6
Proletarian Utopias:
Science, Family, and Daily Life

The Proletkult proposed an expansive, utopian agenda to transform Russia in the wake of the revolution. "A new science, art, literature, and morality, in short, a new proletarian culture, conceived in the ranks of the industrial proletariat, is preparing a new human being with a new system of emotions and beliefs," proclaimed Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii in 1918.^[1] Proletarian culture, the soul of socialism, would emerge everywhere, and thus the Proletkult would have a foothold everywhere as well.

There was a utopian element to all revolutionary visions of the new society. Peasant dreamers prophesied a world without cities, and labor radicals foresaw factories without foremen. Leftist artists wanted to destroy museums and bring art to the streets and the homes of the common man.^[2] Even Lenin, the most pragmatic of politicians, was briefly infected with

[1] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Polianskii, pseud.], "Pod znamia Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), p. 3.

[2] See Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams (New York, 1989); Katerina Clark, "The City versus the Countryside in Soviet Peasant Literature of the Twenties: A Duel of Utopias," in Bolshevik Culture , ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, 1985), pp. 175–89; and René Fueloep-Miller, The Mind and Face of Bolshevism , trans. F. S. Flint and D. T. Tait (New York, 1965).

this spirit; in his famous work State and Revolution he depicted a governmental structure so simple and transparent that any cook could run the state. Proletkultists, as the self-proclaimed creators of the culture of the future, were inherently utopian. They were convinced that they could usher in the perfect society and the perfect culture, both of which would be based on shared human values rather than class prejudices. "I believe we nurse the future with our hard toil," declared the proletarian poet Vasilii Aleksandrovskii. "Exert your mind and muscles, harden yourself with labor's fire, so that Russia's resurrection will spread to the whole world."^[3]

To realize these lofty goals, Proletkult enthusiasts aspired to change far more than artistic creation. The positive, collectivist values that shaped a new art were to permeate all of life—the work place, the school, and the home. They hoped to alter the structure of knowledge and the very fabric of daily existence. These projects were truly utopian; they aimed at perfection but eluded all practical methods of implementation. Still, their articulation shows the breadth of the Proletkult's vision: love, learning, friendship, and community would all come to express the spirit of the socialist age.

Proletarian Science

Given the Proletkultists' fascination with machines and the work environment, it is hardly surprising that some participants became enamored of the idea of a proletarian science. This idea proved to be one of the movement's most controversial proposals, exciting horrified responses from those who believed that the very notion of a class-specific science called the immutable dictates of nature into question.^[4] Repeated

[3] V. D. Aleksandrovskii, "Veriu ia—my griadushchee vynianclaim," in Proletarskie poety pervykh let sovetskoi epokhi , ed. Z. S. Papernyi and R. A. Shatseva (Leningrad, 1959), pp. 102–3.

[4] See, for example, the comments of a Tver medic, Pervaia Tverskaia gubernskaia konferentsiia kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii (Tver, 1919), p. 24.

assurances that the Proletkult did not intend to challenge Newton's laws often fell on deaf ears.^[5]

The theory that evoked such passion was the brainchild of Aleksandr Bogdanov. Although Bogdanov was a medical doctor and was convinced of technology's guiding role in social evolution, he did not address himself to the natural sciences alone. The Russian word for science, nauka, like the German word Wissenschaft , applies to all scholarly disciplines, from studies of literature to physics. Bogdanov aimed to bring all knowledge into a single organized system that he called "tectology," or the science of organization.^[6]

For Bogdanov all forms of science, even the most rarefied and abstract branches, reflected and sustained the social system that generated them. The way that scientific knowledge was structured, transmitted, and ultimately applied under capitalism helped to solidify the capitalist order. Bogdanov believed that the basic purpose of science was to organize labor power. Although capitalists applied scientific knowledge to bolster their own exploitative labor practices, the socialist system with the proletariat at the helm would restructure scientific knowledge to suit its radically altered social and economic goals. "The working class needs a proletarian science," insisted Bogdanov in his most famous essay on the subject. "This means a science that is acceptable, understandable, and accountable to [the proletariat's] life mission, a science that is organized from the proletariat's point of

[5] See M. N. Smit, "Proletarizatsiia nauki," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 11/12 (1919), pp. 27–33, esp. p. 31.

[6] For explanations of Bogdanov's organizational science see Zenovia A. Sochor, Revolution and Culture (Ithaca, 1988), pp. 45–56; Ilmari Susiluoto, The Origins and Development of Systems Thinking in the Soviet Union (Helsinki, 1982), pp. 46–69; Alexander S. Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture, 1861–1917 (Stanford, 1970), pp. 446–54; and idem, Social Thought in Tsarist Russia: The Quest for a General Science of Society, 1861–1917 (Chicago, 1976), pp. 206–30. For a highly critical view see Dominique Lecourt, Proletarian Science? The Case of Lysenko , trans. Ben Brewster (London, 1977), pp. 137–62.

view, one that is capable of leading [the proletariat's] forces to struggle for, attain, and implement its social ideals."^[7]

The advocates of a new science did not reject the achievements of past generations, but they felt that the proletariat would have to apply this knowledge in a different way. When a critic charged that both the bourgeoisie and the working class would use the same methods to cure disease, Aleksei Samobytnik-Mashirov countered that this was not necessarily true. Capitalists used prescriptions and medicine, but the proletariat would examine the social causes of illness and combat them through better health care and medical insurance.^[8]

However, Bogdanov and his supporters had more than a socially conscious application of acquired knowledge in mind. They insisted that the working class would fundamentally restructure scientific information. Science under capitalism was overly specialized, fragmented, and arcane. The proletariat would synthesize knowledge into one unified, monistic system and tie it to life and labor.^[9] To achieve this goal, scientific learning could not simply be popularized or democratized because such an approach only meant transmitting accepted truths in an easily accessible form. Nor was it sufficient to proletarianize the institutions of higher learning. Instead science had to be socialized ; it would be altered and reexamined to meet the needs of a well-organized social system.^[10] In the words of a character from Bogdanov's utopian novel, Engineer Menni , "The proletariat must master [science] by changing it. In the hands of workers it must become much

[7] A. A. Bogdanov, "Nauka i rabochii klass," 1918, reprinted in O proletarskoi kul'ture, 1904–1924 , by A. A. Bogdanov (Moscow, 1924), pp. 200–221, quotation p. 208.

[8] Protokoly pervoi Vserossiiskoi konferentsii proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii, 15–20 sentiabria, 1918 g ., ed. P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii (Moscow, 1918), p. 39.

[9] Bogdanov, "Nauka i rabochii klass," pp. 213–15.

[10] Ibid., pp. 216–18; and M. N. Smit, "Blizhaishchie etapy proletarizatsii nauki," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), p. 79.

simpler, more harmonious and vital. Its fragmentation must be overcome, it must be brought closer to the labor that is its primary source."^[11]

To realize this ambitious agenda, Bogdanov proposed to start proletarian universities that would be based on his own experiences in workers' educational circles and in the Capri and the Bologna schools.^[12] He chose the title "university" because it evoked the kind of universalist knowledge he hoped to achieve. The explicit class label was meant to distinguish the new institutions from both elitist schools and "people's universities," which were open to the population at large. As Bogdanov's colleague Mariia Smit explained, proletarian universities would not fit workers into old educational systems, nor would they simply try to train revolutionary agitators. Their purpose was to prepare proletarian leaders, to create "the brain of the working class."^[13]

The national Proletkult and numerous local groups enthusiastically embraced these proposals.^[14] However, they were not alone in their passion for scientific education. During the first years of Soviet power institutions of higher learning proliferated at a dazzling rate.^[15] Not only state organs but also unions, factories, cooperatives, and many other groups at the

[11] A. A. Bogdanov, Engineer Menni, in Red Star , by A. A. Bogdanov, ed. Loren R. Graham and Richard Stites, trans. Charles Rougle (Bloomington, 1984), p. 187.

