6 Proletarian Utopias: Science, Family, and Daily Life
The Proletkult proposed an expansive, utopian agenda to transform Russia in the wake of the revolution. "A new science, art, literature, and morality, in short, a new proletarian culture, conceived in the ranks of the industrial proletariat, is preparing a new human being with a new system of emotions and beliefs," proclaimed Pavel Lebedev-Polianskii in 1918.[1] Proletarian culture, the soul of socialism, would emerge everywhere, and thus the Proletkult would have a foothold everywhere as well.
There was a utopian element to all revolutionary visions of the new society. Peasant dreamers prophesied a world without cities, and labor radicals foresaw factories without foremen. Leftist artists wanted to destroy museums and bring art to the streets and the homes of the common man.[2] Even Lenin, the most pragmatic of politicians, was briefly infected with
[1] P. I. Lebedev-Polianskii [V. Polianskii, pseud.], "Pod znamia Proletkul'ta," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 1 (1918), p. 3.
[2] See Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams (New York, 1989); Katerina Clark, "The City versus the Countryside in Soviet Peasant Literature of the Twenties: A Duel of Utopias," in Bolshevik Culture , ed. Abbott Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, 1985), pp. 175–89; and René Fueloep-Miller, The Mind and Face of Bolshevism , trans. F. S. Flint and D. T. Tait (New York, 1965).
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this spirit; in his famous work State and Revolution he depicted a governmental structure so simple and transparent that any cook could run the state. Proletkultists, as the self-proclaimed creators of the culture of the future, were inherently utopian. They were convinced that they could usher in the perfect society and the perfect culture, both of which would be based on shared human values rather than class prejudices. "I believe we nurse the future with our hard toil," declared the proletarian poet Vasilii Aleksandrovskii. "Exert your mind and muscles, harden yourself with labor's fire, so that Russia's resurrection will spread to the whole world."[3]
To realize these lofty goals, Proletkult enthusiasts aspired to change far more than artistic creation. The positive, collectivist values that shaped a new art were to permeate all of life—the work place, the school, and the home. They hoped to alter the structure of knowledge and the very fabric of daily existence. These projects were truly utopian; they aimed at perfection but eluded all practical methods of implementation. Still, their articulation shows the breadth of the Proletkult's vision: love, learning, friendship, and community would all come to express the spirit of the socialist age.