[41] Fitzpatrick, Commissariat , pp. 306–7; B. Iakovlev, Kritikboets: O P. I. Lebedeve-Polianskom (Moscow, 1960); and Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1929–1936).
[42] See Dietrich Grille, Lenins Rivale (Cologne, 1966), pp. 69–72; and S. Krivtsov, "Pamiati A. A. Bogdanova," Pod znamenem marksizma , no. 4 (1928), p. 185.
[43] See the delegate list for the 1921 national congress, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 144, l. 115; V. I. Lenin o literature i iskusstve , 7th ed., ed. N. Krutikov (Moscow, 1986), p. 709; and I. I. Mints, Istoriia Velikogo Oktiabria (Moscow, 1973), vol. 3, p. 70.
[44] See the delegate list for the 1921 national congress, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 144, l. 116; and Mints, Istoriia , vol. 3, p. 45.
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kult central committee and helped to lead the Moscow organization.[45] Platon Kerzhentsev, another old Bolshevik and accomplished party intellectual, had a seat on the Moscow Proletkult executive committee and initially was one of the chief editors of Proletarian Culture . In addition to his work in the Proletkult, he held posts in Narkompros and the state news agency, ROSTA.[46]
Provincial organizations also placed nonworkers in very powerful positions. Ilia Trainin, a former Vperedist and friend of Lebedev-Polianskii, served on the executive committee of the Samara Proletkult in 1918. His writings are featured prominently in the Samara Proletkult journal, Glow of the Factories .[47] Vladislava Lie, a university-educated communist from a noble background, was the president of the Tver organization.[48] In the town of Belev, Tula province, local Proletkult members elected Valentin Nikolaitsev as their president in 1921. He was a party member, son of a school teacher and a forester, and had studied at Moscow University.[49]
These men and women from the socialist intelligentsia had long careers in cultural and political work behind them. They hardly intended to threaten the "pro-worker" stance of the organization. The Petrograd Proletkult under the leadership of the former worker Aleksei Samobytnik-Mashirov was not more sympathetic to the proletariat than the Tver Proletkult headed by the former noble Vladislava Lie. Indeed, sometimes intellectuals appeared to be the most passionate defenders of workers' interests.
Yet despite their revolutionary sympathies, these intellec-
[45] "Vospominaniia P. N. Zubovoi," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 2, d. 14, 1. 6; and the delegate list for the 1921 national congress, d. 144, l. 123.