[12] A. A. Bogdanov, Kul'turnye zadachi nashego vremeni (Moscow, 1911), pp. 69–74; and idem, "Proletarskii universitet," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 5 (1918), pp. 9–21.

[13] M. N. Smit, "Proletarizatsiia nauki," Izvestiia TsIK , June 8, 1919.

[14] See the Moscow Proletkult's endorsement of proletarian universities, Pervaia Moskovskaia obshchegorodskaia konferentsiia proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii, 23–28 fevralia, 1918 goda (Moscow, 1918), pp. 6–8; and the national organization's endorsement, Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , p. 42.

[15] On early Soviet education see Oskar Anweiler, Geschichte der Schule und Pädagogik vom Ende des Zarenreichs bis zum Beginn der Stalin Ära (Berlin, 1964), esp. pp. 78–153; Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment (Cambridge, Eng., 1970); N. Hans and S. Hessen, Educational Policy in Soviet Russia (London, 1930); R. H. Hayashida, "Lenin and the Third Front," Slavic Review , vol. 28, no. 2 (1969), pp. 314–24; David Lane, "The Impact of the Revolution on the Selection of Students for Higher Education," Sociology , no. 7 (1973), pp. 241–52; F. Lilge, "Lenin and the Politics of Education," Slavic Review , vol. 27, no. 2 (1968), pp. 230–57; James C. McClelland, "Bolshevik Approaches to Higher Education, 1917–1921," Slavic Review , vol. 30, no. 4 (1971), pp. 818–31; and idem, "The Utopian and the Heroic: Divergent Paths to the Communist Educational Ideal," in Bolshevik Culture , ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, 1985) pp. 114–30.

grass roots contributed to this remarkable expansion. The Proletkult could not even claim a monopoly on the title of "proletarian university," which was used by many other sponsors.^[16]

The Proletkult's first short-lived experiment in higher education began in the spring of 1918 with the opening of the Moscow Proletarian University. Its curriculum had a very Bogdanovian flavor. The school journal, which only survived one issue, announced that the institution aimed to reassess the culture of the past in light of the proletariat's collective spirit. Significantly, it also contained Bogdanov's best-known treatise on proletarian science.^[17] But the Proletkult shared leadership of the school with the city soviet and the local Narkompros division. A three-way fight to control the staff and the course offerings brought about its early demise. Bogdanov blamed its failure on internal factors. He felt that the faculty members had not worked together and that the student body, composed mainly of white-collar employees, had not expressed a proletarian point of view.^[18]

After this false start the Proletkult opened another school

[16] See V. Smushkov, "Narodnye universitety," Vneshkol'noe obrazovanie (Moscow), no. 2/3 (1919), columns 34–43.

[17] Izvestiia Moskovskogo proletarskogo universiteta , no. 1 (1918), pp. 1–10.

[18] On the university's closure see the July 13, July 24, and August 6, 1918, minutes for the collegium of proletarian culture in Narkompros, Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv RSFSR [henceforth cited as TsGA RSFSR] f. 2306, op. 17, d. 1, ll. 2–3, 6–6 ob.; A. A. Bogdanov, "Proletarskii universitet," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 5 (1918), pp. 15–16.

that followed Bogdanov's educational ideals more closely. He was intimately involved in the curriculum planning for this new institution, and his detailed course outlines provide a glimpse of how he hoped to realize a proletarian science. The school had three levels, each lasting one year. During the first year, designed as an orientation course, students would be introduced to methods of scientific inquiry and taught how to express themselves in a written and oral fashion. They would survey the natural scientific disciplines, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, and physiology, in order to assess the contributions each had made to the labor process. Wherever possible, Bogdanov wanted to use experiments and hands-on techniques as pedagogical tools, not just lectures or text-books. After this basic grounding in the natural sciences students would turn to the study of society. The curriculum included classes in economics, Russian history, socialism, and the structure of the state and the economy. Here, too, Bogdanov stressed a personalized, participatory approach. Students would use original documents and case studies to gain a sense of historical development and struggle.^[19]

After the first year of introductory courses, Bogdanov's aversion to specialized programs became even more pronounced. Rather than presenting each subject separately, he proposed a thematic study plan. The second year opened with an overview of the methodological techniques of scientific investigation, the principles of evolution, the basic theories of energy, and the ways that biology could be applied to the labor process. Students then turned to the social sciences, beginning with a course that examined the history of technology in society. The cycle ended with a class on dialectical materialism as the foundation for a general scientific approach to the world. Bogdanov's integrated, monistic approach to science and society was most apparent in his proposals for the final year. Students were expected to mesh their

[19] A. A. Bogdanov, "Proletarskii universitet," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 5 (1918), pp. 17–19.

knowledge into an encyclopedic system, culminating their work with a course called "The General Organization of Science."^[20]

To avoid the problems of the first university, the Proletkult set out to find a working-class clientele. Both Proletkult and Narkompros journals publicized application requirements for the new school. Students were supposed to be recommended by working-class organizations, very broadly defined to include unions, soviets, and the Red Army. Workers and poor peasants were eligible, but white-collar workers were encouraged to go elsewhere. One article by Stefan Krivtsov, a central Proletkult leader, gave a clear explanation of the university's unique pedagogical approach. The university would not teach narrow specialties, nor would it try to create "mandarins of science." Instead, the school would encourage "builder-engineers engaged in all aspects of human endeavor."^[21]

In March 1919 the Proletkult's experimental school opened with much pomp and circumstance in Moscow. It was named the Karl Liebknecht University, after the recently assassinated German Spartacist leader. Lunacharskii, Bukharin, and an Austrian representative from the Third International spoke at the opening celebration.^[22] Bogdanov claimed that student selection had indeed followed the guidelines set by the central organization and that the four hundred participants came mainly from the working class and peasantry, with only a handful from the laboring intelligentsia. The scant published biographical information about a few of the students tends to confirm his assessment.^[23]

The Karl Liebknecht University only flourished for a few

[20] Ibid., pp. 19–22.

[21] S. Krivtsov, "Proletarskii universitet," Vneshkol'noe obrazovanie (Moscow), no. 1 (1919), pp. 18–30, quotation p. 20.

[22] "Torzhestvennoe otkrytie proletarskogo universiteta," Izvestiia TsIK , March 25, 1919.

