin had linked the very idea of proletarian culture to the Proletkult and Bogdanov, other groups, especially the vocal and combative VAPP, spent considerable energy trying to show how their conception of proletarian art and ideology differed from Bogdanovism and the Proletkult's "false laboratory methods."^[7] Inevitably, such tactics weakened the Proletkult's position, even among potential allies. It became a convenient scapegoat for those new organizations that wished to deflect hostility from their own efforts to define a proletarian culture.

The Proletkult's Social Program

During the 1920s the two cardinal principles of Proletkult organization, autonomy and independent action (samostoiatel'nost ' and samodeiatel'nost '), were finally separated as the organization abandoned any pretense of institutional autonomy. Despite this momentous shift in its founding principles, national leaders still believed that the organization was the main defender of workers' creative independence. Within the Proletkult's small studios and theaters members conducted innovative artistic experiments. At the same time they also tried to reach out to the laboring population at large by offer-

[7] See, for example, G. Lelevich, "O marksizme, bogdanovshchine, proletarskoi literature i t. Rumii," Na postu , no. 6 (1925), columns 171–88.

ing their services as researchers and instructors to working-class clubs.

Eager to end its suspect political status, the Proletkult struggled to establish its trustworthiness as a loyal, proparty organization. When a small circle of workers, inspired in part by Bogdanov's thought, formed an underground circle called "Workers' Truth" (Rabochaia pravda ) in 1922–1923, prominent party members pointed to this as yet more evidence of the Proletkult's fundamentally flawed theories.^[8] Proletkult leaders publicly took the party's side, announcing that Workers' Truth was alienated from real life, had no understanding of Marxist theory, and could not grasp the dialectical development of proletarian culture. The Communist Party was neither hierarchical nor authoritarian, as the Workers' Truth group charged. Instead the party ensured workers' collective interaction and self-government.^[9]

But these attempts at political conformity did nothing to halt the organization's rapid decline. There were only eleven Proletkult circles left in the Soviet Union in 1924, and early in the following year the Proletkult in Tver, one of the oldest, shut its doors, liquidated by the local party division.^[10] This dramatic reduction did not leave a distilled proletarian essence. Only 20 percent of the 412 workshop participants in 1924 came directly from the factory, although 33 percent more came from a proletarian background.^[11] These figures

[8] See I. Vardin's comments at a party press section meeting in May 1924 in Voprosy kul'tury pri diktature proletariata: Sbornik (Moscow and Leningrad, 1925), pp. 127–28. On Workers' Truth see Frits Kool and Erwin Oberländer, eds., Arbeiterdemokratie oder Parteidiktatur (Freiburg, 1967), pp. 264–73; Robert V. Daniels, Conscience of the Revolution (New York, 1960), p. 204; and N. I. Demidov, Iz istorii bor'by Kornmunisticheskoi partii za chistotu sotsialisticheskoi ideologii v period NEPa (Moscow, 1960), pp. 9–10.

[9] "Proletarskaia kul'tura: Tezisy pod redaktsiei Nauchnoi Komissii Proletkul'ta," Al'manakh Proletku'ta , p. 21.

[10] Minutes of the January 20, 1925, meeting of the central Proletkult presidium, Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva [henceforth cited as TsGALI] f. 1230, op. 1, d. 19, l. 7.

[11] Al'manakh Proletkul'ta , p. 187.

changed little in the later years of the New Economic Policy; in 1928 only 49 percent of the students in creative workshops could claim any ties at all to the industrial working class.^[12]

With their own networks so badly depleted, Proletkultists had to devise other ways to reach out to the proletarian population. As during the Civil War, they turned to clubs as their main link to the masses. By now the organization had lost control of most of its own clubs, but it provided instructors, information, and detailed guidelines for cultural work to union, factory, and Narkompros circles. Proletkult art studios crafted posters, banners, and slogans for club events. The central organization sponsored a director's workshop to train aspiring actors and directors for club theaters; it also sponsored a special program designed to educate club leaders.^[13]

To popularize club work, the Proletkult replaced Furnace , its only national publication, with a new journal called Workers' Club (Rabochii klub ) in 1924. Unlike previous ventures, this journal was not addressed to Proletkult members and sympathizers alone. Instead, it was aimed at a broad audience of club workers and was filled with advice on organizational techniques, political education, and cultural events. Through this publication Proletkultists hoped to reach a large readership with the message that Soviet workers needed a rigorous and well-planned club agenda. The most frequent contributors were seasoned Proletkult club activists, including Raisa Ginzburg, M. A. Rostopchina, and Valerian Pletnev.

