Page 37 - Studio International - April 1971

3 D. Deineka
The Defence of Petrograd 1927
Oil on canvas
Coll: Tretyakov State Gallery
4 Cosma Petrov-Vodkin
Death of a Commissar 1928
Oil on canvas
Coll: Tretyakov State Gallery
5 Ivan Shadr
Cobblestones, the Weapons of the Proletariat 1928
Coll : Museum of the Revolution, Moscow

inwardly digested, profoundly understood and preserve the dictatorship of the proletariat, and setback in 1921 when Lenin, suspicious of any
well thought out.... The idea of the theme is to 'proletarianize' the peasantry and bourgeosie. organization claiming independence from the
needed, and one which arises from a deep Bogdanov had founded the Proletkult, an party, dubious of Bogdanov's philosophy, and
understanding of Soviet realities ... not an organization for the creation of a new doubtful about the creation of a proletarian
admiration of the "crust" but the opening up proletarian culture, in 1917, during Kerensky's culture in art before its complete victory in the
of the "inside" of life'.34 This last attempt very government, and it had rapidly expanded after economic and political field, decided on a policy
much concerned artists and theorists between the Bolshevik revolution. Bogdanov saw the of free competition in the arts and condemned
1925 and 1932. artistic struggle as ultimately more important the idea of a hegemony of proletarian culture.
Although none of the writers quoted is above than the economic and political struggle, since, Nevertheless, the Proletkult is important as the
the suspicion that they are re-writing history in for him, 'the struggle from the cultural first attempt to create such a culture as part of
accordance with the party line, much of their emancipation is the struggle for real and the struggle of the proletariat, which would aid
historical description of the development of complete emancipation.'36 He worked on the it by clarifying and explaining reality, by
painting is accurate. The realist style had theory, inherited partly from Plekhanov, that expressing the ideals of the class and
already returned to popularity by 1921, the `Art is part of the ideology of a class, an element consolidating class-consciousness, and by
first year of Lenin's New Economic Policy—a of its class-consciousness, hence an organized fighting petty-bourgeois attitudes and values.
partial restoration of free economic competition. form of class life, a means of uniting and welding From then on, all theorists of a proletarian art
The taste of the NEP men who emerged and together class forces.' It is 'capable of organizing and literature, in spite of their shifts and
flourished from 1921 to 1928 was as bourgeois not only the opinions of the people but also struggles, their changing slogans and alliances,
as their economic activities. L. Lozowick says their knowledge, thoughts, feelings and were in effect basing their views about the
`The Civil War was over and a greater social dispositions ... it has always been more powerful function of a proletarian culture on those of the
stability established. There was a revival of than science as a weapon in the organization of Proletkult.
interest in everyday life, in a new revolutionary the masses, because the language of living As the Proletkult declined in strength, new
genre ... a new private patron, too, reappeared, symbols is nearer and more comprehensible to groups emerged to continue the fight against
demanding portraits, landscapes, etc.'35 The the masses'.37 Bogdanov's resolution at the NEP. In literature, for example, the 'Smithy'
LEF artists, who under war communism had first all-Russian conference of the Proletkult group, the 'October' group and the 'On Guard'
had the encouragement of the state, were bitter declares, on the question of the use of earlier group, took up the stand. The Smithy, in 1923,
about NEP, seeing it as reactionary on both culture : 'The Proletariat must examine the saw 'a desert of art', and made the claim to be
political and artistic grounds, and were treasures of ancient art in the light of its new `a shock detachment in the advanced positions
determined to maintain a pure, left-wing critical doctrine ... They will then prove a of the ideological front'.39 The first number of
ideology in art. It was felt that NEP was precious inheritance for the Proletariat and a On Guard stated its determination to stand
allowing the new middle-class and the peasantry weapon in its fight against that ancient world indefatigably on guard over a clear and firm
to get rich at the expense of the industrial which created them, and an instrument for the communist ideology in proletarian literature.40
proletariat, who felt, with some cause, that it building up of a new world'.38 In other words This determination was accompanied by new
was they who had created the revolution. For Bogdanov rather dangerously extended tactics : an authoritarian dogmatism, a refusal to
this reason there was a revival of Bogdanov's Plekhanov's Marxist views on the class origin compromise with other groups less sure about
idea of a separate proletarian culture to work of art, into the idea of art as a positive class the possibility of a proletarian culture, and the
parallel to the proletarian struggle in other weapon. use of vicious ideological propaganda which
economic and political fields, in the struggle to However, Bogdanov received a severe vulgarized and debased the Marxist ideas they