[23] Bogdanov, cited in Izvestiia TsIK , May 17, 1919; and M. F., "82 pokazaniia: Ankety sredi studentov Moskovskogo proletarskogo universiteta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 11/12 (1919), pp. 48–57.

months before it was summarily shut down in late July 1919. Its president, N. V. Rogzinskii, who came from the Adult Education Division in Narkompros, felt that its curriculum and staff did not really express the needs of the proletariat. Instead, he proposed that the university be merged with the Sverdlov courses, which offered short-term classes for soviet and party agitators, in order to create a new institution called the Sverdlov Communist University. Although technically a merger, this proposal really meant the total loss of Proletkult control because the Communist Party Central Committee and Narkompros were to take charge of the new school.^[24] Party officials explained the step as a temporary measure caused by the demands of the Civil War.^[25] However, Bogdanov's innovative educational approach must have also prompted the action. Once the Sverdlov University opened in early 1920, its first president, V. I. Nevskii, went out of his way to denounce the idea of a proletarian university in general and Bogdanov's theory of organizational science in particular.^[26]

Bogdanov's unusual curriculum was hardly tested during the university's brief existence, and student questionnaires published after its demise gave mixed reviews. Some students made modest statements about their experience. "I learned what I had to read and how to understand what I read," asserted one participant. But others offered a more positive assessment. "I am entirely convinced that it is necessary to develop a new scientific method," concluded an enthusiastic student. "Only in this way will it be possible to take the valuable and necessary elements from bourgeois culture in order

[24] Izvestiia TsIK , May 17, 1919; and "K zakrytiiu proletarskogo universiteta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 9/10 (1919), pp. 56–59, esp. p. 57. See also Fitzpatrick, Commissariat , pp. 101–3.

[25] See Elena Stasova's announcement to the Proletkult central committee, August 2, 1919, Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Literatury i Iskusstva [henceforth cited as TsGALI] f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, l. 101.

[26] V. I. Nevskii, Otchet raboche-krest'ianskogo Kommunisticheskogo universiteta imeni Ia. M. Sverdlova (Moscow, 1920), p. 7.

to create and strengthen genuine proletarian culture and ideology."^[27]

Many of the former students certainly cared enough about the school to protest its sudden closure. In a poignant letter to the Proletkult central committee, they questioned whether the new school would really meet their needs. The Karl Liebknecht University had aimed to educate proletarian intellectuals in a rigorous three-year program, but the Sverdlov University planned to train agitators in only four months.^[28] But one critic writing in Izvestiia argued that this was precisely the point. The state needed agitators, not self-styled proletarian leaders. Paraphrasing Marx, S. Novikov claimed that the former proletarian university had hoped to teach students to have a revolutionary worldview, but the new Communist university would teach them how to change the capitalist world into a socialist one.^[29]

The failure of the Karl Liebknecht University certainly did not put an end to Proletkult experiments in proletarian science. Various provincial organizations opened their own schools that were intended to educate the working class in a new spirit. "All over Russia a wave to build workers' universities is spreading," exclaimed one central organizer in 1919. In Orel workers donated wages from an extra day's work to finance such a venture. New proletarian institutes of higher learning opened in Smolensk, Tula, Penza, Sormovo, Tsaritsyn, and Balashov.^[30]

However, many of these schools were not directly controlled by the Proletkult, nor did they follow Bogdanov's

[27] M. F., "82 pokazaniia," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 11/12 (1919), pp. 48–58, quotations pp. 50, 51.

[28] Ibid., pp. 52–58; and "Vypiska iz protokola obshchego sobraniia studentov byv. Moskovskogo proletarskogo universiteta," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, ll. 103–103 ob.

[29] S. Novikov, "Kommunisticheskii universitet," Izvestiia TsIK , June 17, 1919.

[30] "Khronika Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 6 (1919), pp. 31–33, quotation p. 31.

elaborate educational plans. Tver's "Karl Marx University of Proletarian Culture," founded at a provincial Proletkult conference in 1919, is a good example. From the very beginning the local Narkompros division jointly sponsored the project and the school opened its doors to white-collar employees as well as to industrial workers and peasants. The curriculum, which was hardly innovative, included classes in foreign languages, economics, and accounting.^[31]

These provincial experiments distressed Bogdanov because he felt they corrupted his image of proletarian science. Most of the new institutions really did not deserve the name they gave themselves, he complained. They were just "people's universities" offering basic educational courses to a variety of social classes. Although there was certainly nothing wrong with such an endeavor, it hardly contributed to the development of a new science. His own curriculum was not intended as a rigid system, but in order to earn the title of proletarian university an institution had to attempt to unify and reassess scientific knowledge.^[32]

With their efforts to create unique proletarian institutions of higher learning largely frustrated, central Proletkult leaders began to pursue a different course. They proposed that local groups open "science studios," similar to the artistic workshops that most already offered. Mariia Smit, an enthusiastic advocate of proletarian science, gave a detailed description of these circles at the Proletkult national congress in 1920. They were to attract some forty to fifty participants, all from the industrial proletariat. Ideally, these workers were to have long years of factory experience behind them that had earned them leading roles in the labor movement. Because of the nature of the subject matter, Smit conceded that the in-

[31] Pervaia Tverskaia gubernskaia konferentsiia , p. 55; Proletkul't (Tver), no. 1/2 (1919), pp. 43, 47. See similar accounts of other provincial efforts in Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 13/14 (1920), p. 89; no. 15/16 (1920), p. 87.

[32] A. A. Bogdanov, "O provintsial'nykh proletarskikh universitetakh," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 9/10 (1919), pp. 53–56.

structors would most likely have to be intellectuals, but she insisted that they be Marxists with close ties to factory labor. She also sketched out the curriculum: a very modified version of the program for proletarian universities. Students would be introduced to mathematics, physics, technology, biology, political economy, and the theories of proletarian culture.^[33]

Science studios were never very popular with local organizations, perhaps in part because the center only proposed them just as the Proletkult began its rapid decline at the end of 1920. They obviously also posed burdensome staffing problems for groups that already lacked skilled personnel. In addition, the intended clientele was the most advanced and politically sophisticated workers, a commodity always in short supply.

Spontaneous attempts to start science divisions in the provinces came up with many of the same results as provincial proletarian universities. They were long on introduction and short on synthesis. The science section in the Smolensk Proletkult, for example, claimed that it would "eradicate the division between science and labor and investigate new scientific methods."^[34] But its practice did not bear out these promises. A group of local teachers and doctors gave lectures on biology, bacteriology, and sanitary problems, along with discussions about current problems, such as "Why We Don't Have Bread."^[35]

Bogdanov's reaction to local programs of this sort was predictably negative. He personally censured the work of the "Socialist Education Division" in the Petrograd Proletkult, which offered classes in foreign languages, mechanics, and construction.^[36] At a Proletkult central committee meeting in

[33] M. N. Smit, "Blizhaishchie etapy proletarskoi kul'tury," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), pp. 32–40; on Bogdanov and science studios see Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 20/21 (1921), p. 36.

[34] "Provintsial'nye proletkul'ty," Narodnoe obrazovanie , no. 31 (1919), p. 21.

[35] "Zerkalo studii," Trud i tvorchestvo , no. 1 (1919), p. 14.

[36] "Otchet o deiatel'nosti otdela obshchesotsialisticheskogo obrazovaniia za pervoe polugodie 1919 goda," Griadushchee , no. 5/6 (1919), pp. 30–31.

August 1919 Bogdanov argued that there was nothing at all socialist about the division's curriculum. He was particularly offended by the group's plan to take a trip to America to study technology. Following Bogdanov's recommendations, the central committee directed that the division be closed without delay.^[37]

The development of proletarian science was resisted on many levels; it was stymied by the hostility of state organs, by staffing problems, and also by the commonplace tastes of local members and teachers. Although the issue remained on the Proletkult's agenda, the methods for its realization were constantly scaled down. A handful of local science studios took shape during the first years of the New Economic Policy, but they were short-lived and offered a very small range of courses.^[38] At the national level a central science circle opened in 1921. Although sponsored by the central committee, it had none of the ambitions of Bogdanov's proletarian university. Most of the courses were in the arts and political education; only a handful touched on the natural sciences. The overarching interdisciplinary courses, which were the trademark of Bogdanov's inventive curriculum, were missing altogether.^[39]

Proletkult organizers finally turned to workers' clubs as the primary vehicle to impart scientific education. These popular institutions could reach a larger audience than either the Proletkult studios or the universities and thus seemed to be able to bring the promise of a new science to the masses. Yet by the time the Proletkultists set out on this course during the New Economic Policy their educational agenda had shrunk yet

[37] August 12, 1919, Proletkult central committee meeting, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, l. 69.