The ideal club of Proletkult design contained many small circles (kruzhki ). Each circle was quite specialized, but together they addressed a broad array of topical issues, including science, the family, sports, atheism, and military training. Political education received special emphasis. In the pages of Workers' Club , Proletkult activists instructed readers about

[12] "Sotsial'nyi i partiinyi sostav tvorcheskikh kollektivov, 1927–1928," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 298, l. 21.

[13] Rabochii klub , no. 3/4 (1924), p. 77; and "Organizatsionnye-instruktorskie kursy pri TsK Vserossiiskogo Proletkul'ta," Rabochii klub , no. 7 (1924), p. 37.

revolutionary history and current politics. Begun in the year of Lenin's death, the journal devoted special attention to the fallen hero, advocating "Lenin corners" within each club.^[14] Contributors proposed special evenings of political games in which club members could test their knowledge of party history and Marxist theory. In a marked about-face peasant issues now received much positive attention. Clubs were advised to open "peasant circles" and "peasant corners" to prepare workers for agitation in the countryside.^[15]

Through clubs Proletkultists hoped to continue their efforts to transform the patterns of daily life and to change the "worker-philistine" (rabochii-obyvatel ') into a conscious class member.^[16] Much of the writing on proletarian habits had a familiar ring; as during the Civil War, Proletkult activists admonished club members to give up their frivolous leisuretime pursuits, such as drinking and dancing. However, they proposed different methods to achieve the old ends. To raise female attendance, for example, the editors of Workers' Club suggested an impressive array of programs, from day-care centers and lavish celebrations of International Women's Day to sewing circles.^[17] Women had been a missing theme in Civil War creative works, but now the Proletkult proposed theatrical scenarios addressing the problems of divorce, child-rearing, and family law. One such sketch depicted a trial in which a man refused to accept responsibility for impregnating his companion. In order to cast doubts on his paternity, he con-

[14] See, for example,"Leninskie ugolki v klubakh," Rabochii klub , no. 5 (1924), pp. 47–48. On Lenin corners in general see Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 126–27, 222–24.

[15] V. Pletnev, "Vnimanie derevne," Rabochii klub , no. 10/11 (1924), pp. 5–8; and R. Ginzburg, "Rabochii klub—litsom v derevne!" Rabochii klub , no. 14 (1925), pp. 3–6.

[16] Iu. L., "Obshchestvenno-nauchnyi kruzhok," Rabochii klub , no. 1 (1924), pp. 5–9.

[17] A. Zhilin, "Raskrepostim rabotnitsu," Rabochii klub , no. 10/11 (1924), pp. 67–69; "Den' Rabotnits," Rabochii klub , no. 15 (1925), pp. 60–63; and V. Pletnev, "Rabota sredi zhenshchin v klube," Rabochii klub , no. 25 (1926), pp. 4–7.

vinced his male friends to testify that they had also slept with her. In a Solomon-like decision the judge made all the men responsible for the child's financial welfare.^[18]

New campaigns to change proletarian sensibilities were also added to the roster. Proletkultists urged workers to turn away from religion and join in the struggle for atheism by participating in antireligious festivities, such as "Komsomol Easter" and "Komsomol Christmas."^[19] To achieve more labor discipline and higher industrial productivity, Proletkultists supported the work of the Scientific Organization of Labor (Nauchnaia Organizatsiia Truda, or NOT). Clubs should teach workers the value of time, admonished the avant-garde artist Nikolai Tarabukin. Leisure, like everything else, had to be learned.^[20] To insure a strong and healthy working class, the Proletkult also became an enthusiastic advocate of physical education.

This ambitious social and political agenda was to be conveyed in large part through the medium of creative work. In the ideal club of Proletkult design, theater, music, literature, and art all became active forces in daily life. Proletkultists were strong supporters of participatory artistic forms, such as "living journals," "living newspapers," and "agitational courts" (agit sudy ). Club members were instructed to design their own scenarios for these multimedia presentations using newspaper articles and current disputes in their workplace, neighborhood, and home. Workers' Club is filled with model scenarios based on timely issues, including the rise of fascism, worker-peasant relations, and antireligious campaigns. Some combined these themes in a humorous way, as in one sketch in which physical education advocates go to a village to chal-

[18] Arkhip, "Priataly kontsy—popali v ottsy," Rabochii klub , no. 5 (1924), pp. 34–37.

[19] M. Maiorskii, "Antireligioznyi kruzhok," Rabochii klub , no. 3/4 (1924), pp. 6–12; and A. Ivanov, "Komsomol'skoe rozhdestvo," Rabochii klub , no. 10/11 (1924), pp. 12–16.

