[6] "Ot redaktsii," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 3 (1918), p. 36.
[7] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Polianskii, pseud.], "Pod znamia Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), pp. 3–7; idem, "Revoliutsiia i kul'turnye zadachi proletariata," Protokoly pervoi Vserossiiskoi konferentsii proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii, 15–20 sentiabria, 1918 g. , ed. P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii (Moscow, 1918), p. 20; idem, "Nashi zadachi i puti," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 7/8, (1919), p. 7; and idem, "Poeziia sovetskoi provintsii," Proletarskaia kul'tura no. 7/8 (1919), pp. 44, 49–50.
[8] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Polianskii, pseud.], "Pod znamia Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), p. 6; see also "Plan organizatsii Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 6 (1919), p. 27.
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most articulate spokesman on this subject, it did not matter that both the working class and the peasantry had been exploited under capitalism. They still engaged in very different labor processes that engendered two different worldviews, two opposing class ideologies. Through the process of factory labor, the proletariat had developed a collectivist consciousness. The peasantry, however, was individualistic, patriarchal, and religious. Therefore it was emotionally and psychologically closer to the bourgeoisie than to the working class.[9]
At times the proponents of class purity assumed a shrill and frightened tone. They seemed to fear that workers' psyches were much too fragile and their class ideologies too uncertain to ward off the temptations posed by other social groups. The only solution, then, was isolation. Mikhail Gerasimov, a popular proletarian poet and a founding member of the organization, gave an impassioned exposition of these views at the national Proletkult conference in 1918, using the industrial imagery so common to Proletkult writers:
We know that the psychology of the peasantry is petty-bourgeois. [Peasants] hide their grain and won't hand it over to urban workers. If there are many petty-bourgeois attitudes among workers now, what can we say about the peasantry? . . . We must found a workers' palace where workers' interests will always be central. We cannot abandon the Proletkult. It is an oasis where our class will (volia ) can crystallize. If we want our furnace to blaze, we must throw coal and oil into the fire, and not the peasants' salt or chips from the intellectuals. Nothing but smoke can come from these.[10]
The national organization's membership rules reflected these restrictive understandings of class and class consciousness. They stated in no uncertain terms that only the most
[9] A. A. Bogdanov, "Nasha kritika," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 3 (1918), p. 13; see also P. Bessal'ko, "O poezii krest'ianskoi i proletarskoi," Griadushchee , no. 7 (1918), pp. 12–14.
[10] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 26–27.
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conscious and culturally advanced industrial workers belonged in the Proletkult. The argument was made by comparing the Proletkult to the Communist Party. Clearly, the party could not let its political line be determined by the least conscious workers because that would not be the best expression of proletarian class interests. If the party descended to the level of the majority, it would forfeit its leadership role. Similarly, the Proletkult could not let its cultural line be determined by the least conscious mass of workers, because it would lose its claim to leadership in the field of culture. It was intended for the cultural vanguard of the working class.[11]
This vision of the Proletkult's constituency proved to be very difficult to put into practice because its rigid social categories contradicted local "languages of class."[12] Membership rules drawn up by provincial organizations illustrate this contradiction quite clearly. In the Parfenev Proletkult, Kostroma province, the local charter allowed the participation of all "toilers" (trudiashchiesia ), a word often used by Socialist Revolutionaries to apply to workers and peasants alike. Tver Proletkultists rejected a suggestion to limit their organization to industrial workers alone and instead extended an invitation to all "laboring and exploited people."[13] Numerous groups offered their services to local "citizens," an expansive social term made popular after the February Revolution. Still others avoided class definitions altogether and linked Proletkult participation to social needs. One factory circle in Ekaterinburg was open to all who wanted to improve their knowledge.[14]
At issue were fundamentally different understandings of