[38] For a discussion of local studios see the Proletkult plenum, June 28, 1922, TsGA RSFSR f. 2313, op. 1, d. 19, ll. 22–22 ob.; for the curriculum of the Rzhev science studio see Gorn , no. 6 (1922), pp. 155–56.

[39] For the course plan see "Otchet po rabotam Nauchnoi Kollegii," Gorn , no. 8 (1923), p. 238.

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again. The courses they proposed dealt with the rudiments of socialist theory, economic planning, and rational labor practices.^[40] This was hardly an education for utopia that would shatter conventional perceptions of the world.

The Proletarian Family

In their writings on social values and social mores Proletkult theorists emerged as thoughtful critics of the proletarian family, which they felt inculcated the class-alien values of careerism, competition, and individualism. Proletkult analyses revealed a clear understanding of the influence of the family on social behavior. However, they also exposed a deep hostility to the privacy of the home and hearth. The family was viewed primarily as a negative force that posed a powerful threat to proletarian collectivism. Thus Proletkultists proposed to circumvent the family by drawing all family members into the public, collective world of the labor movement.

Before 1917 the Russian socialist movement, like its European counterparts, gave scant attention to family issues. It was widely held that the emancipation of women would inevitably follow in the wake of a socialist revolution, just as expanding labor opportunities for women would restructure family patterns. In the meantime most Russian socialists did not believe that these problems were of burning importance. Only with great difficulty and perseverance did some women organizers convince the Social Democratic Party to develop programs geared specifically to women workers.^[41]

[40] See, for example, "Obshchestvenno-nauchnyi kruzhok," Rabochii klub , no. 1 (1924), pp. 5–9; and V. F. Pletnev, Rabochii klub: Printsipy i metody ego raboty , 2d ed. (Moscow, 1925), pp. 22–38. For more on club education during the New Economic Policy see Chapter 8.

[41] On the organizing efforts of the Social Democratic Party among working women see Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton, 1978), esp. pp. 233–78; Rose L. Glickman, "The Russian Factory Woman, 1880–1914," in Women in Russia , ed. Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, and Gail Lapidus (Stanford, 1977), pp. 79–83; idem, Russian Factory Women: Workplace and Society, 1880–1914 (Berkeley, 1984), pp. 242–80; and Anne Bobroff, "The Bolsheviks and Working Women, 1905–1920," Soviet Studies , vol. 26, no. 4 (1974), pp. 540–67.

Radicals in the Proletkult had a better record on these issues than many of their Bolshevik counterparts. Although the student participants at the Capri and Bologna schools were all men, Aleksandra Kollontai came to Bologna to lecture on agitation among women workers.^[42] In his Vperedist writings Aleksandr Bogdanov attacked the narrowness of proletarian family life. His utopian novel Red Star, written to popularize his political and social theories, was in part about the redefinition of sexual roles he felt the revolution would bring. Children were raised communally on socialist Mars. Women, freed from the tyranny of the home, held the same jobs as men and even looked similar to them. The Martian Netti, the book's heroine, was a gifted doctor and intergalactic explorer. Bogdanov's utopia held no place for the nuclear family.^[43]

When the Bolsheviks came to power, they made the family a key part of their broad social agenda by purging family law of its most oppressive qualities. Divorce was simplified, abortion legalized, and economic provisions dictated equal pay for equal work. Women activists founded a special division of the Communist Party, the Zhenotdel, to ensure that women were informed of their new rights and encouraged to take leadership roles.^[44] These measures met resistance from men, who

[42] S. Livshits, "Partiinaia shkola v Bolon'e, 1910–1911 gg.," Proletarskaia revoliutsiia , no. 3 (1926), p. 133.

[43] Bogdanov's 1911 article, "Sotsializm v nastoiashchem," addressed family matters. See Bogdanov, O proletarskoi kul'ture , pp. 94–99. See also Bogdanov, Red Star , pp. 23–140, esp. pp. 68–74.

[44] On the Zhenotdel see Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia , pp. 317–46; Carol Eubanks Hayden, "The Zhenotdel and the Bolshevik Party," Russian History , vol. 3, no. 2 (1976), pp. 150–73; and idem, "Feminism and Bolshevism: The Zhenotdel and the Politics of Women's Emancipation in Russia, 1917–1930" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1979).

were reluctant to give up their privileged position inside and outside the home, and also from women, who saw state measures as a frightening threat to the security that marriage had provided.^[45] But for some, like the Bolshevik feminist Aleksandra Kollontai, the revolutionary programs did not go far enough. Like Bogdanov, she envisioned a society where the nuclear family would no longer be a social necessity.^[46]

In the early Soviet debate on the family's future many Proletkult members sided with the radicals. They wanted to see the family's social functions, and particularly its child-rearing responsibilities, replaced by public organs, a course that would lead to the end of the old family. However, there was a curious gap between ends and means. Neither national nor local organizations developed realistic programs to implement their ideas. Bogdanov's own views were symptomatic. Although he offered a cogent criticism of the family's debilitating power,^[47] he did not suggest how to move from the individualist tyranny of the old system to the communalist society depicted in his novels.

The failure of Proletkult organizations to place the proletarian family at the center of their practice was in part owing to these organizations' roots in the prerevolutionary socialist movement. Many local groups grew from a base in union and

[45] On the social consequences of Bolshevik family laws see Barbara Evans Clements, "The Birth of the New Soviet Woman," in Bolshevik Culture , ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, 1985), pp. 220–37; Beatrice Farnsworth, "Village Women Experience the Revolution," in Gleason, Kenez, and Stites, Bolshevik Culture , pp. 238–60; and Wendy Goldman, "Freedom and its Consequences: The Debate on the Soviet Family Code of 1926," Russian History , vol. 11, no. 4 (1984), pp. 362–88.

[46] Barbara Evans Clements, Bolshevik Feminist: The Life of Aleksandra Kollontai (Bloomington, 1979), pp. 149–77, 225–41; and Alexandra Kollontai, Selected Writings , ed. and trans. Alix Holt (New York, 1977), pp. 113–50, 201–92. For a broad range of contemporary views on the family see William G. Rosenberg, ed., Bolshevik Visions (Ann Arbor, 1984), pp. 73–141.

[47] See A. A. Bogdanov, Elementy proletarskoi kul'tury v razvitii rabochego klassa (Moscow, 1920), pp. 48–49.

factory clubs, which served mainly a male clientele. Efforts to solicit female participation before 1917 had been at best half-hearted.^[48] Numerous Proletkultists retained these views after the revolution. When Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii examined the role of Proletkult clubs at the first national conference in 1918, he assumed that they would serve as a refuge from the family. He argued that each club needed a library because workers' apartments were too small and dark and the eager learner was too often interrupted by the noise of children. "It is imperative to create an atmosphere in the club where a person can learn to work in public life, freed from the clutches of petty family life."^[49] Just what would happen to those left behind in the dismal, noisy apartment—presumably women and children—did not seem to concern him.