[20] Nikolai Tarabukin, "Vremia v klube," Rabochii klub , no. 1 (1924), pp. 32–33.

lenge the local priest and interest his daughter in their cause.^[21]

Despite their efforts to provide practical services for labor organizations, Proletkultists encountered criticism of their day-to-day activities from the trade union cultural bureaucracy. Union organizers believed that the Proletkult placed too much emphasis on creative work at the expense of very basic educational programs, like literacy. They also feared that the kinds of clubs the Proletkult proposed could not possibly interest most workers, because they remained isolated and exclusive "laboratories." Proletkultists, however, complained that union cultural work was poorly planned, unsystematic, and devoted largely to frivolous entertainments.^[22]

The Proletkult was soon forced to take trade unionists' criticisms to heart because in July 1925 the organization was shifted from Narkompros to union control.^[23] As a result of this new arrangement, Workers' Club opened its pages to more reports from local union circles and began to recommend that clubs simplify their cultural offerings and devote more time to basic educational tasks. In an attempt to reach out to more workers, particularly adults, Proletkult club experts expressed an unusual concern for simple comforts, such as a pleasant club environment, better food in the buffet, and free tea.^[24] Economic themes also gained more prominence. Mem-

[21] Ia. Semenov, "Fizkul'tura v derevne," Rabochii klub , no. 15 (1925), pp. 43–53.

[22] See S. Levman, "Proletkul't i profsoiuzy," Vestnik truda , no. 1 (1924), pp. 93–102, and Raisa Ginzburg's outraged response, "Nashi raznoglasiia v klubnoi rabote," Rabochii klub , no. 8 (1924), pp. 3–7. For an analysis of these disputes see John Hatch, "The Politics of Mass Culture: Workers, Communists, and Proletkul't in the Development of Workers' Clubs, 1921–1925," Russian History , vol. 13, no. 2/3 (1986), pp. 119–48.

[23] "O Proletkul'te," Pravda , June 18, 1925; and V. Pletnev and F. Seniushkin, "Polozhenie o formakh sviazi Proletkul'ta s profsoiuzami," in Leningradskii Proletkul't na tret'em fronte (Leningrad, 1928), pp. 34–35.

[24] S. Krepusko, "Pochemu vzrozlyi rabochii ne idet v klub," Rabochii klub , no. 25 (1926), pp. 25–35; and I. Mazin, "Odin chainyi opyt," ibid., pp. 36–39.

bers were exhorted to pay more attention to the tasks of economic reconstruction and to consider ways to raise industrial productivity.^[25]

In order to improve the quality of club work the Proletkult conducted numerous surveys and studies of local activities, compiling pamphlets and organizational guides. When asked, the organization also provided art instructors for union clubs. One Proletkult theater specialist completely reshaped the artistic program at the "Metallist" club in Leningrad. He convinced participants to give up their largely classical repertoire and to compose their own productions on themes such as "The Red Wedding" instead.^[26] In Moscow a special research group called the "Club Cabinet" planned curricula for union cultural training programs.

For the Proletkult, clubs were centers to nurture and strengthen workers' creative autonomy. In their voluminous publications Proletkult activists continually underscored the importance of independent action. Artistic workshops were not supposed to rely on professional teachers or to follow the lead of professional artistic schools. Ideally, they would incorporate the real problems of daily life in works created by and for the participants themselves. Discussion groups and classes were intended to address issues directly concerning the members, rather than following rigid course outlines. In short, proletarian clubs were not supposed to resemble conventional educational programs, where activities were planned without student participation.

Nonetheless, there was a strong didactic, even patronizing,

[25] See, for example, M. Rostopchina, "Ocherednye zadachi kluba," Rabochii klub , no. 32 (1926), pp. 3–6. For similar trends in Komsomol clubs see Peter Gooderham, "The Komsomol and Worker Youth: The Inculcation of 'Communist Values' in Leningrad during NEP," Soviet Studies , vol. 34, no. 4 (1982), pp. 506–28.

[26] "Teatral'naia rabota kluba 'Metallist' v Leningrade," Rabochii klub , no. 30/31 (1926), pp. 97–98.

streak in Proletkult instructions. The organization printed and distributed scenarios for agitational courts and living newspapers, effectively undercutting the idea that members should write their own. In the proposals for political classes and discussion circles they included suggested questions and even suggested answers, along with bibliographies of required readings.^[27] The transformation of "worker-philistines" into "conscious" workers was not left to chance or to the vagaries of individual interpretation. Through the medium of creative work Proletkult club programs aimed to educate a healthy, sober, loyal, and industrious working class.

