[58] Mgebrov, Zhizn' v teatre , vol. 2, p. 301. On how Mgebrov and Chekan got involved in the Proletkult see Viktoriia Chekan, "O rabochem teatre," Griadushchee , no. 7/8 (1918), pp. 102–3.
[59] Serge Wolkonsky, My Reminiscences , trans. A. E. Chamot (London, 1924), vol. 2, pp. 220–23, 227.
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workers, to their uncomfortable, poor, and cold clubs out of a conscious commitment. . . . The majority went there only to get rations to supplement their paltry wages, which were shrinking because of the inflation."[60]
When intellectuals conveyed their reservations about proletarian culture, they could face close scrutiny from students and organizers. Both Volkonskii and Khodasevich, who openly questioned the Proletkult's mission, complained of harassment and intervention into their classes as a result.[61] However, those who offered their unqualified support could readily work their way up the organizational bureaucracy, taking control of cultural studios and serving on leadership councils. Mgebrov was not only the head of the Petrograd theater division but also an influential member of the local governing board.[62]
Whether they assumed official leadership positions or not, intellectuals' experience earned them cultural authority. For those participants who came to learn a specific skill like drawing or singing, studio instructors could exert more influence over their work than the local leadership did. Despite the supposed restrictions placed on them by governing collectives, instructors and workshop leaders had considerable freedom to shape their offerings according to their own understanding of what proletarian culture was.
As a consequence, artistic and educational programs differed radically from one organization to the next, and even one workshop to the next. In Moscow the music department was largely controlled by Aleksandr Kastalskii and Grigorii Liubimov, who had long histories in workers' artistic programs. Both believed that folk music was the best way to interest the masses in musical training.[63] In Petrograd, by
[60] Igor' Il'inskii, Sam o sebe (Moscow, 1961), pp. 96–97.
[61] Wolkonsky, My Reminiscences , vol. 2, pp. 221–22; and Khodasevich, Literaturnye stat'i , pp. 326–29.
[62] Griadushchee , no. 4 (1919), p. 13.
[63] G. Liubimov, "Narodnye orkestry i ikh znachenie v muzy kal'nom prosveshchenii mass," Gorn , no. 2/3 (1919), pp. 99–105; A. D. Kastal'skii, "K voprosu ob organizatsii muzykal'nykh zaniatii v tsentral'noi studii Moskovskogo Proletkul'ta," in Muzykal'naia zhizn' Moskvy v pervye gody posle Oktiabria , ed. S. R. Stepanova (Moscow, 1972), pp. 283–84.
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contrast, the music division was in the hands of a young composer, Ianis Ozolin, who thought the organization should create revolutionary songs. He and his supporters took a dim view of Moscow's programs, which they found too conservative.[64] In Kologriv, where the music studio was headed by a Petrograd conservatory graduate, Mariia Shipova, the approach was entirely conventional. She taught her students piano, violin, and songs by the classical Russian composers.[65]
This broad range of offerings was not unique to music. The Petrograd Proletkult was greatly influenced by Mgebrov's training in the symbolist theater of Vera Komissarzhevskaia. The main figures in Mgebrov's performances were allegorical ones such as those in the play Legend of the Communard , in which the heroes bore names like "Wisdom" and "Truth."[66] By contrast, the Moscow Proletkult theater was first led by Valentin Smyshliaev, who came from the Moscow Art Theater. His productions bore the unmistakable stamp of Stanislavsky's method acting.[67] In Saratov art courses were led by an avant-garde painter who advocated abstract art.[68] Moscow workshops were split acrimoniously between instructors who taught portrait painting and still lives and the aggressive
[64] See for example Vladimir Kirillov's critique of Moscow's approach in Protokoly pervoi konferentsii , pp. 127–28.
[65] Report on Kologriv music studios, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1278, ll. 13, 22 ob.