Proletkult artistic products reinforced this image of the working class and its institutions as an adult male sphere. The most common representation of the worker evoked in verse, placards, and song was the mighty male blacksmith with muscled arms and calloused hands, a recurrent theme in Western European socialist art as well.^[50] The only family that really mattered was the surrogate family of the working class, with the conviviality of the shop floor and the warmth of workers' organizations. This surrogate family was almost exclusively a male preserve. Women and children were minor, almost missing, themes in the factory-centered thematic of Proletkult creation. "I am the son of labor," proclaimed one proletarian author.^[51] Mikhail Gerasimov reserved his most tender lyrics for the workplace. In one poem he evoked his beloved factory under its kerchief of smoke with its melodious steel voice.^[52] It was the factory, not a woman, that was the

[48] See I. N. Kubikov, "Uchastie zhenshchin-rabotnits v klubakh," Vestnik kul'tury i svobody , no. 2 (1918), pp. 34–37.

[49] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , p. 96.

[50] On Western European imagery see Eric Hobsbawm, "Man and Woman in Socialist Iconography," History Workshop Journal , no. 6 (1978), pp. 121–38.

[51] Martyn, "Ia syn truda," Krasnoe utro , no. 1 (1919), p. 18.

[52] Mikhail Gerasimov, "Vozvrashchenie," in Stikhotvoreniia , by Mikhail Gerasimov (Moscow, 1959), pp. 95–96.

object of his desire. In other works women only served to restrain male action in the world, as in the popular Civil War play Don't Go (Ne khodi ), in which the heroine begged her husband not to join the Red Army.^[53]

Because Proletkult leaders presented the organization as the cultural vanguard of the working class, they had no pressing reason to find an innovative way to restructure the family. The movement could only include the family if it extended itself to women workers, but women were traditionally much less skilled members of the proletariat. Russian working women also had very poor literacy levels because they had had far fewer educational opportunities open to them before the revolution. The prejudices of parents, fellow workers, and even women themselves often led to the attitude that female education was an unnecessary luxury.^[54] For many male workers and political activists women remained a symbol of the unformed, superstitious attitudes that the working class had to leave behind.^[55]

The solutions Proletkult participants devised to transform the proletarian family revealed the privileged position they tendered the male-dominated world of socialist institutions and also their deep-seated suspicions of female authority inside the home. They aimed to minimize the family's power by drawing women and children into the Proletkult and, wherever possible, by replacing private tasks with public ones. This policy would serve a dual function; it would reeducate women to accept their new role under socialism while limiting the family's ability to distort the values of future generations.

Discussions about the family were often really discussions about women and the power that they had to destroy the goals

[53] See "Khronika Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 20/ 21, p. 53. For a similar view of women see Il'ia Sadof'ev, "Nashel," Griadushchee , no. 12/13 (1920), pp. 4–8.

[54] Glickman, Russian Factory Women , pp. 132–45.

[55] See S. A. Smith, Red Petrograd (Cambridge, Eng., 1983), pp. 192–97; and Clements, "The Birth of the New Soviet Woman," pp. 220–25.

of the revolution. Numerous Proletkult commentators insisted that women had to be taught to value what the revolution had to offer them.^[56] Most important, female participants had to learn to change their limited perspective on society, the family, and the home because women were the main inculcators of class-alien values. As one orator at the national congress in 1918 insisted, the best way to eradicate petty-bourgeois attitudes in daily life was to reeducate women in Proletkult programs.^[57]

Yet even the most modest step in this program, encouraging women workers and working-class wives to join Proletkult activities, was not seriously addressed by many local organizations. A handful of intellectual women headed important local groups and earned a place on the national governing board, but local records show that female participants were always in the minority.^[58] When P. N. Zubova joined a theatrical troupe touring the front lines in 1920, only two other women accompanied her.^[59] Some groups had no female members at all.^[60]

Those organizations with a more successful record of female participation made a special effort to gain women's interest. The Proletkult in Kostroma, a textile town with a high percentage of women workers, had fairly high female participation rates in its main club. The club organizer, M. A. Rostopchina, made sure that the agitators who tried to get women to join were women themselves, and she also planned

[56] See, for example, Ivan Knizhnik, "Na grany novoi kul'tury," Griadushchee , no. 11 (1920), p. 2; I. Fuks, "Rabotnitsa v svete novoi kul'ture," Griadushchaia kul'tura , no. 3 (1919), pp. 14–15; and P. Rabochii, "Zhenskoe tvorchestvo," Zori griadushchego , no. 1 (1922), pp. 121–22.

[57] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 98–99.

[58] See, for example, "Svedeniia o studiitsakh Izhevskogo Proletkul'ta," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1221, l. 73; and "Spisok studiitsev," Tver, 1921, d. 1525, ll. 66–69.

[59] "Vospominaniia P. N. Zubovoi," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 2, d. 14, l. 3.

[60] Proletkul't (Tver), no. 3/4 (1919), p. 54.

special reading circles aimed specifically at women workers. According to published participation figures these efforts bore fruit. In the beginning most club users were male, but soon the number of women rose until they constituted 35 percent of the members and on any given day might make up 40 percent of those using club facilities.^[61]

The Tula Proletkult initially also reached out to include female members. Vasilii Ignatov and his collaborator, the local party leader Grigorii Kaminskii, appealed directly to women in the organization's first announcement:

Comrade women workers! If in the past you were beaten down and exhausted, now even for you a new day has begun. Now you, together with your fathers, husbands, and brothers, can take part in the building of a new Communist life with equal rights. Don't turn away from them. Don't shut yourself off as you once did in your rooms, corners, and basements. Come bravely to your Proletkult. Give it your leisure time and take a creative part in building class cultural values. Come, and don't be ashamed of your age, your semiliteracy, or even your complete illiteracy.^[62]

The elaborate membership rules drawn up in early 1919 censured male behavior that might offend women, such as rude language, teasing, and the use of insulting nicknames.^[63]

But experiences in Tula illustrated that it took more than progressive rules or posters to raise female participation figures. Although the Tula organization quickly developed diverse cultural studios, among them even a workshop for circus techniques, there was no general educational division and no literacy programs for those semiliterate women to whom

[61] M. Rostopchina, "Kul'tura nasha," Sbornik Kostromskogo Proletkul'ta , no. 1 (1919), pp. 8–10, 15, 19–20, 28–29.

[62] "Ot Proletkul'ta k Tul'skomu proletariatu," 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1536, l. 74. On the drafting of this appeal see N. A. Milonov, "O deiatel'nosti Tul'skogo Proletkul'ta," in Aktual'nye voprosy istorii literatury , ed. Z. I. Levinson, N. A. Milonov, and A. F. Sergeicheva (Tula, 1969), p. 147.

[63] "Ustav," 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1536, l. 1.

the poster was addressed. In 1921 only eight out of fifty-four studio participants were women.^[64]

Faced with evidence of low female participation, some of the movement's members fell back on the common panaceas prevalent in early Soviet writings on the family: as socialism took hold and technology evolved, family problems would automatically be resolved. "Even now the woman worker remains in very bad conditions," lamented one writer in Tambov, "and it is our responsibility to try to free her from them." But the only solution the author proposed was the vague hope that machines would someday take over women's more unpleasant household tasks, like mending and laundry.^[65]

Although the status of women remained a marginal issue for many members, the fate of proletarian children sparked more interest. Women embodied all the problems of the past, but children were the hope of the future. When addressing the problems of the young, Proletkultists revealed yet another mark against the old family: it inhibited the radical potential of children. In the opinion of one Petrograd activist, Elena Bagdateva, the Proletkult had to become involved in child care to shield young people from the harmful effects of "the petty-bourgeois mother, the money-grubbing father, and the bigoted grandmother."^[66] The school and the workplace should become as important to children as the family. The Moscow Proletkult even passed a "Declaration of Children's Rights," which guaranteed that children could pick their own form of education, their own religion, and could even leave their parents if they chose.^[67] Some took these ideas to their logical conclusion. They wanted the Proletkult to assume responsibility for all proletarian children by taking them from their

[64] Statistics on Tula studio participants, December 15, 1921, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1538, ll. 28–29.