Artistic Practice

The Proletkult's politically conventional club programs contrasted sharply with the innovative work it conducted in its own theaters and creative workshops. In comparison with the Civil War years its artistic agenda became much more homogeneous. The national organization finally had enough power to impose a fairly unified aesthetic direction that was enforced by constant inspections of provincial groups.^[28] National guidelines endorsing production art and experimental forms finally prevailed, moving the organization toward the artistic left. In a clear indication of this shift artists and writers from the futurist camp, including Nikolai Chuzhak and Sergei Tretiakov, gained influence in Proletkult central studios. The futurist journal LEF noted this with some pride in one of its early issues.^[29] Although leaders like Pletnev contin-

[27] See, for example, V. Zlatov, "Kul'trazvlecheniia v klube," Rabochii klub , no. 2 (1924), p. 28; M. R., "Voprosy dlia polit-igr," Rabochii klub , no. 12 (1924), pp. 22–24.

[28] In the fall of 1924, for example, Dodonova and Pletnev visited the Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Leningrad, and Kharkov organizations to inspect their work; see the minutes of the September 2, 1924, meeting of the central Proletkult presidium, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 16, l. 20.

[29] "Proletkul't," LEF , no. 2 (1923), p. 173.

ued to object to the label "futurist," the Proletkult nonetheless became an ally of the avant-garde.^[30]

Theater, always the most popular art form, became the arena for the Proletkult's greatest experimental successes. By 1927 the organization supported workers' theaters in six Soviet cities outside of the capital.^[31] The First Workers' Theater in Moscow, opened in 1921, shaped an interesting repertoire. The offerings were still eclectic, ranging from Dawn of the Proletkult , a compendium of proletarian poetry first composed in 1918, to Pletnev's realistic Lena . However, standard prerevolutionary classics disappeared entirely. In their place came the inventive work of Sergei Eisenstein, who became active in the Proletkult theater in 1921.

A student of Vsevolod Meyerhold, one of the most innovative directors of the early Soviet years, Eisenstein introduced many new techniques to the Proletkult. The most fruitful was Meyerhold's system of biomechanics. Advocates of this system argued that it would work like Taylorism in industry and make acting into a controlled, scientific process.^[32] From his mentor, Eisenstein also took a love of the circus, pantomime, parody, and the grotesque—"minor forms" that Meyerhold believed were rooted in popular theater and culture.

Working together with the futurist writer Sergei Tretiakov, Eisenstein directed three striking experimental plays in 1923–1924. The first was an adaptation of Ostrovsky's Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man , completely rewritten by Tretiakov.^[33] This production moved the setting to contemporary émigré Paris and employed circus techniques, buffoonery, and even film (Eisenstein's first) to surprise and engage the

[30] On this shift see John Willett, Art and Politics in the Weimar Period, 1917–1933: The New Sobriety (New York, 1978), p. 42.

[31] V. Pletnev, "Za rabochii teatr," Rabochii klub , no. 41 (1927), pp. 3–8.

[32] See Marjorie L. Hoover, Meyerhold: The Art of the Conscious Theater (Amherst, 1974), pp. 100–110, 311–15.

[33] On Eisenstein in the Proletkult see Karla Hielscher, "S. M. Eisensteins Theaterarbeit beim Moskauer Proletkult, 1921–1924," Aesthetik und Kommunikation , no. 13 (1973), pp. 64–75.

audience. The next production, also a collaboration between Eisenstein and Tretiakov, was Are you Listening, Moscow? (Slyshish', Moskva? ), a chilling agitational play about the rise of fascism in Germany. Using methods to promote suspense and terror, Eisenstein and Tretiakov induced the audience to identify with the events depicted on the stage. In the final scene viewers enthusiastically joined in the storming of a fascist tribunal.^[34] Eisenstein's last major work in the Proletkult was Gas Masks (Protivogazy ), a performance staged in the Moscow gas works without any decorations or set designs.^[35]

After Gas Masks Eisenstein left the Proletkult for film production, although his first major film, Strike (Stachka ), was completed with help from Valerian Pletnev and the First Workers' Theater collective.^[36] The major directors who followed him in both the Moscow and Leningrad Proletkult theaters—Aleksei Gripich, Lazar Kritsberg, and Naum Loiter—had also studied with Meyerhold.^[37] Throughout the 1920s the First Workers' Theater in Moscow employed techniques inherited from Meyerhold, especially the biomechanical method and the extensive use of the grotesque, pantomime, and satire, an approach that set the standard for all provincial branches.^[38]

In the visual arts the Proletkult also shed some of its diversity and embraced the principles of the artistic left. The production art approach finally prevailed during the New Economic Policy. As a symbol of this shift, in the spring of 1922 the central art studio in Moscow closed its painting workshop.^[39] Boris Arvatov became the most eloquent spokesman

[34] S., "Slyshish', Moskva?" LEF , no. 4 (1924), p. 217.

[35] Al'manakh Proletkul'ta , p. 186.

[36] Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film , 3d ed. (Princeton, 1983), p. 181.

