[56] "Kak sozdalsia Tverskoi Proletkul't," Proletkul't: Tverskoi vestnik proletarskoi kul'tury , no. 1/2 (1919), p. 41.
[57] "Proletkul'ty, zaregistrirovannye v 1918 godu," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 117, ll. 40–41. There is some cause to be skeptical about this list. It includes, for example, the Krasnodar regional Proletkult at a time when Ekaterinodar, not yet renamed, was the center for the White Army in the South. Similarly, it includes cities in Siberia that were not yet under Soviet control. Nonetheless, the central Proletkult consistently used this figure in its estimates of organizational expansion and decline. See "Sostav Proletkul'tov i rukovodiashchikh organov Proletkul'ta," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 121, 1. 51; and "Piat' let bor'by za proletarskuiu kul'turu," TsGA RSFSR f. 2313 (Glavpolitprosvet), op. 1, d. 19, 1.48.
[58] "Vserossiiskaia konferentsiia predstavitelei sovetov Proletkul'ta," Griadushchee , no. 1 (1919), p. 19.
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of 1920 the national organization determined that there were some three hundred Proletkults in Soviet Russia.[59] The Petrograd journal The Future (Griadushchee ) claimed an even more impressive network, with 1,384 organizations in all.[60] These vastly different totals show the frustrating inaccuracy of Proletkult records, but the lower figure is a better estimate because it is the one that the national organization repeatedly used.
Provincial branches were not shaped according to a standard pattern. Ideally, they were founded at organizing conferences, such as the ones held in Petrograd and Moscow. However, some began operation without much public participation. On the peripheries of Russia or in the battle zones of the Civil War, new groups opened and closed depending on the success of the Red Armies. In Kiev there were three separate efforts to start a Proletkult from 1918 to 1920.[61] Central organizers sent out from Moscow helped to found a handful of provincial groups, but most were the result of local initiative. Workers who had been mobilized from one town to the next
[59] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Kunavin, pseud.], "Vserossiiskii s"ezd Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), p. 74. On Lebedev-Polianskii's many pseudonyms see "Bibliografiia literaturnykh rabot P. I. Lebedeva-Polianskogo," Literaturnoe nasledstvo , vol. 55 (1947), p. 612.
[60] "Pervyi Vserossiiskii s"ezd Proletkul'tov," Griadushchee , no. 12/13 (1920), p. 21. The main difference is in the number of factory Proletkults; the Griadushchee report includes over eight hundred. Zenovia Sochor suggests that the low figure of three hundred simply excludes factory organizations, thus accounting for the difference. See Sochor, Revolution and Culture , p. 129. However, central lists include factory organizations, and their figures are never as high. Perhaps the larger figure included workers' clubs, which were part of the Proletkult apparatus but not considered independent organizations.
[61] See Proletarskii den' kul'tury: V den' prazdnika kul'tury, 6. avgusta, 1919 (Kiev, 1919), columns 17–19, 22, 26–27; Biulleten' pervoi Kavkazsko-Donskoi konferentsii proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii, 25–28 sentiabria 1920 goda (Armavir, 1920), no. 2, p. 5; and the meeting of the central Proletkult presidium, October 24, 1920, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 6, 1. 92.
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during the Civil War also helped to familiarize the populace with the new organization, and Proletkult agitational troupes performing at the front sometimes inspired local audiences to start circles of their own.[62]
Local unions, factory committees, soviets, Communist Party sectors, and Narkompros divisions all helped to make the Proletkult popular.[63] In various combinations they contributed funding and supplies to help support new organizations. The Tula province soviet gave a small stipend from its budget in 1918 and early 1919.[64] The organization at the Lenin State Sugar Factory in Kursk province got part of its support from the Sugar Workers' Union.[65] The Tambov Proletkult received a modest 2,000 ruble donation from the city's party sector.[66] In the process of expansion local circles also made their own enemies. The Izhevsk Proletkult in Viatka province ran up against opposition from the local party committee, even though many of the leaders were party members.[67] In the Tver province town of Kashin trade union activists insisted that the Proletkult be subordinated to their cultural apparatus.[68]
A dazzling variety of motivations was at work in Proletkult formation. For some groups opening a Proletkult was a way to get funds for preexisting projects, but for others it was an expression of their wholehearted endorsement of the aims of
[62] See the reports of the local response to the Moscow Proletkult's Workers' Theatrical Troupe touring the front lines in 1920, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 393.