[65] I. Fuks, "Zhenshchina v svete novoi kul'tury," Griadushchaia kul'tura , no. 3 (1919), pp. 14–15, quotation p. 14.

[66] E. Bagdat'eva, "Detskii Proletkul't," Griadushchee , no. 6 (1918), p. 14.

[67] Moskovskaia konferentsiia , p. 39.

homes at an early age. This was necessary, according to one male participant, in order to combat the conservative influence of their parents, especially their mothers.^[68]

Such grandiose schemes far surpassed Proletkult resources and would hardly have been sanctioned by either Narkompros or working-class families themselves. A more modest course taken by some local circles was to open special "Children's Proletkults" (Detskie Proletkul'ty ), which catered to young people ages eight to sixteen. The most successful of these opened in Tula in 1919.^[69] It even published its own newspaper, staffed and edited by the young participants themselves.

The contents of the Tula paper, titled Children's Proletkult (Detskii Proletkul't) , reveal young people's hostility to the confines of conventional family life. Enthusiastic revolutionary youths expressed their hopes for a special proletarian culture for children that would be based on a highly developed sense of children's self-worth and autonomy. In these articles children and youth appeared as the real revolutionaries who needed to inspire recalcitrant, backward adults to revolutionary acts. "We have to do more than awaken and organize other children," wrote one fourteen-year-old girl. "We have to awaken and organize our fathers, mothers, older brothers, and sisters to come to the defense of the revolution."^[70] According to the organization's young leader, Dmitrii Pozhidaev, the Children's Proletkult would liberate young people from the despotism of the petty-bourgeois family and give them useful social tasks.^[71]

Although no other provincial organization developed a net-

[68] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 62–717, 53.

[69] Report from V. V. Ignatov, July 8, 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1538, ll.9 ob.–10.

[70] Aleksandra Vagina, "Tovarishchi-deti," Detskii Proletkul't , no. 4 (1920), p. 2; see also A. Sokolova, "K rabochim," ibid., no. 1 (1919), p. 3.

[71] D. Pozhidaev, "Detskii gubernskii Proletkul't," Proletarskoe stroitel'stvo , no. 2 (1919), pp. 28–29.

work as large as Tula's, many sponsored special activities for children. The Rybinsk and Syzran Proletkults had separate children's sectors, and the Tver, Rzhev, Vladikavkaz, and Pushkinskii raion groups opened children's studios.^[72] Some factory circles supported child-care facilities. According to one organizer in Cheliabinsk, the most enthusiastic response to his attempt to found a Proletkult came from the female secretary of the local soviet, who told him that mothers wanted to start groups for their children.^[73]

None of this, however, amounted to a consistent or coherent policy. Proletkult programs were simply not equal to the colossal task of social transformation. Like many other early Soviet radicals, Proletkult organizers assumed that the family would wither away on its own as its basic child-rearing tasks were assumed by state and workers' institutions. "It seemed to us that the bourgeois world had crashed down and that its remains—former family and property relations, the dependence of women, and even the 'domestic economy'—were already buried forever," reminisced a woman who had attended the first Zhenotdel congress in 1918. "Reading the reports and resolutions of this congress now, one is simply astonished [to see] the ease with which they projected the complete transformation of the old world, state sponsored child-rearing, changes in marital relations, the destruction of the domestic economy, and so on."^[74]

By the start of the New Economic Policy it was obvious that

[72] Local questionnaires from Rybinsk, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 117,ll.96–97; from Syran, d. 114, l.125; and from Tver, d. 1527, l.55. For Rzhev see Griadushchee , no. 9/12 (1921), p. 100; and for Vladikavkaz see Proletkul't (Vladikavkaz), no. 1 (1919), p. 13.

[73] There were child-care facilities at the Tula Armaments Works and the Tomna factory in Kineshma; see the local questionnaires in TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1540, ll. 4–4 ob. and d. 117, l.34. On efforts to start child-care in Cheliabinsk see the May 25, 1920, report by a local organizer, d. 1238, l.5 ob.

[74] V. Golubeva, "Vserossiiskii s"ezd rabotnits i krest'ianok," Kornmunistka , no. 11 (1923), p. 18. See also Hayden, "Feminism and Bolshevism," p. 139.

old social mores could not be so easily uprooted. The state was not going to take over all of the home's functions, and the family would not melt away on its own. Only then did Proletkultists begin to take the need for pragmatic measures more seriously, rather than loudly predicting the family's demise. Focusing their efforts primarily on workers' clubs, Proletkult organizers tried to devise methods to increase female participation, such as offering day-care centers and special discussion groups that addressed women's needs. Once in the club women would be taught about socialism and the accomplishments of the revolution and would also receive special courses in child-rearing.^[75]

Most of these suggestions hardly challenged socially accepted gender roles; women were exhorted to become better socialists by becoming better socialist mothers. Rather than proposing that men assume part of the onerous burden of housework, Proletkult literature suggested that women form collective kitchens and rationalize their labor in the home. These proposals were light years away from the world of Bogdanov's Martian heroine, but they did acknowledge that the working class was made up of both men and women, something earlier proletarian circles had been loath to do.

Clubs—The Public Hearth

During the early Soviet years Proletkultists looked more and more to clubs as their major tool to transform social habits and values. There is a certain irony in this approach because, unlike proletarian universities, clubs were not utopian constructs. Instead they were old and venerable working-class institutions. They had served as an important focal point in workers' political and cultural lives long before the October

[75] See, for example, V. F. Pletnev, "Zadachi i metody raboty kruzhka po bytu," Rabochii klub , no. 1 (1924), pp. 29–31; and M. R. [M. A. Rostopchina], "Rabota kluba po bytovom fronte," Rabochii klub , no. 2 (1924), pp. 37–38.

Revolution because they provided a place to gather, hear lectures, read books, and, if need be, to disguise political activity under the cover of cultural work. In the first years of Soviet power clubs were very popular and were sponsored by an impressive array of local groups.^[76] Many Proletkults, including the first organization in Petrograd, owed their existence in large part to the efforts of club members.

Clubs appealed to Proletkult activists because they could link cultural creation to issues that directly affected workers' daily lives. During the hard years of the Civil War clubs served as a home away from home for many laborers facing rapidly deteriorating Diving conditions.^[77] They offered food, warmth, and conviviality in a period of great social dislocation. The hostility that Proletkult theorists already felt for the privacy of the home and the individualism of family values was transformed into a positive endorsement of clubs as a "public hearth" (obshchestvennyi ochag ).^[78] For some, clubs served as a model for the future socialist society.^[79]

Because of their ties to local communities, clubs were attractive to many national institutions seeking a closer rela-

[76] On clubs in the revolutionary period see G. E. Bylin, "Rabochie kluby i kul'turno-prosvetitel'nye komissii profsoiuzov i fabzavkomov Petrograda v mirnyi period razvitiia revoliutsii," Uchenye zapiski VPSh VTsSPS , vol. 2 (1970), pp. 108–18; Gabriele Gorzka, "Proletarian Culture in Practice: Workers' Clubs in the Period 1917–1921," in Essays in Soviet History , ed. J. W. Strong (forthcoming); A. K. Kolesova, "Deiatel'nost' rabochikh klubov po Kommunisticheskomu vospitaniiu trudiashchikhsia v 1917–1923 gg." (Candidate dissertation, Moscow State University, 1969); idem, "Prakticheskaia deiatel'nost' rabochego kluba v 1917–1920 godakh," Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul' tury , vol. 17 (1968), pp. 231–49; and I. N. Kubikov, "Rabochie kluby v Petrograde," Vestnik kul'tury i svobody , no. 1 (1918), pp. 34–37.