[37] See D. Zolotnitskii, Budni i prazdniki teatral'nogo Oktiabria (Leningrad, 1978), pp. 12, 43; and S. Margolin, Pervyi Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta (Moscow, 1930), p. 56.

[38] See "O rabote Proletkul'tov RSFSR, 1925–1926," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 37–40 for provincial theatrical repertoires.

[39] "Zhivopisnye masterskie," Gorn , no. 8 (1923), p. 242.

for the arts, praising the virtues of artistic creation tied to practical needs. He declared that easel art, museums, and purely decorative forms were dead.^[40] Instead, art studios turned to utilitarian tactics, designing posters, book jackets, union emblems, and decorations for revolutionary festivals.^[41]

In comparison with the visual arts and theater the Proletkult's work in literature was modest. It could not compete with the expanding number of proletarian writers' organizations or with the growing workers' correspondent movement encouraged by the party press. Local groups urged club activists to teach practical skills, such as journalistic technique, speech writing, and how to prepare scripts for agitational courts that were based on experiences from workers' daily lives. However, the task of publishing and promoting imaginative literature passed into other hands.

The Proletkult's presence in the musical world also declined. Some local groups, like one in Georgia, developed popular choirs and orchestras, but the national Proletkult did not sponsor a central music studio. The work that remained also tended to the left. In 1923 the Moscow Proletkult, led by the experimental musician Arsenii Avraamov, staged a concert of factory whistles to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution. The Leningrad Proletkult organized a jazz band, which promoted the "sports trot" to dislodge popular enthusiasm for the fox-trot.^[42]

Participants in Proletkult workshops and studios were supported by scholarships in the 1920s, and most pursued their artistic work full time. The First Workers' Theater in Moscow was particularly successful in promoting its young artists to

[40] Boris Arvatov, "Iskusstvo v systeme proletarskoi kul'tury," in Na putiakh iskusstva: Sbornik statei , ed. V. M. Bliumenfel'd, V. F. Pletnev, and N. F. Chuzhak (Moscow, 1926), pp. 9–33.

[41] See the designs for May Day tribunals in 1925, Rabochii klub , no. 16/17 (1925), pp. 53–54.

[42] Arsenii Avraamov, "Simfoniia gudkov," Gorn , no. 9 (1923), pp. 109–16; Leningradskii Proletkurt na tret'em fronte , p. 26; and Pavel Marinchik, Rozhdenie Komsomol' skogo teatra (Leningrad and Moscow, 1963), p. 175.

professional careers. The future National Artists of the Soviet Union, Maksim Shtraukh and Iuliia Glizer, as well as the famous film star Grigorii Aleksandrov all got their start in this organization.^[43]

Nonetheless, the Proletkult continued to display ambivalence toward professionalization. Its artistic programs were idiosyncratic; they were designed to take their inspiration from nonprofessional circles.^[44] More important, they were not integrated into the general Soviet educational system. When someone graduated from a workers' faculty or party school, it was clear what that meant, complained one participant from Ivanovo-Voznesensk. However, the social significance of Proletkult training was not immediately apparent to him. "I have to leave the Proletkult to join up with some Meyerhold or one of his many assistants or go to some VKhUTEMAS [Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops] just to find out if I am or will become a real actor or artist with a credential in my pocket."^[45]

When the Proletkult switched to trade union control in 1925, its creative work came under closer scrutiny. In general, union leaders were critical of the Proletkult's agitational and experimental style. They urged it to follow the paths of established professional groups more closely, particularly in the theater.^[46] This evoked some positive responses from journalists in Workers' Club , who argued that proletarian audiences were growing tired of "naked agitation" and longed for welldeveloped characters and a clear plot line. However, central Proletkult leaders resolutely resisted conventional repertoires. Club theaters should stage agitational trials or com-

[43] Margolin, Pervyi Rabochii teatr , pp. 58–59.

[44] V. Bliumenfel'd, "Teorabota Lenproletkul'ta," Rabochii klub , no. 28 (1926), pp. 34–37.

[45] Khoral, "Na bol'nye temy," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1245, ll. 57–59, quotation l.59. Some of his colleagues accused him of cowardly, petty-bourgeois behavior for this statement. See ibid., ll. 50–56.

