[33] Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 2 (1918), p. 25 lists the Morosov mansion, Vozdvizhenka 16, as Proletkult headquarters. This building, located near the Lenin Library, is now the House of Friendship.
[34] Zhizn' iskusstv , no. 4 (1918), p. 15; and Dmitrii Vasil'ev-Buglai, "Na fronte v 1918 godu," Sovetskaia muzyka , no. 2 (1940), p. 13.
― 45 ―
ganization. The Division for Proletarian Culture in Narkompros, headed by Kalinin, became a major planning center. When the government moved from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918, the new capital became the center for Proletkult activity. Five representatives from the Moscow group, including Bogdanov and the cooperative activist Stefan Krivtsov, joined the Petrograd leaders Lebedev-Polianskii, Kalinin, Platon Kerzhentsev, and others to plan the organization's first national conference.[35] They drew up the conference agenda, decided which groups should be represented, and sent agitators to the provinces to drum up local support. Through the Proletkult's expanding press, especially Proletarian Culture , they tried to popularize their vision of the Proletkult as an independent cultural institution designed to represent a distinct and limited constituency.
The preparations for the first national conference were elaborate. Soviet newspapers and Proletkult journals announced the agenda and guidelines for participation.[36] Kalinin's Narkompros division distributed mass mailings to provincial cultural circles, along with detailed instructions for propagandists who were sent out to solicit local support.[37] Vasilii Ignatov, the proletarian actor from Petrograd, turned up in Tula in August 1918 to get an endorsement from the provincial Communist Party.[38] In Ivanovo-Voznesensk a member of the organizing committee, E. P. Khersonskaia, appealed to local factory workers to elect delegates for the upcoming meeting.[39]
With much fanfare 330 delegates and 234 guests convened
[35] The other members were N.M. Lukin, E. P. Khersonskaia, and N. M. Vasilevskii, according to the published proceedings of the first national Proletkult conference. See Protokoly pervoi konferentsii .
[36] See Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), pp. 28–29.
[37] "Vsem sovdepam," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 137, 11. 7–8; "Instruktsiia dlia tov. instruktorov po sozyvu Vserossiiskoi konferentsii," ibid., 11. 9–9 ob.
[38] "Vypiska iz protokola Tul'skogo komiteta RKP, 1-ogo avgusta, 1918 g.," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1536, 1.8.
[39] This untitled report was written by a delegate to the first conference, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1245, ll. 4–5.
― 46 ―
in Moscow in September 1918, one of the most difficult stages of the Civil War. Two weeks earlier, a Socialist Revolutionary had tried to assassinate Lenin. Siberia, the Ukraine, and South Russia were in the hands of anti-Soviet forces, and the British had begun their occupation of Archangel. The Red Army had only started to make headway in its campaign along the Volga. Yet these national emergencies did little to mar the festive spirit of the gathering. Delegates enjoyed folk music and revolutionary songs performed by the Moscow organization's new orchestra and heard dramatic readings by the Petrograd Proletkult theater. Pravda reported that the auditorium of the Women's Higher Courses, where the conference was held, was filled to overflowing.[40] Although there is no extant list of conference delegates or the groups they represented, the conference proceedings indicate that they came mainly from working-class organizations—unions, factory circles, clubs, and cooperatives.[41]
The organizational issues that had preoccupied conference planners were among the first items on the program. Lebedev-Polianskii used the opening address to outline his conception of the Proletkult's relationship to the state. He argued in favor of an autonomous Proletkult that would pursue carefully circumscribed cultural tasks.[42] His proposal, which had already been elaborated at length in Proletarian Culture , was opposed from two different sides. On the one hand were those whom one participant called the "maximalists," who believed that the planners' vision was much too modest.[43] On the other