[77] Gorzka, "Proletarian Culture in Practice." See also idem, "Alltag der städtischen Arbeiterschaft in Sowjetrussland, 1918–1921," Archiv für Sozialgeschichte , no. 25 (1985), pp. 137–57.

[78] The term is Mikhail Zverev's, "Klub ili obshchestvennyi ochag," Griadushchee , no. 5/6 (1919), p. 23.

[79] Stefan Krivtsov, Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , p. 90; and A., "Rabochie kluby," Proletkul't (Vladikavkaz), no. 1 (1919), p. 15.

tionship to the laboring population and to the industrial proletariat in particular. During the Civil War and the first years of the New Economic Policy Narkompros, the Communist Party, the national union organization, and the Proletkult all competed for influence in club networks in order to forge links to "the broad mass of workers." Because most clubs offered some form of lectures and classes, they were an attractive vehicle for those who wished to imbue the masses with the new socialist spirit.

Initially, Proletkultists advocated a loose affiliation with existing clubs in the hope that the clubs could serve as a training ground for their activities. Delegates to the Moscow Proletkult conference in February 1918 argued that city clubs could prepare members for more rigorous creative activity. They should have tea rooms, cafeterias, and reading rooms for general use. The Proletkult's job would be to oversee cultural work in these independent bodies, which would be tied to, but not part of, its own apparatus.^[80]

However, this path proved too modest for the central leaders, who quickly outlined an ambitious plan for a special kind of Proletkult club. Fedor Kalinin proposed an ideal intellectual environment, almost like a small university, where workers could find information on union affairs, government programs, and legal problems. Clubs would offer myriad cultural stimuli and studios as well as lectures and study circles. The range of activities was to be so broad that Kalinin called the club "a universal studio for the practical realization of the proletarian cultural program, a living laboratory that embraces all aspects of workers' lives."^[81] In other words, he hoped to turn the club into an intensive study center, leaving little time for leisure. This distinctive approach gained an official stamp of approval at the first national conference in 1918. Local organizations were advised to form a special club

[80] Moskovskaia konferentsiia , pp. 8–14.

[81] F. Kalinin, "Rabochii klub," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 2 (1918), pp. 13–15, quotation p. 13.

division (klubnyi otdel or klubo ) and start their own clubs, which would serve as "the heartbeat and brain of the working class."^[82]

According to central guidelines Proletkult clubs had to provide extensive educational services, including classes in the social sciences, art history, law, and socialist theory. In addition, they were supposed to offer a broad array of creative artistic workshops.^[83] Yet another crucial function of the club was the transformation of daily life (byt ) to reflect the values of socialism. In this area, however, the center issued no specific instructions; presumably, new patterns of social interaction and collectivity would emerge in the laboratory of the club itself.

The national organization devoted considerable resources to club expansion, even financing groups that were not formally part of the Proletkult network.^[84] Its ambitious demands for highly structured programs encouraged some local organizations to try to centralize all proletarian clubs under Proletkult control, including those sponsored by other organizations. Such actions, however, met concerted opposition, particularly from the Adult Education Division in Narkompros. The Petrograd Proletkult, for example, founded a club division that helped to supply some 120 city clubs in 1919.^[85] But Narkompros quickly challenged the Proletkult's role and installed itself as the main coordinator of city clubs by the following year.^[86]

[82] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 49, 90–100, quotation p. 90.

[83] See "Primernyi ustav rabochego kluba," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 7/8 (1919), pp. 62–67.

[84] See, for example, the discussion on funding for the Moscow club "Third International," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, ll.35, 37.

[85] "Rezoliutsiia klubnoi sektsii po dokladu t. Kudelli," Griadushchee , no. 5/6 (1919), pp. 28–29; and Vneshkol'noe obrazovanie (Petrograd), no. 4/5 (1919), pp. 70–71.

[86] Petrogradskaia obshchegorodskaia konferentsiia rabochikh klubov: Stenograficheskii otchet (Petrograd, 1920), pp. 3, 12. For a similar conflict in Moscow see Vladimir Faidysh's March 10, 1919, report in the Moscow Proletkult, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 35, l.2; lzvestiia TslK , January 11, 1919, p. 4; and Gorn , no. 2/3 (1919), pp. 126–27.

Efforts at centralization also backfired because they undermined the clubs' community base. The Moscow Proletkult conducted a study of factory clubs in 1920 and concluded that they were not at all well organized: instead of operating disparate, poorly funded groups factories should consolidate their resources and open regional city clubs that could serve several factories at once.^[87] But the cure proved worse than the disease. When club activists formed larger regional circles, they discovered that the new circles were too far away from the workplace and thus were inaccessible to many workers because of the poor state of public transportation. The Moscow division was forced to admit that its rationalization attempts had been a failure.^[88]

One of the best documented and most successful Proletkult circles was the First Workers' Socialist Club in Kostroma. It helped members find apartments, furniture, food, and also served as a general information center.^[89] In addition to these practical functions, it offered lectures on a variety of topics, from physics to agriculture, and also sponsored literacy courses and artistic studios. The published responses of Kostroma club members were filled with enthusiastic praise. "Our comrades fill up the room," wrote one. "The piano starts playing. The telephone rings. The lecturer begins his talk. I listen and absorb everything into my head and try not to lose anything new and bright."^[90]

Although most other circles could not match the variety of Kostroma's programs, they nonetheless were popular gathering spots for the laboring population. Workers and employees supported clubs through dues, payroll deductions, and special

[87] Gorn , no. 2/3 (1919), pp. 126–27; no. 5 (1920), pp. 71–80, 86–87.

[88] Gudki , no. 1 (1919), p. 4; no. 2 (1919), p. 27; and Gorn , no. 5 (1920), pp. 86–87.

[89] M. Rostopchina, "Kul'tura nasha," Sbornik Kostromskogo Proletkul'ta , no. 1 (1919), pp. 6, 10.

[90] "Vpechatleniia rabochikh ot klubnoi zhizni," ibid., p. 36.

fees for public events. Club cafeterias were an important source of food in hungry cities and towns, and when supplies were scarce, attendance suffered. Libraries distributed newspapers, journals, and books, and program committees offered lectures, classes, and discussion groups. At the Kamenka factory "Proletklub" workers and employees took part in artistic circles, literacy courses, and listened to lectures on scientific themes like "What is Electricity?" Popular public readings familiarized members with the works of Tolstoi, Gogol, Lermontov, and even Uncle Tom's Cabin .^[91]

Despite this evidence of a lively network, central organizers were often dissatisfied with local accomplishments. One problem was that many Proletkults had no clubs at all. This was the case in Kolpino and Polekova, even though both had fairly successful artistic studios. The same was true for the larger groups in Archangel and Ekaterinburg.^[92] Organizers directed familiar complaints to Moscow. They did not have the staff, the funds, or the space to open clubs. One Tver activist reported that work there had gotten off to a very slow start because neither of the city's major factories could provide rooms for club activities.^[93]

But existing clubs did not please the critics either. These circles were faulted either because of their "strictly educational" approach or because of the low level of their cultural work. The ideal mix of education, creation, and conviviality was difficult to find.^[94] At the Proletkult club in the Pudemskii factory, Viatka province, there were no lectures or special classes. The only educational component consisted of public readings from Proletarian Culture . Instead, activities revolved around a lively theater that performed classic and contempo-

[91] April 1, 1919, protocol of a local club meeting, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1265, l.25.