[46] "Vsesoiuznoe kul'tsoveshchanie pri VTsSPS," Rabochii klub , no. 29 (1926), pp. 51–53.

pose literary montages from public documents and newspapers, urged V. M. Bliumenfeld of the Leningrad Proletkult. Valerian Pletnev believed that scripts of any kind would soon be a thing of the past.^[47]

Within its own workshops and theaters the Proletkult showed no signs of adopting more conservative methods under trade union management. Although the Workers' Theater retreated somewhat from its experiments under Eisenstein, it had a completely contemporary repertoire and considered itself part of the artistic left. Production art still held sway. Workshops employed the popular method of photomontage, and Moscow studios, under the direction of Aleksandr Rodchenko, designed ingenious multipurpose furniture for clubs.^[48] Festivals were a focal point for much local activity. In 1927 the Leningrad Proletkult helped to map out an elaborate three-day agenda for the tenth anniversary of the revolution. The program incorporated displays of military hardware, historical scenes from the revolution, and mass performances of physical exercises and games.^[49]

Despite this evidence of vitality, the Proletkult remained on the margins of cultural life in the 1920s. During the festivities marking the first decade of the revolution, numerous reviewers gave an appreciative account of the Proletkult's contributions to Soviet culture. But the articles had the tone of a postmortem, looking back at an institution that had outlived its usefulness. In his assessment of a decade of Soviet litera-

[47] V. Bliumenfel'd, "Litmontazh," Rabochii klub , no. 32 (1926), pp. 19–26; and A. V. Lunacharskii, R. A. Pel'she, and V. F. Pletnev, eds., Puti sovremennogo teatra (Moscow, 1926), pp. 51–53.

[48] L. P., "Izo Rabota Leningradskogo Proletkul'ta za 10 let," in Sovetskoe iskusstvo za 15 let: Materialy i dokumentatsii , ed. I. Matsa, L. Reingardt, and L. Rempel' (Moscow, 1933), pp. 279–82; Ia. Tugendkhol'd, "Sovremennyi plakat," Pechat' i revoliutsiia , no. 8 (1926), pp. 61–62; A. R., "Zapisnaia knizhka LEFa," Novyi LEF , no. 6 (1927), p. 5; and I. Chkannkov and N. Serov, "Klubnaia mebel'," Rabochii klub , no. 50 (1928), pp. 30–38.

[49] I. M. Bibikova and N. I. Levchenko, Agitatsionno-massovoe iskusstvo: Oformlenie prazdnestv (Moscow, 1984), vol. 1, pp. 162–66.

ture the influential critic Viacheslav Polonskii concluded that the Proletkult had helped to awaken the creative power of the working class. "No errors by Proletkult leaders and ideologues can lessen the enormous significance of the movement, which attracted many gifted representatives from proletarian youth, if only for a short time."^[50] It was clear from his tone that he felt its short time had long since passed.

The First Five-Year Plan: Expansion and Demise

The end of the New Economic Policy and the advent of rapid industrialization and collectivization in the late 1920s marked a profound change in Soviet social life. Groups favored during the New Economic Policy, especially the peasantry and parts of the educated elite, found their status abruptly and radically altered. The regime now shunned its former allies and turned to the working class, in rhetoric if not always in policy, as the main buttress for the industrialization drive. The language of class conflict, severely limited during the 1920s, revived in the lexicons of political activists.

The First Five-Year Plan had profound cultural ramifications. During the 1920s the Soviet government had endorsed a policy of relative cultural pluralism, thereby gaining the support of many artists and intellectuals who were at best lukewarm supporters of the new regime. Their knowledge and expertise were considered essential to realizing Lenin's vision of a cultural revolution, that is, the gradual dissemination of literacy and education to the broadest possible public. However, this incremental approach was abruptly altered in the late 1920s. The state's change in direction put cultural experts on the defensive and disrupted established educational programs. Cultural revolution, in its new aggressive transmogrification, became a medium for class conflict, a way for the

[50] V. Polonskii, "Literaturnoe dvizhenie Oktiabr'skogo desiatiletiia," Pechat' i revoliutsiia , no. 7 (1927), pp. 15–80, quotation p. 38; see also P. Markov, "Teatr," in ibid., pp. 149–50.

regime to motivate and justify its assaults on the intelligentsia and the peasantry.^[51]

The many cultural circles advocating proletarian artistic forms not only welcomed these new policies but also helped to give them teeth. The Proletarian Writers' Union, especially its radical Russian division, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), stepped up attacks against bourgeois culture, this time with some effectiveness. Voronskii, Lunacharskii, and others who defended "fellow travelers" and independent intellectuals quickly fell from grace. In language similar to that of the Civil War RAPP and its allies now demanded proletarian hegemony in the cultural sphere.

Proletkultists also embraced the new direction. In a substantial article on the meaning of cultural revolution, Valerian Pletnev argued that without a radical shift in cultural values, industrialization would not succeed. He insisted that it was essential for the country to rationalize industry, revise its educational system, and rid itself of the corrupt influence of bureaucrats, kulaks, and capitalists. The masses had to be excited and drawn into industrialization through cultural creation; they needed a new literature, film, and theater as well as new forms of propaganda to involve them in the great push for economic change.^[52]

During the First Five-Year Plan all proletarian cultural circles were on the upsurge. RAPP increased its membership by 80 percent from 1930 to 1931; the number of TRAM affiliates expanded fivefold from 1929 to 1932.^[53] The Proletkult also experienced some positive change: the membership in

[51] See Sheila Fitzpatrick, ed., Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (Bloomington, 1978), esp. Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Cultural Revolution as Class War," pp. 8–40.

