On the Ideological Front: The Proletarian Culture Debates
By the fall of 1922 the Proletkult was a small and embattled organization, only a shadow of the movement that had claimed almost half a million members two years before. Its membership had fallen to just over twenty-five hundred students organized in twenty local circles.[82] Its once impressive publication network had collapsed. Excluded from the state budget, Proletarian Culture put out its last issue in 1921.[83] The Moscow-based Furnace , now representing the national organization, was the Proletkult's only remaining major journal.
Yet despite its drastically reduced size, the Proletkult became the subject of a major debate in the Soviet press. To be sure, by now the Proletkult hardly posed enough of a threat to initiate such controversy. But these discussions were only partly about the fate of the organization. They were also a test of the very notion of proletarian culture and provided an excellent vehicle to discuss some of the "burning questions" that the New Economic Policy had raised for the Communist Party and the state. What was the correct way to bring about the cultural transformation of Soviet Russia? Who posed a greater danger—experts and intellectuals trained under capitalism or a backward and disaffected working class?
This broad discussion of proletarian culture, approved by the Politburo itself, gave Pletnev a remarkable chance to take
[82] "O Proletkul'te," Gorn , no. 7 (1922), pp. 160–61.
[83] Minutes of June 29, 1922, Proletkult plenum, TsGA RSFSR f. 2313, d. 19, ll. 33–33 ob.
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the Proletkult's case to the nation.[84] Although the organization was a suspect ally, its outspoken critique of bourgeois ideology won it some sympathy among those who shared the Proletkultists' concern that the New Economic Policy might inaugurate a period of bourgeois reaction. Such fears were raised repeatedly at the Eleventh Party Congress, and Bukharin, writing in the prestigious party journal Under the Banner of Marxism (Pod znamenem marksizma ), warned that history had offered many examples of a vanquished people imposing their culture on the conquerors.[85] If the Proletkult did not have the right answers, for people like Bukharin, at least it raised the right questions.
Understandably, Pletnev was particularly concerned about the Proletkult's future, which he saw as synonymous with the future of proletarian culture. His opening article, "On the Ideological Front," was an extensive statement of Proletkult beliefs and philosophy. If Marxists were hostile to the Proletkult, that was simply because they did not understand it. Proletarian culture was the necessary antithesis to bourgeois culture, the necessary step before a real classless culture for all humanity could be achieved. Although proletarian culture would necessarily incorporate elements from all that had come before, it would relentlessly struggle against bourgeois individualism. The Proletkult was historically necessary to fight against bourgeois ideology.[86] The New Economic Policy was not mentioned explicitly in the article, but there were
[84] On the decision to start the series see Lenin o literature , p. 546. Pletnev's contribution consisted of three articles, "Na ideologicheskom fronte," Pravda , September 22, 1922; "O desnitse i shuitse Proletkul'ta," Pravda , October 17, 1922; and "V Proletkul'te," Pravda , October 20, 1922.
[85] See Biggart, "Bukharin," pp. 237–41; and N. Bukharin, "Burzhuaznaia revoliutsiia i revoliutsiia proletarskaia," Pod znamenem marksizma , no. 7/8 (1922), pp. 61–82, esp. p. 79. Biggart argues that this article was the real beginning of the debate.