[22] "Mezhdunarodnyi biuro Proletkul'ta," Izvestiia TsIK , August 14, 1920. On the bureau in general see Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 15/16 (1920), pp. 3–6 and no. 17/19 (1920), pp. 2–5.
[23] Although there is no direct evidence to prove that Lenin read the article and was moved to take action because of it, the case for this causal chain is made convincingly by Smirnov, "Leninskaia kontseptsiia kul'turnoi revoliutsii," pp. 71–73. Once Lenin had subordinated the Proletkult to Narkompros, he disbanded the International Bureau, ibid., p. 81.
[24] Notes by V. P. Faidysh and V. V. Ignatov in Lenin o literature , p. 542.
[25] For a summary of Lunacharskii's speech see Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), p. 78. Lunacharskii later claimed that his remarks were misinterpreted, but there is no evidence to support this contention. See Fitzpatrick, Commissariat , pp. 177–78.
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buro meetings to discuss the Proletkult and to draw up proposals for its subordination.[26] From this point on Lenin circumvented Lunacharskii and dealt directly with the central Proletkult's faction of party members, headed by Valerian Pletnev.
The national Proletkult had strong ties to the Communist Party. A full two–thirds of the conference delegates were Communists, as were all national leaders, except Bogdanov.[27] Nonetheless, they were not immediately convinced that the party's action was justified. Representatives from the Proletkult met with Lenin while the Politburo was working out its proposals. According to Lenin's notes of the meeting, they did not understand how Proletkult autonomy posed a threat to anyone.[28] The party faction had trouble convincing the assembled delegates to accept the central committee's proposal, which only passed after long debate and appeals to party discipline.[29]
Eventually, however, the Proletkult congress approved a five-point statement drafted by the Communist Party Central Committee.[30] The resolution made the Proletkult into a divi-
[26] On the machinations behind the scenes at the Politburo meetings see V. V. Gorbunov, "Bor'ba V. I. Lenina s separatistskimi ustremleniiami Proletkul'ta," Voprosy istorii KPSS , no. 1 (1958), pp. 33–35. For the text of Lenin's original proposal, softened by Bukharin, see Lenin o literature , pp. 301–2. On Bukharin's intervention see Biggart, "Bukharin," pp. 233–34.
[27] Griadushchee , no. 12/13 (1920), p. 22; and "Neobkhodimoe ob "iasnenie," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 51, 1. 6.
[28] Gorbunov, "Bor'ba V. I. Lenina s separatistskimi ustremleniiami Proletkul'ta," pp. 34–35. In a widely quoted memoir of the meeting, first published in 1967, Anna Dodonova claimed that party members were quickly swayed by Lenin, but Lenin's notes indicate otherwise. Dodonova also exaggerated the number of party members at the congress; see A. Dodonova, "Iz vospominanii o Proletkul'ta," in Lenin o literature , pp. 500–503.
[29] Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), p. 78; and Griadushchee , no. 12/13 (1920), p.22.
[30] "Rezoliutsii po organizatsionnomu voprosu, vnesena Kommunisticheskoi fraktsiei po predlozheniiu TsK RKP," Proletarskaia kul'tura , no. 17/19 (1920), pp. 83–84.
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sion of the Narkompros bureaucracy that was accountable to the party for the content of its work. Perhaps to sweeten the pill, the party instructed Narkompros to ensure that the proletariat had the opportunity for free creative work within its establishments, which seemed to imply that Proletkult artistic activity might continue more or less unchanged.
This was only the opening gambit, however, in a long process of reorganization. A special plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee met many times in the late fall of 1920 to determine more precise guidelines for Proletkult work and to draft an explanation of the new situation for local party and Proletkult activists. The end result was the central committee decree "On the Proletkults," published in Pravda on December 1, 1920. The decree was less an explanation than a denunciation; it excoriated Proletkult leaders, its organizational practice, and the movement's understanding of its cultural mission.[31]
The Pravda letter was scathingly critical of the Proletkult's demand for autonomy, which it portrayed as a petty-bourgeois attempt to establish an institutional base outside of Soviet power. Proletkult independence had attracted many socially alien elements, among them futurists, decadents, and proponents of "idealist and anti-Marxist philosophies." Although Bogdanov was not directly mentioned, he was also a target. The central committee linked the Proletkult to "antiMarxist, God-building" groups of intellectuals who were now trying to manipulate the working class with their "semibourgeois philosophical 'systems' and schemes." The party would have done something sooner had it not been hindered by the military emergency. Now that the Civil War was ending, it could finally turn its attention to the important problems of culture and education.[32]
The central committee then appealed to the working-class