[52] V. Pletnev, "O kul'turnoi revoliutsii," Rabochii klub , no. 53/54 (1928), pp. 3–13.

[53] Katerina Clark, "Little Heroes and Big Deeds: Literature Responds to the First Five Year Plan," in Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 , ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick (Bloomington, 1978), p. 196; and Mironova, TRAM , p. 6.

existing organizations increased, the percentage of workers rose, and the national network grew to include new circles in areas like Stalingrad and parts of Siberia.^[54]

Topical themes dominated the Proletkult's creative work. New circles in Siberia sent out agitational troupes to perform at construction sites and collective farms.^[55] Proletkult theaters performed contemporary plays, for example, Aleksandr Bezymenskii's The Shot (Vystrel ), which had been made famous by the Meyerhold Theater. In the play young workers expose party corruption and unmask a group of Trotsky's supporters. Another play, Without Regard to Individuals (Nevziraia na litsa ), featured a Komsomol member who valiantly resists the management of a large department store and reveals its unethical practices.^[56]

Although the Proletkult showed signs of rejuvenation during the years of the "Stalin revolution," it could not reclaim its old position. It had neither the funding nor the staff to inspire the same broad following that it had had in the Civil War years. Moreover, its artistic direction was at odds with the aesthetic approaches favored by the regime. The Proletkult embraced a theater inspired by Meyerhold, a visual arts based on constructivism, and literary methods that tended toward documentation and a literature of fact. All these techniques came under attack as "formalistic" methods during the First Five-Year Plan. The Communist Party Central Committee even singled out the Siberian Proletkult for censure because it took a critical stand toward the work of Maxim Gorky.^[57]

[54] Minutes of the July 3, 1931, meeting of the central Proletkult presidium, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 23, ll. 1, 8; and T. A. Khavina, "Bor'ba Kommunisticheskoi partii za Proletkul't i rukovodstvo ego deiatel'nost'iu, 1917–1932 gg." (Candidate diss., Leningrad State University, 1978), p. 152.

[55] Pinegina, Sovetskii rabochii klass , p. 95; and Kunst in die Produktion: Sowjetische Kunst während der Phase der Kollektivierung und Industrialisierung, 1927–1933 (Berlin, 1977), p. 22.

[56] Pechat' i revoliutsiia , no. 5/6 (1930), p. 95; ibid., no. 3 (1930), p. 87.

[57] "O vystupleniiakh sibirskikh literatorov i literaturnykh organizatsii protiv Maksima Gor'kogo," in KPSS o kul'ture, prosveshchenii i nauke: Sbornik dokumentov , ed. V. S. Viktorov (Moscow, 1963), pp. 201–2.

But the Proletkult's most significant handicap remained its poor political reputation. RAPP, the most powerful cultural organization, attacked Proletkult theory and practice in a manner that harkened back to Lenin's original accusations. In their journal On Literary Guard , RAPP members denounced the Proletkult as a carcass of the revolution and accused it of being inspired by the false "Menshevik" ideas of Aleksandr Bogdanov. It had never produced much good work because its members totally rejected Russia's cultural heritage and held a romantic view of the revolution. The contemporary Proletkult was beneath their notice; its adherents were nothing more than the executors of a deceased movement who were circling around the sarcophagus.^[58]

The ascendancy of proletarian cultural groups ended almost as quickly as it began. Their domination of cultural life depended on a state-sponsored shift in the social climate that openly favored the working class. By 1931 the government began a hasty retreat from the anti-intellectual positions it had sanctioned at the beginning of the plan. It instituted a series of laws designed to bolster the position of "bourgeois" experts and the technical intelligentsia, who had been severely ostracized both by state organs and by workers' cultural groups. Wage differentials favoring the better educated were introduced and the massive affirmative action programs, a central feature of the First Five-Year Plan's educational policy, were drastically curtailed.^[59]

These dramatic reversals quickly affected the organiza-

[58] See V. Sytyrin, "O blagorodnykh predkakh, neblagodarnykh potomkakh, o legomyslennom povedenii poslednikh," Na literaturnom postu , no. 2 (1930), pp. 26–30; and idem, "Blagodarnost'," ibid., no. 8 (1930), pp. 20–23. See also Iu. Libedinskii, "O proletarskom teatre," Rabochii i teatr , no. 2 (1932), pp. 4–5.

