[28] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Polianskii, pseud.], "Pod znamia Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), p. 6.
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sandr Bogdanov, defined the Proletkult as a laboratory and compared its functions to those of the Communist Party. The party was a laboratory for political affairs where the direction of government policies could be planned. "The proletariat's cultural-educational organizations are also laboratories to realize the revolutionary-cultural program of the proletariat on a national level and then, of course, in the world."[29] By choosing this particular description, Proletkult leaders implied that the organization would be a controlled environment that served a restricted following and that studied carefully selected projects. By definition a laboratory was not open to everyone.
There are clear links to the Vperedist platform in this formulation of the Proletkult's mission. This is not surprising because key veterans of that prewar movement—Bogdanov, Lebedev-Polianskii, and Kalinin—all helped to shape it. Rejecting the idea that the Proletkult should educate the entire proletarian population, they hoped to capture the interest of a working-class vanguard particularly suited for their cultural laboratory. Let Narkompros take control of mundane educational concerns; the Proletkult would take charge of cultural creation.
However, this division of cultural terrain was not simply the result of prerevolutionary conceptions. It was reached through dialogue and conflict with Narkompros. The Proletkult's central planners were intelligent enough to realize that if the organization's independence was going to be respected, they would have to limit its power. Thus they backed away from expansive claims, directly contradicting the ideas of many local followers. Participants in Moscow and Petrograd advanced very ambitious schemes, with some members even demanding that the Proletkult become the "ideological leader of all public education and enlightenment."[30] The conception
[29] "K sozyvu Vserossiiskoi kul'turno-prosvetitel'noi konferentsii rabochikh organizatsii," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), p. 27.
[30] Vasilii Ignatov, "Tvorchestvo revoliutsii," Griadushchee , no. 4 (1918), p. 15.
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of the Proletkult as a laboratory, with all the restrictions that this idea implied, tempered these demands and thus marked an astute trade-off with the government. The grandiose vision of the Proletkult as a rival to Narkompros was renounced in return for greater independence from the state.
Forging the National Agenda
The Proletkult was initially well supplied by the new government. In the first half of 1918 Narkompros gave it a budget of over 9,200,000 rubles, compared with 32,500,000 for the entire Adult Education Division.[31] The Petrograd organization received a large and luxurious building, located on a street off Nevsky Prospect, that had formerly been a club for nobles. It was soon rechristened the "Palace of Proletarian Culture," and the street renamed "Proletkult Street" (Ulitsa Proletkul'ta ), a name that remained long after the organization's demise.[32] This pattern was repeated in many other cities and towns. In Moscow the Proletkult took over the mansion of the industrialist Savva Morozov, located on one of the city's major thoroughfares.[33] In the area near Kologriv, Kostroma province, Proletkult groups moved into the manor houses of local nobles. The new Tambov organization occupied the elegant building of the Land Bank.[34]
The state also facilitated the creation of the national or-
[31] Gorbunov, Lenin i Proletkul't , p. 59; N. K. Krupskaia, "God raboty Narodnogo Komissariata Prosveshcheniia," 1918, reprinted in Pedagogicheskie sochineniia v desiati tomakh , by N. K. Krupskaia (Moscow, 1957), vol. 2, p. 93.
[32] "Dekret o natsionalizatsii doma kluba prinadlezhashchego 'Blagorodnomu sobraniiu' v Petrograde i peredache ego Proletkul'tu," February 2, 1918, Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti , vol. 1, pp. 380–81; and D. Zolotnitskii," Teatral'nye studii Proletkul'ta," Teatr i dramaturgiia: Trudy Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta teatra, muzyki i kinematografii , vol. 3 (1971), pp. 135–36.