[3] See Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization (Cambridge, Eng., 1985).
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Russian acronym Narkompros, burgeoned into a complex bureaucratic structure with seventeen different divisions. It sought to control state schools and universities as well as concert halls, theaters, and museums. The Red Army sponsored theaters, reading rooms, and literacy programs. The Central Economic Council (Vesenkha) hoped to control technical education, and the trade unions devised their own cultural divisions. City soviets financed and influenced local schools and artistic centers. In addition, a whole complex of educational societies and circles flourished under the loose collective control of several state bureaucracies.[4] Because the responsibilities of these new groups were not clearly defined, they quickly came into conflict.
All early Soviet institutions struggled against what was called "parallelism," the duplication of services by competing bureaucratic systems. The revolution raised difficult questions about governmental organization that were only slowly answered during the first years of the regime. Political activists disputed the authority of the central state, the role of the Communist Party within it, and the influence national agencies should wield over local groups. Altercations over scarce resources and institutional authority were intertwined with theoretical debates over the ideal structure of the new polity.
Cultural agencies competed for funds, staff, and control of a clearly defined constituency. Who, for example, would be responsible for the cultural life of trade unionists? Individual factories often had their own educational circles, some with long histories, which were separate from union programs.
[4] For a description of these new cultural bureaucracies see Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment (Cambridge, Eng., 1970); A. I. Fomin, "Stanovlenie tsentral'nogo sovetskogo apparata gosudarstvennogo rukovodstva narodnym prosveshcheniem," Voprosy istorii , no. 12 (1976), pp. 17–29; Kenez, Birth of the Propaganda State ; S. S. Tarasova, "Kul'turnoe stroitel'stvo v pervyi god sovetskoi vlasti," in Pobeda Velikoi Oktiabr' skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii , ed. G. N. Golikov (Moscow, 1957); and Mark von Hagen, The Red Army and the Revolution: Soldiers' Politics and State-Building in Soviet Russia, 1917–1930 (forthcoming), chaps. 2 and 3.
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Narkompros had an Adult Education Division (Vneshkol'nyi Otdel ) with special activities for workers.[5] The Central Economic Council wanted to direct workers' technical education, and the Proletkult hoped to gain them as candidates for its artistic and pedagogical projects.
Some disputes, such as the long-running battle between Narkompros, the trade unions, and the Central Economic Council over the purpose of workers' education, were political and philosophical. Narkompros, and particularly its leader, Lunacharskii, wanted school curricula to be broad and well-balanced enough to educate accomplished citizens. Trade unions and Vesenkha, however, were more interested in vocational training that would provide a competent labor force.[6] Other disputes were simply bureaucratic rivalries over power. Disturbed by these wranglings, Nadezhda Krupskaia, head of the Adult Education Division, continually warned cultural workers to avoid the waste and confusion engendered by competing parallel programs.[7] Yet even her solution—to have all other institutions, including the army, unions, and the Proletkult, remove themselves from the field of adult education altogether and give exclusive control to her division—was part of the problem.
These entangled agendas were further confused because national institutions exercised little authority over their local affiliates. Factory workers ignored the careful arrangements devised by central trade unions. Teachers rejected the de-
[5] "Vneshkol'nyi otdel " is usually translated as the "Extra-Mural Educational Division," but I think that Adult Education Division better conveys a sense of its programs. It oversaw libraries, clubs, evening schools, and museum programs aimed primarily at the adult population. On its structure see T. A. Remizova, Kul'turnoprosvetitel'naia rabota v RSFSR, 1917–1925 (Moscow, 1968), p. 6.
[6] On these disputes see Fitzpatrick, Commissariat , esp. pp. 26–88, 210–55; and idem, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union, 1921–1934 (Cambridge, Eng., 1979), pp. 41–63.
[7] See, for example, N. K. Krupskaia, "Organizatsiia komissariatov," from Pravda , 1919, reprinted in Pedagogicheskie sochineniia v desiati tomakh , by N. K. Krupskaia (Moscow, 1957), vol. 2, pp. 99–100.
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tailed curriculum proposals worked out by Narkompros. Complex deals dividing the responsibilities of national bureaucracies, such as those that were eventually arranged between Narkompros and the Proletkult, were disregarded by lower-level organizations. The revolution was initially a centrifugal force that challenged the traditional overcentralization of the old regime. In the postrevolutionary process of state construction central institutions increasingly attempted to reverse the trend, asserting more and more power over their affiliates. Nonetheless, there was still much room for local intransigence, if not local control.
In this contest for cultural influence the Proletkult started in a strong position. The regime needed allies, and Proletkultists were partisans of the new order. For this they were rewarded with funds, physical resources, and the benevolent protection of the cultural commissar, Lunacharskii. Yet as soon as the organization began to act, this early alliance was threatened because the Proletkult laid claim to areas of responsibility that other cultural organizations wanted for themselves.