[92] Local questionnaires from Kolpino, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 430, l. 93; from Polekova, d. 117, l. 51; from Archangel, d. 117, ll. 77–77 ob.; and from Ekaterinburg, d. 117, ll. 80–80 ob.

[93] "Klubnoe delo v Tveri," Proletkul't (Tver), no. 3/4 (1919), pp. 35–36.

[94] See, for example, P. Knyshov, "O soderzhanii klubnoi raboty," Gorn , no. 4 (1919), pp. 55–57.

rary plays.^[95] In the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Proletkult clubs offered basic educational courses and little else. The organizers complained that they could not sustain creative workshops because there were not enough instructors and the participants were poorly prepared.^[96]

The most serious criticism of all, however, was that local club work was frivolous, thereby perpetuating petty-bourgeois attitudes. In the opinion of central organizers Russian workers' clubs had always been distinguished by their serious nature, as opposed to Western European clubs, which were little more than bars.^[97] This sober view made club workers even more intolerant of groups that served primarily as friendly spots to eat, drink, talk, and, worst of all, dance. Stefan Krivtsov, who wrote frequently on club life in Proletarian Culture , continually railed against circles that served as teahouses, dance halls, "or worse." "In place of a club in Iaroslavl they ended up with a cookhouse," lamented Krivtsov. "The same goes for the club in Petrovsk. They named it after comrade Lenin and it should have the clearest and loftiest goals, such as the unification of workers and the awakening of their interest in and love for art. Instead, they have some sort of free love unions."^[98]

These censorious attitudes only grew more pronounced as the Proletkult faced increasing competition from its cultural rivals. In late 1920 Narkompros transformed its Adult Education Division into the Chief Committee for Political Education, or Glavpolitprosvet, which tried to take control of all forms of club activity.^[99] As the Proletkult's influence began to

[95] Local questionnaire, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 117, l. 58.

[96] "Material k istorii Proletkul'ta," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1245, ll. 6–7; local questionnaire, d. 117, l. 50 ob.

[97] O. Zol', "Kluby—iacheiki proletarskoi klassovoi samodeiatel'nosti," Griadushchee , no. 5 (1918), p. 9; and Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , p. 91.

[98] "Khronika Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 7/8 (1919), p. 68. See also Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 5 (1918), p. 41; no. 6 (1919), p. 34; no. 11/12 (1919), pp. 61–62.

[99] On the formation of Glavpolitprosvet see Fitzpatrick, Commissariat , pp. 186–96. On Glavpolitprosvet and Proletkult club work see A. K. Kolesova, "Preodolenie v deiatel'nosti rabochikh klubov vliianiia oshibochnykh teorii Proletkul'ta," Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul'tury , vol. 15 (1968), p. 317.

wane, its leaders made ever more strident efforts to distinguish their clubs from those of other institutions in order to provide a justification for the Proletkult's continued independence. Proletkult clubs were superior to union and Narkompros circles, argued the central leadership, because they placed creative work at the center of their programs. They alone were committed to changing the patterns of everyday life.^[100] The national leadership explicitly stated that Proletkult clubs were intended to facilitate artistic and scientific discovery, not to meet the rudimentary demands of poorly educated participants.^[101]

The transformation of daily life and daily habits became an ever more common theme for Proletkult club activists, particularly during the first years of the New Economic Policy. Proletkult leaders worried that the reinvigoration of capitalist trading would encourage petty-bourgeois behavior. Clubs, however, could be a bulwark against this danger. They would serve as the "basic creative cell for the proletarianization of daily life."^[102] But in a marked shift from the Civil War years, the values that were to emerge were predefined. In a more forceful fashion than ever before Proletkult organizers prescribed the proper forms of proletarian behavior that the clubs were meant to imbue: mores would change as workers became more punctual, more sober, and more knowledgeable about politics and the economy.

At the heart of Proletkult club work lay curious contradictions. On the one hand, the clubs were the movement's last bastion of experimentation, the places where science, the family, and daily life were to be immutably altered. On the other hand, Proletkult leaders seemed determined to under-

[100] See Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), p. 82.

[101] See "Deklaratsiia, priniataia plenumom Vserossiiskogo Ts. K. Proletkul'ta 19 dekabria 1920," Griadushchee , no. 4/6 (1921), p. 58.

[102] Ibid.

mine the very elements that made these circles popular. Although praising clubs for their ties to the broad masses, Proletkultists called for demanding programs that depended on highly literate and well-prepared participants. Although they valued the clubs' roots in local communities, they tried to centralize and standardize their work. They singled out clubs as the best expression of workers' creativity and independence but nonetheless began to dictate the very values such autonomy was meant to achieve.

Proletkultists were inspired by a vision of the future that lent a utopian fervor to all they undertook. When described by the organization's enthusiasts, even ordinary cultural events like piano lessons and science lectures had the potential to transform the world. Although this transcendent image of the new society was never abandoned, the Proletkult's utopianism was significantly muted during the first years of Soviet power. Proponents of proletarian science moved away from grand schemes; instead they turned to modest courses meant to encourage political awareness and labor discipline. The critics of the family quickly stopped waiting for its demise; they devised limited plans to rationalize household chores. Those who offered a hazy promise of socialist habits and mores recast in the fire of revolution ended up with agitational campaigns to promote sobriety and punctuality.

This loss of revolutionary fervor was not unique to the Proletkult. Communist Party activists who believed they had seen the end of private ownership and private trade had to accept the sobering initiation of the New Economic Policy. The critics of political bureaucracies witnessed a speedy centralization process that set their dream of a stateless society off into the unknown future. The advocates of educational experiments who hoped to erase the distinction between mental and physical labor were challenged by the pragmatic needs of the Soviet economy. Everywhere political activists

raised their voices against utopian luxuries—the luxury of worker-run factories, of egalitarian schooling, and even the "luxury of discussion and argument," Lenin's way to discourage oppositional tendencies within the party.^[103] The Civil War, with its peculiar mix of hardship and heroism, had nurtured radical schemes. But when the hard task of reconstruction began, such schemes seemed oddly unsuited to the task.

The Proletkult's shift in tactics was in part a conscious strategy as its participants came to realize that the revolution would not undermine old social institutions as thoroughly as they had hoped. Rather than vainly predicting the end of the family or blaming women for their backwardness, they chose the slower road of inclusion and education. Instead of starting elaborate and expensive new institutions, they shifted the locus of educational work to their own clubs.

Nonetheless, this new course was not entirely voluntary. Club activists proposed ever more specialized programs as a way to distinguish their work from other groups and thus protect the independence of their circles. Bogdanov's plans for an innovative proletarian university were not even given a chance to be tested. The organization's pragmatism reflected the rapidly shrinking sphere allotted to it by its cultural competitors. By the end of the Civil War both Narkompros and the Communist Party had grown impatient with the Proletkult's ambitious cultural agenda and were eager to expedite its retreat from utopia.

[103] Desiatyi s"ezd Rossiiskoi Kommunisticheskoi partii: Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1921), p. 2.