[59] Fitzpatrick, "Cultural Revolution as Class War"; idem, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1934 (Cambridge, Eng., 1979), pp. 209–33; and Kendall E. Bailes, Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin (Princeton, 1978), pp. 159–87.

tions advocating proletarian culture. As at the start of the New Economic Policy, these groups' messages of proletarian hegemony were no longer welcome. RAPP, which had demanded a privileged position, became a special target of party criticism. It was charged with hounding sympathetic noncommunist writers, producing vulgar and inconsistent criticism, and promoting poor artistic products.^[60] Although RAPP and its allies had been exposed to such attacks before, this time it was the prelude to their dissolution.

In April 1932 the Communist Party issued a directive that disbanded all literary and cultural circles. The document had a neutral title, "On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations," but it was aimed specifically at the proletarian circles that had dominated cultural life during the First Five-Year Plan.^[61] The party acknowledged the service of these groups, which had helped to foster a new generation of artists from the fields and factories. However, the directive charged that their activities had now become too narrow and sectarian, thus hindering the further development of socialist art. They would be replaced by professional unions open to artists of all classes.

This resolution marked the end of the many cultural circles that had evolved from 1917 to 1932, among them the Proletkult. These circles liquidated their operations, dividing up their staff and resources. Most affiliates of TRAM, the active youth theater, were absorbed into the Komsomol. Members of the Russian Association for Proletarian Musicians, RAPM, offered their services to the new musicians' union.^[62] The Proletkult, the oldest and at one time the most inclusive of all these

[60] Brown, The Proletarian Episode , pp. 188–89; Herman Ermolaev, Soviet Literary Theories, 1917–1934 (Berkeley, 1963), pp. 106–18; and S. Sheshukov, Neistovye revniteli: Iz istorii literaturnoi bor'by 20-kh godov (Moscow, 1970), pp. 302–13.

[61] "O perestroike literaturno-khudozhestvennykh organizatsii: Postanovlenie TsK VKP(b) ot 23 aprelia 1932 g.," in Gronskii and Perel'man, AKhRR—Assotsiatsiia Khudozhnikov Revoliutsionnoi Rossii , pp. 329–30.

[62] Mironova, TRAM , pp. 92–104; and Schwarz, Music and Musical Life , p. 112.

groups, quietly handed over its assets to the trade union cultural bureaucracy; in August 1932 it ceased to exist.^[63]

After dissolving the many contentious groups that had dominated Soviet cultural life, the regime began to formulate an official Soviet aesthetic, "socialist realism." This elusive genre bore some similarities to Proletkult cultural theories. Like Bogdanov, the shapers of socialist realism believed that art served an active social role. They also insisted that cultural creation be simple, clear, and easily accessible to the masses, characteristics that echoed at least part of the Proletkult's artistic platform during the Civil War. But at this point similarities ended. Proletkultists believed that culture in the broadest sense was a means to awaken creative independence and to express proletarian class consciousness. By contrast, the advocates of socialist realism saw art as a didactic medium through which to educate the toiling masses in the spirit of socialism.^[64] Either implicitly or explicitly, they rejected the premise of a unique class culture that spoke to and for the proletariat.

Instead, socialist realism was intended to convey the values of all groups in Soviet society. Its purpose was to give "poetic shape to the spiritual experience of the socialist man who is now coming into being," to quote Bukharin's effusive phrase.^[65] Proletkultists had always maintained that their ultimate goal was to create the foundation for a human culture transcending class boundaries; proletarian class culture was necessary as the penultimate step before that final end. Now socialist realism claimed to have achieved this classless ideal.

[63] Khavina, "Bor'ba Kommunisticheskoi partii za Proletkul't," pp. 156–57; and Pinegina, Sovetskii rabochii klass , p. 118.

[64] See the resolutions passed at the 1934 Writers' Congress, Soviet Writers' Congress, 1934: The Debate on Socialist Realism and Modernism in the Soviet Union (London, 1977), p. 275. For an innovative study of socialist realism that stresses its didactic nature see Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, 1985).

[65] Soviet Writers' Congress , p. 255.

The new aesthetic was presented as the expression of a new and more advanced stage of historical development, a move toward a classless society.^[66] The state's adoption of this new direction turned proletarian culture, supposedly the harbinger of the future, into the culture of the past.

[66] On the links between socialist realism and a new classless interpretation of Soviet society see Ermolaev, Soviet Literary Theories , pp. 140–43; and Hans Günther, Die Verstaatlichung der Literatur: Entstehung und Funktionsweise des sozialistischen-realistischen Kanons der sowjetischen Literatur der 30er Jahren (Stuttgart, 1984), p. 12.