[34] "Provintsial'nye proletkul'ty," Narodnoe obrazovanie , no. 31 (1919), p. 21.
[35] "Zerkalo studii," Trud i tvorchestvo , no. 1 (1919), p. 14.
[36] "Otchet o deiatel'nosti otdela obshchesotsialisticheskogo obrazovaniia za pervoe polugodie 1919 goda," Griadushchee , no. 5/6 (1919), pp. 30–31.
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August 1919 Bogdanov argued that there was nothing at all socialist about the division's curriculum. He was particularly offended by the group's plan to take a trip to America to study technology. Following Bogdanov's recommendations, the central committee directed that the division be closed without delay.[37]
The development of proletarian science was resisted on many levels; it was stymied by the hostility of state organs, by staffing problems, and also by the commonplace tastes of local members and teachers. Although the issue remained on the Proletkult's agenda, the methods for its realization were constantly scaled down. A handful of local science studios took shape during the first years of the New Economic Policy, but they were short-lived and offered a very small range of courses.[38] At the national level a central science circle opened in 1921. Although sponsored by the central committee, it had none of the ambitions of Bogdanov's proletarian university. Most of the courses were in the arts and political education; only a handful touched on the natural sciences. The overarching interdisciplinary courses, which were the trademark of Bogdanov's inventive curriculum, were missing altogether.[39]
Proletkult organizers finally turned to workers' clubs as the primary vehicle to impart scientific education. These popular institutions could reach a larger audience than either the Proletkult studios or the universities and thus seemed to be able to bring the promise of a new science to the masses. Yet by the time the Proletkultists set out on this course during the New Economic Policy their educational agenda had shrunk yet
[37] August 12, 1919, Proletkult central committee meeting, TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 3, l. 69.
[38] For a discussion of local studios see the Proletkult plenum, June 28, 1922, TsGA RSFSR f. 2313, op. 1, d. 19, ll. 22–22 ob.; for the curriculum of the Rzhev science studio see Gorn , no. 6 (1922), pp. 155–56.
[39] For the course plan see "Otchet po rabotam Nauchnoi Kollegii," Gorn , no. 8 (1923), p. 238.
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again. The courses they proposed dealt with the rudiments of socialist theory, economic planning, and rational labor practices.[40] This was hardly an education for utopia that would shatter conventional perceptions of the world.