[14] Report to the central organization, July 29, 1919, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 1279, l. 33.
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hundred posters for the Communist Party, fifty-two for the teachers' union, and three for local cooperatives. In addition, they had produced one hundred portraits of revolutionary leaders. The Tambov Proletkult, which offered very extensive and well-staffed art classes, directed all of its energies to poster design during the Civil War.[15]
Agitational tasks dictated much of the organization's artistic production. Local studios not only made posters and banners but also took part in revolutionary festivals. Proletkult workshops were integrally involved in staging the first celebrations in 1918. On May Day in Petrograd Proletkultists took charge of the Smolnyi Institute and the surrounding square, focal points of the day's festivities. They also planned the opening of their main center, the Palace of Proletarian Culture, to coincide with the holiday. The Moscow Proletkult was just as visible at the first anniversary of the revolution. It decorated central parts of the city and provided entertainment for the high point of the celebration, Lenin's unveiling of a monument to the martyrs of the revolution.[16]
Not restricting themselves to the home front, Proletkult studios took to the road to perform for Red Army troops. The larger organizations in Petrograd, Moscow, Tambov, and Tula organized special "front studios," well equipped with rousing
[15] "Iz otcheta Tul'skogo gubernskogo Proletkul'ta o studiinykh i obshe-organizatsionnykh rabotakh," Proletarskoe stroitel'stvo , no. 2 (1919), pp. 27–28; and V. Mikhailov, Khudozhniki Tambovskogo kraia: Istoricheskii ocherk razvitiia izobrazitel'nogo iskusstva na Tambovshchine (Leningrad, 1976), pp. 45–46.
[16] On festivals in general see Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society (New York, 1981), pp. 161–66; and James R. von Geldern, Festivals of the Revolution, 1917–1920 (forthcoming), especially chapters 1 and 2. On Proletkult involvement see A. Raikhenstein, "1 maia i 7 noiabria 1918 goda v Moskve," in Agitatsionno-massovoe iskusstvo pervykh let Oktiabria , ed. E. A. Speranskaia (Moscow, 1971), pp. 129–30; I. Rostovtseva, "Uchastie khudozhnikov v organizatsii i provedenii prazdnikov 1 maia i 7 noiabria v Petrograde v 1918 godu," in ibid., pp. 40, 63–64; and Vasilii Ignatov, "Otkrytie Dvortsa Proletarskoi Kul'tury," Griadushchee , no. 3 (1918), pp. 4–5.
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theatrical and musical repertoires that toured the front lines during the Civil War.[17] An aspiring young actress, P. N. Zubova, went south with the Moscow Proletkult's Second Front Troupe in the fall of 1920. She recalled her adventures with a sense of excitement, even though she slept on floors in train stations and never got enough to eat.[18] These trips were not without danger. Kotia Mgebrov-Chekhan, the nine-year-old son of the directors of the Petrograd Proletkult theater, was killed as the Petrograd troupe was touring the Western Front.[19]
This ebullient cultural activity did not result in a coherent cultural program. Even the most sympathetic observers remarked on the incipient, preparatory nature of most Proletkult production during the Civil War. As one reviewer of an art exhibit concluded, the paintings did not yet display a new form of cultural creation. Instead, they were "the rich black soil from which a new art will grow."[20]