[66] On Mgebrov's background see V. E. Rafilovich, ed., Istoriia sovetskogo teatra (Leningrad, 1933), vol. 1, p. 238. For a description of this play see James R. von Geldern, Festivals of the Revolution, 1917–1920: Art and Theater in the Formation of Soviet Culture (forthcoming), chapter 4.
[67] See V. Smyshliaev, "O rabote teatral'nogo otdela Moskovskogo Proletkul'ta," Gorn , no. 1 (1918), p. 54; and idem, "Opyt instsenirovki stikhotvoreniia Verkharna 'Vostanie,'" Gorn , no. 2 (1919), pp. 82–90.
[68] Vzmakhi , no. 2 (1920), p. 81.
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advocates of production art, who believed that conventional forms should be abandoned for techniques more closely tied to industrial production.[69]
The integral involvement of intellectuals in Proletkult work offered the movement many advantages, including an experienced staff and a broad range of artistic influences. As the scattered memoirs of Proletkult participants suggest, members sincerely appreciated the training they received.[70] But these valued skills themselves could prove confining when the old intelligentsia's conception of proletarian culture—whether realist, avant-gardist, or symbolist—determined the content of local work.
Workers' Control?
During the Civil War years many revolutionary hopes for the establishment of proletarian leadership in politics, economics, and social life were disappointed. The government needed the services of intellectuals and experts in order to survive and was willing to compensate them well for their aid. By the end of the war many workers complained about the domination of specialists and bureaucrats in factories, unions, government bureaucracies, and the Communist Party. They protested that the ubiquitous influence of nonworkers marked a betrayal of the proletarian revolution.
The failure of workers' control has been examined most carefully at the factory level.[71] Workers began to take over
[69] See the lively discussion of artistic programs at the central Proletkult meeting, July 5, 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, ll. 52–53 ob. On production art in the Proletkult see Chapter 5.
[70] See Shtraukh, "Dva Sergeia Mikhailovicha," pp. 69–72; "Vospominaniia P. N. Zubovoi," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 2, d. 14; and L. Granat and N. Varzin, Aktery-agitatory, boitsy (Moscow, 1970), pp. 112–76.
[71] See Paul H. Avrich, "The Bolshevik Revolution and Workers' Control in Russian Industry," Slavic Review , vol. 22, no. 1 (1963); William Husband, Workers' Control and Centralization in the Russian Revolution: The Textile Industry of the Central Industrial Region , 1917–1920 , The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies, no. 403 (Pittsburgh, 1985); David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the Fall of the Old Regime (New York, 1983); idem, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power (New York, 1984); Thomas Remington, Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia: Ideology and Industrial Organization, 1917–1921 (Pittsburgh, 1984), pp. 23–47; William G. Rosenberg, "Workers and Workers' Control in the Russian Revolution," History Workshop , no. 5 (1978); idem, "Russian Labor and Bolshevik Power after October," Slavic Review , vol. 44, no. 2 (1985), pp. 213–38; Carmen Sirianni, Workers' Control and Socialist Democracy: The Soviet Experience (London, 1982); and S. A. Smith, Red Petrograd (Cambridge, Eng., 1983).
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factories as a defensive measure to secure jobs when the Russian economy began its long spiral downward on the eve of the February Revolution. From the outset there were many competing definitions of workers' management. Some factories wanted to liquidate all nonproletarian supervisors; in others workers simply hoped to found mechanisms to supervise the administration. As the revolution and Civil War progressed, increasing demands for labor discipline and productivity, coming from the army, the Communist Party, state economic agencies, and unions, narrowed the sphere of proletarian power. This narrowing eventually resulted in the imposition of one-man management and an industrial structure that allowed little room for local governance.
However, the collapse of this movement was not simply the result of state centralization at the expense of proletarian autonomy. Experiments in worker management failed badly in many factories, particularly in those where unskilled labor predominated. Control committees discovered that they lacked the expertise to carry out supervisory tasks.[72] Calls for skilled experts, for increased labor discipline, and for better central management of the economy came from workers themselves as well as from state and party organizations.[73] The condition of the working class, weakened through revolu-