[33] On Eisenstein in the Proletkult see Karla Hielscher, "S. M. Eisensteins Theaterarbeit beim Moskauer Proletkult, 1921–1924," Aesthetik und Kommunikation , no. 13 (1973), pp. 64–75.
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audience. The next production, also a collaboration between Eisenstein and Tretiakov, was Are you Listening, Moscow? (Slyshish', Moskva? ), a chilling agitational play about the rise of fascism in Germany. Using methods to promote suspense and terror, Eisenstein and Tretiakov induced the audience to identify with the events depicted on the stage. In the final scene viewers enthusiastically joined in the storming of a fascist tribunal.[34] Eisenstein's last major work in the Proletkult was Gas Masks (Protivogazy ), a performance staged in the Moscow gas works without any decorations or set designs.[35]
After Gas Masks Eisenstein left the Proletkult for film production, although his first major film, Strike (Stachka ), was completed with help from Valerian Pletnev and the First Workers' Theater collective.[36] The major directors who followed him in both the Moscow and Leningrad Proletkult theaters—Aleksei Gripich, Lazar Kritsberg, and Naum Loiter—had also studied with Meyerhold.[37] Throughout the 1920s the First Workers' Theater in Moscow employed techniques inherited from Meyerhold, especially the biomechanical method and the extensive use of the grotesque, pantomime, and satire, an approach that set the standard for all provincial branches.[38]
In the visual arts the Proletkult also shed some of its diversity and embraced the principles of the artistic left. The production art approach finally prevailed during the New Economic Policy. As a symbol of this shift, in the spring of 1922 the central art studio in Moscow closed its painting workshop.[39] Boris Arvatov became the most eloquent spokesman
[34] S., "Slyshish', Moskva?" LEF , no. 4 (1924), p. 217.
[35] Al'manakh Proletkul'ta , p. 186.
[36] Jay Leyda, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film , 3d ed. (Princeton, 1983), p. 181.
[37] See D. Zolotnitskii, Budni i prazdniki teatral'nogo Oktiabria (Leningrad, 1978), pp. 12, 43; and S. Margolin, Pervyi Rabochii teatr Proletkul'ta (Moscow, 1930), p. 56.
[38] See "O rabote Proletkul'tov RSFSR, 1925–1926," TsGALI f. 1230, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 37–40 for provincial theatrical repertoires.
[39] "Zhivopisnye masterskie," Gorn , no. 8 (1923), p. 242.
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for the arts, praising the virtues of artistic creation tied to practical needs. He declared that easel art, museums, and purely decorative forms were dead.[40] Instead, art studios turned to utilitarian tactics, designing posters, book jackets, union emblems, and decorations for revolutionary festivals.[41]
In comparison with the visual arts and theater the Proletkult's work in literature was modest. It could not compete with the expanding number of proletarian writers' organizations or with the growing workers' correspondent movement encouraged by the party press. Local groups urged club activists to teach practical skills, such as journalistic technique, speech writing, and how to prepare scripts for agitational courts that were based on experiences from workers' daily lives. However, the task of publishing and promoting imaginative literature passed into other hands.
The Proletkult's presence in the musical world also declined. Some local groups, like one in Georgia, developed popular choirs and orchestras, but the national Proletkult did not sponsor a central music studio. The work that remained also tended to the left. In 1923 the Moscow Proletkult, led by the experimental musician Arsenii Avraamov, staged a concert of factory whistles to celebrate the anniversary of the revolution. The Leningrad Proletkult organized a jazz band, which promoted the "sports trot" to dislodge popular enthusiasm for the fox-trot.[42]
Participants in Proletkult workshops and studios were supported by scholarships in the 1920s, and most pursued their artistic work full time. The First Workers' Theater in Moscow was particularly successful in promoting its young artists to
[40] Boris Arvatov, "Iskusstvo v systeme proletarskoi kul'tury," in Na putiakh iskusstva: Sbornik statei , ed. V. M. Bliumenfel'd, V. F. Pletnev, and N. F. Chuzhak (Moscow, 1926), pp. 9–33.
[41] See the designs for May Day tribunals in 1925, Rabochii klub , no. 16/17 (1925), pp. 53–54.
[42] Arsenii Avraamov, "Simfoniia gudkov," Gorn , no. 9 (1923), pp. 109–16; Leningradskii Proletkurt na tret'em fronte , p. 26; and Pavel Marinchik, Rozhdenie Komsomol' skogo teatra (Leningrad and Moscow, 1963), p. 175.
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professional careers. The future National Artists of the Soviet Union, Maksim Shtraukh and Iuliia Glizer, as well as the famous film star Grigorii Aleksandrov all got their start in this organization.[43]
Nonetheless, the Proletkult continued to display ambivalence toward professionalization. Its artistic programs were idiosyncratic; they were designed to take their inspiration from nonprofessional circles.[44] More important, they were not integrated into the general Soviet educational system. When someone graduated from a workers' faculty or party school, it was clear what that meant, complained one participant from Ivanovo-Voznesensk. However, the social significance of Proletkult training was not immediately apparent to him. "I have to leave the Proletkult to join up with some Meyerhold or one of his many assistants or go to some VKhUTEMAS [Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops] just to find out if I am or will become a real actor or artist with a credential in my pocket."[45]
When the Proletkult switched to trade union control in 1925, its creative work came under closer scrutiny. In general, union leaders were critical of the Proletkult's agitational and experimental style. They urged it to follow the paths of established professional groups more closely, particularly in the theater.[46] This evoked some positive responses from journalists in Workers' Club , who argued that proletarian audiences were growing tired of "naked agitation" and longed for welldeveloped characters and a clear plot line. However, central Proletkult leaders resolutely resisted conventional repertoires. Club theaters should stage agitational trials or com-