Peasants in the Proletkult
Artisans and white-collar employees clearly posed a gray area for those who tried to delineate the boundaries of the working class. These groups often had close ties to the industrial proletariat and individuals within them may even once have been workers themselves. However, the case of the peasantry was less ambiguous. Although the central leaders eventually altered their perception of workers who joined the bureaucracy, their stance on the peasantry was quite unyielding. Peasants had no place in a proletarian organization. The national Proletkult central committee tabled a request by Sergei Esenin and others to open a special section for peasant literature in the Proletkult.[56] It threatened to close down organizations in areas where there was evidence of widespread peasant participation. In addition, its members warned continually of the dangers peasants posed to proletarian class consciousness.
The official Proletkult position on this issue was at odds with the Communist Party line, which advocated an alliance between the poor peasantry and the proletariat. Indeed, Bogdanov seemed to be arguing directly with the Bolshevik platform when he insisted that peasants could not share a proletarian worldview, regardless of how poor they were.[57] However, many local groups articulated a position much closer to the party line, one that reflected what appeared to be
[55] See the 1922–1924 membership figures, "Sostav Proletkul'tov i rukovodiashchikh organov Proletkul'tov," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 121, l. 51.
[56] On Esenin's application see Gordon McVay, Esenin: A Life (Ann Arbor, 1976), p. 105. At a meeting in October 1918 the central Proletkult decided to hand the issue over to the peasant section of the national soviet, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 2, 1. 4.
[57] A. A. Bogdanov, "Nasha kritika," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 3 (1918), p. 13.
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an obvious truth to many participants: under capitalism, both workers and peasants, particularly poor peasants, had been oppressed and thus both were entitled to the cultural benefits of the revolution. "The proletariat is an exploited class struggling for its emancipation," wrote one Proletkultist in the small town of Klin, Moscow province. "It has its own form of comradely cooperation to a high degree. But aren't these traits also inherent in the poor peasantry? Don't they also shape the character of the future art of the peasant masses? Of course they do. Therefore it follows that the art of the future will be the same for both classes.[58]
This perception that worker and peasant interests were intertwined encouraged the proliferation of Proletkult organizations in small towns and villages with negligible working-class populations. The phenomenon was so widespread that the fate of "peasant" and "socially mixed" organizations was a recurring topic of debate for the central leaders. To take one example, a Smolensk organization petitioned to register fifty-eight new Proletkult circles in small rural centers (volosti ) during the summer of 1919. The central Proletkult responded with a decision to turn over all groups with a peasant composition to Narkompros.[59] By the following year national leaders claimed to have closed down many nonproletarian Proletkults and reorganized others to conform to their guidelines.[60]
But if the center intended to purge all branches with strong nonproletarian followings, that process was incomplete. According to national records many rural and small town organizations survived through the 1920 congress.[61] The Prolet-
[58] K. S., "Kul'tura proletariata i bedneishchago krest'ianstva," Zori , no. 1 (1918), p. 3.
[59] Central Proletkult presidium meeting, July 18, 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, l. 58. See also the discussions on March 4 and 19, 1919, in ibid., II. 26, 31.