[63] For a short list of the groups and individuals responsible for starting twenty-three Proletkult organizations see Gorbunov, "Oktiabr' i nachalo kul'turnoi revoliutsii," p. 66.
[64] Tretii s"ezd sovetov rabochikh, krest'ianskikh i krasnoarmeiskikh deputatov Tul'skoi gubernii (Tula, 1919), pp. 79, 81.
[65] General meeting of the factory organization, May 29, 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1280, 1.6.
[66] Zarevo zavodov , no. 2 (1919), p. 70.
[67] Report of the Izhevsk Proletkult president Kozochkin, 1920, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1221, 1.10 ob.
[68] "Protokol konferentsii Proletkul'ta goroda Kashina," December 9, 1920, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 531, 1.8 ob.
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the central planners. As a result, an institution calling itself a Proletkult could have many functions—an entertainment center, a surrogate Narkompros division, a village club offering literacy classes, or a tightly organized and exclusive factory cell. The flexibility of the Proletkult's identity partially explains its popularity.
It is difficult to determine precisely why people chose to join the Proletkult rather than one of the many other cultural circles available, but proximity surely must have been a factor. In some areas Proletkult organizations began work before state educational agencies and offered the most comprehensive local programs.[69] In large cities like Moscow and Petrograd the Proletkult sponsored a broad network of neighborhood clubs in working-class districts. When the Moscow organization tried to consolidate its clubs into larger and more effective units, participation sank dramatically.[70] Some people may have become members by default. The leadership of the Tula Armament Factory's cultural commission, begun before the October Revolution, petitioned to become a Proletkult organization in 1919 in order to gain additional funds for its theater.[71] As a result, factory theater enthusiasts were transformed into Proletkultists, perhaps without much personal commitment.
The Proletkult's organizational principles clearly inspired local participants. Some embraced Proletkult autonomy and enthusiastically endorsed the movement's independent stance toward the state.[72] The presidium of the Kostroma Proletkult proclaimed that the Narkompros Adult Education Division, as a government organ staffed mainly with intellec-
[69] See the case of Vladikavkaz later in this chapter.
[70] Gorn , no. 2/3 (1919), pp. 126–27; no. 5 (1920), pp. 71–87.
[71] "Poiasnitel'naia zapiska k smete kul'turno-prosvetitel'nogo komiteta Tul'skogo oruzheinogo zavoda," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1536, ll.45–46.
[72] See, for example, reports from Penza, cited in Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 5 (1918), p. 40 and from an organizing conference for the Iurevsk Proletkult, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, March 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1271, 1.4.
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tuals, could not represent the proletariat's needs as well as a working-class organization.[73] According to one commentator small rural towns opened up Proletkults alongside Narkompros divisions because the organizers hoped the Proletkult would offer something better suited to local needs than public education alone.[74] Even Krupskaia, no friend of the Proletkult, conceded in early 1919 that the rival institution held great popular appeal. "It is characteristic that the public turns to the Proletkult and not the Commissariat because we are not tied to the masses."[75]
Despite the center's elaborate organizational goals, it exercised little control over the Proletkult's rapid growth. Requests for money, materials and, most of all, for leaders and staff members came from all kinds of cultural groups. The overwhelmed central committee responded by sending out copies of Proletarian Culture , the Proletkult's organizational plan, and the printed protocols of the first conference. But the committee did not have enough staff to assign to local organizations. Indeed, key leaders were frequently mobilized to the front, including Lebedev-Polianskii himself.[76] Even if the new circles requested help, in most cases they would at best receive a stipend and a packet of materials that they were left to decipher and implement themselves.
With or without central guidance, local enthusiasts devised their own interpretations of the Proletkult's mission. Some clearly saw it as a continuation of the adult education circles that had begun well before the October Revolution. A Kaluga