[71] Proletkul'tvorets , no. 1 (1920), pp. 2–3.
[72] Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 48–49.
[73] Letter from Proletkult president Leonid Tsinovskii, January 24, 1921, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1209, l. 35 ob.
[74] See the Tula Proletkult records for 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1537, l. 44.
[75] "Ot redaktsii," Griadushchaia kul'tura , no. 6/7 (1919), p. 1.
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The movement's official stance on the peasantry reflected the vanguardist visions of the prerevolutionary Bolsheviks, who determined workers' sophistication and consciousness according to their distance from the countryside. However, the revolution and Civil War confused these preconceptions and drastically reformulated class configurations. It was a shift some committed Proletkultists saw quite clearly. Pavel Arskii, a Petrograd leader, proletarian writer, and Red Army soldier, had sympathetic words for the Russian peasantry. "I am your son," he wrote in the 1919 poem "A Worker to a Peasant." "I left my native fields for the kingdom of smoke, iron, and steel." The poem stresses the common interests of the two groups and concludes: "Together we will live as a close and happy family in the new, radiant, and mighty Russia."[76]
Youth
In descriptions of the Proletkult's variegated membership one common denominator stands out—their age. Again and again observers commented on the youthfulness of Proletkult participants. "Young people, freshly arrived in the cities and swept along by the whirlwind of events, were only too ready to accept the simplified ideas of Proletkult extremists," wrote Ilia Ehrenburg in his memoirs of the Civil War years. "I often heard remarks such as 'Why be so complicated? It's all rotten intellectual rubbish.' "[77]
Until the years of the New Economic Policy the national organization did not solicit detailed information about the age of its followers, but many local sources bore witness to the Proletkult's appeal to adolescents and young adults. In the Novotorsk artistic studios 80 percent of the participants were
[76] P. Arskii, "Rabochii krest'ianinu," Mir i chelovek , no. 1 (1919), p. 5.
[77] Ilya Ehrenburg, First Years of Revolution, 1918–1921 , trans. Anna Bostock (London, 1962), p. 175.
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under twenty. The entire acting troupe of the Proletkult theater in the Presnia district of Moscow, one of the oldest proletarian parts of the city, was young. An observer of a local art studio noted that all its members were between the ages of sixteen and twenty.[78] Lecturers and instructors continually remarked on the enthusiasm (and the ignorance) of their young charges.[79] When the central Proletkult finally published age statistics in 1925, the youthful nature of the Proletkult was made overwhelmingly clear; 65 percent of all members were under the age of nineteen.[80]
It is not surprising that the Proletkult excited youthful imaginations. Youth organizations founded in urban centers during the revolution were very interested in cultural and educational work. Urban adolescents were better educated than their parents or their rural counterparts and had both the leisure and the dedication to devote their free time to study and self-improvement. Not yet burdened by family responsibilities, young workers made educational and artistic circles part of urban youth culture.[81] The Proletkult, with its broad offerings of cultural studios, lectures, and festive evenings, gave the young ample opportunities for education, entertainment, and conviviality.
Young people also came to the Proletkult because they were welcome there. Many other proletarian organizations, such as trade unions and factory committees, limited their member-
[78] "Novotorskii Proletkul't," Proletkul't (Tver), no. 1/2, p. 53; Gorn , no. 1 (1918), p. 94; and E. Lozovaia, "O raionnom Moskovskom Proletkul'te," Vestnik zhizni , no. 6/7 (1919), p. 141.
[79] See Serge Wolkonsky, My Reminiscences , trans. A. E. Chamot (London, 1924), vol. 2, p. 220; and V. Mitiushin, "Tesnyi kontakt," Gudki , no. 6 (1919), p. 16.