The Proletkult as Culture Bearer
Of all the criticisms leveled against the Proletkult, the charge of cultural nihilism was the most persistent. Alarmed observers listened to the Proletkult's most radical proponents and concluded that the organization really meant to toss out Russia's cultural heritage and start anew. When Lenin included this accusation in his list of Proletkult sins, it became enshrined in most Soviet scholarship.[21]
[17] "Petrogradskii Proletkul't," Griadushchee , no. 7/8 (1919), p. 30; Griadushchaia kul'tura , no. 6/7 (1919), pp. 1–2, 28; and "Proletkul't i front," Tvori! , no. 1, (1920), p. 19.
[18] "Vospominaniia P. N. Zubovoi," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 2, d. 14, ll.4–5.
[19] A. Gutorovich, "A korolevu otpravim v kabak!" Teatral'naia zhizn' , no. 14 (1966), p. 21.
[20] I. Iasinskii, "Vystavka avtodidaktov," Griadushchee , no. 4 (1918), inside front cover.
[21] V. V. Gorbunov, the foremost Soviet scholar on the Proletkult, calls nihilism one of its major failings, V. I. Lenin i Proletkul't (Moscow, 1974), p. 5. See also G. K. Fedotova, "Prakticheskaia deiatel'nost' Proletkul'ta v oblasti khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti," Sbornik trudov Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul'tury , vol. 23 (1973), p. 136; R. V. Kandaura, "Bor'ba V. I. Lenina i partii protiv vliianiia A. A. Bogdanova na Proletkul't," in Iskusstvo soiuznykh respublik k piatidesiati-letiiu obrazovaniia SSSR (Leningrad, 1972), pp. 35–39; and S. I. Martynova, "Problema kollektivizma v literaturnykh sporakh 20-kh godov," in Problema lichnosti i obshchestva v sovremennoi literature i iskusstve , ed. S. M. Petrov, V. I. Borshchukov, and A. V. Karaganov (Moscow, 1967), pp. 70–75. For a Western study that emphasizes the Proletkult's rejection of Russia's cultural heritage see John E. Bowlt, "Russian Art in the Nineteen Twenties," Soviet Studies , vol. 22, no. 4 (1971), pp. 578–79.
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To be sure, there were extremists in the Proletkult who claimed to reject the accumulated knowledge of prerevolutionary society. "In the name of our tomorrow we will burn the Raphaels, destroy the museums, and trample on the flowers of art," wrote Vladimir Kirillov in "We," the most famous poem associated with the Proletkult.[22] However, this mood of exuberant destruction does not capture the movement as a whole. Bogdanov, much vilified in Soviet sources as a dangerous nihilist, urged workers to study their cultural heritage in order to discover what was important to them and what was not.[23] The programs he helped to structure in Capri, Bologna, and later in the Proletkult had substantial historical components designed to introduce students to cultural tradition and criticism.
The extremely quotable flamboyant statements uttered by some Proletkult participants were often tempered by a more modest recognition that they could not really expect to build their new culture from scratch. "There are no 'older brothers,' " proclaimed the writer Pavel Bessalko. "The workerpoet should create, not study." But he also acknowledged that a real proletarian artist needed to know the history of culture,
[22] Vladimir Kirillov, "My," in Stikhotvoreniia i poemy , by Vladimir Kirillov (Moscow, 1970), p. 35.
[23] See A. A. Bogdanov, "Proletariat i iskusstvo," Protokoly pervoi Vserossiiskoi konferentsii proletarskikh kul'turno-prosvetitel'nykh organizatsii, 15–20 sentiabria, 1918 g. , ed. P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii (Moscow, 1918), p. 76; and idem, O proletarskoi kul'ture, 1904–1924 (Moscow, 1924), pp. 142–57.
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religion, and art.[24] The editors of the Smolensk journal Labor and Creation (Trud i tvorchestvo ) proudly insisted that they would destroy the useless culture of the past in order to build a new one. However, in the very same issue the head of the literary studio announced a contest for the best sonnet, that venerable old literary form, to be judged by a local professor.[25]
The label "culture bearer" surely would have offended Proletkult leaders because they associated it with the philanthropic efforts of the liberal intelligentsia. Nonetheless, much of the organization's work bore a distinct similarity to the activities of prerevolutionary cultural centers. Evenings of recitations, plays, and songs often included historical lectures. When the Petrograd theater studio gave a reading of Walt Whitman's poems, the director Mgebrov introduced it with a speech on Whitman's significance in world literature.[26] Musical performances were conceived as a way to train the tastes of the audience and were accompanied by lectures on the life and times of the featured composer. Proletkult publications sought to acquaint their audiences with the classics of world culture, as had self-education journals before the revolution. Tver's Proletkult contained articles on the works of Victor Hugo and Tiuchev. The Kologriv publication Life of the Arts (Zhizn' iskusstv ) commemorated the work of Chekhov. Even the radical Petrograd journal The Future published short pieces on Walt Whitman, Dobroliubov, and Nekrasov.[27]
The tried-and-true classics common in workers' and people's theaters before the revolution dominated local stages. The most popular plays were by Ostrovsky, Gogol, Chekhov, and, sometimes, Gorky. For example, the Polekova factory
[24] P. Bessal'ko, "O forme i soderzhanii," Griadushchee , no. 4 (1918), p. 4.
[25] "Ot redaktsii," and "Kuznitsa poetov," Trud i tvorchestvo , no. 1 (1919), pp. 22, 17–18.
[26] Severnaia Kommuna , August 2, 1918, p. 4.