Clubs—The Public Hearth
During the early Soviet years Proletkultists looked more and more to clubs as their major tool to transform social habits and values. There is a certain irony in this approach because, unlike proletarian universities, clubs were not utopian constructs. Instead they were old and venerable working-class institutions. They had served as an important focal point in workers' political and cultural lives long before the October
[75] See, for example, V. F. Pletnev, "Zadachi i metody raboty kruzhka po bytu," Rabochii klub , no. 1 (1924), pp. 29–31; and M. R. [M. A. Rostopchina], "Rabota kluba po bytovom fronte," Rabochii klub , no. 2 (1924), pp. 37–38.
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Revolution because they provided a place to gather, hear lectures, read books, and, if need be, to disguise political activity under the cover of cultural work. In the first years of Soviet power clubs were very popular and were sponsored by an impressive array of local groups.[76] Many Proletkults, including the first organization in Petrograd, owed their existence in large part to the efforts of club members.
Clubs appealed to Proletkult activists because they could link cultural creation to issues that directly affected workers' daily lives. During the hard years of the Civil War clubs served as a home away from home for many laborers facing rapidly deteriorating Diving conditions.[77] They offered food, warmth, and conviviality in a period of great social dislocation. The hostility that Proletkult theorists already felt for the privacy of the home and the individualism of family values was transformed into a positive endorsement of clubs as a "public hearth" (obshchestvennyi ochag ).[78] For some, clubs served as a model for the future socialist society.[79]
Because of their ties to local communities, clubs were attractive to many national institutions seeking a closer rela-
[76] On clubs in the revolutionary period see G. E. Bylin, "Rabochie kluby i kul'turno-prosvetitel'nye komissii profsoiuzov i fabzavkomov Petrograda v mirnyi period razvitiia revoliutsii," Uchenye zapiski VPSh VTsSPS , vol. 2 (1970), pp. 108–18; Gabriele Gorzka, "Proletarian Culture in Practice: Workers' Clubs in the Period 1917–1921," in Essays in Soviet History , ed. J. W. Strong (forthcoming); A. K. Kolesova, "Deiatel'nost' rabochikh klubov po Kommunisticheskomu vospitaniiu trudiashchikhsia v 1917–1923 gg." (Candidate dissertation, Moscow State University, 1969); idem, "Prakticheskaia deiatel'nost' rabochego kluba v 1917–1920 godakh," Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul' tury , vol. 17 (1968), pp. 231–49; and I. N. Kubikov, "Rabochie kluby v Petrograde," Vestnik kul'tury i svobody , no. 1 (1918), pp. 34–37.
[77] Gorzka, "Proletarian Culture in Practice." See also idem, "Alltag der städtischen Arbeiterschaft in Sowjetrussland, 1918–1921," Archiv für Sozialgeschichte , no. 25 (1985), pp. 137–57.
[78] The term is Mikhail Zverev's, "Klub ili obshchestvennyi ochag," Griadushchee , no. 5/6 (1919), p. 23.