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The “Soft” Line on Culture and Its Enemies: Soviet Cultural Policy, 1922-1927

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Sheila Fitzpatrick
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Extract

The year 1928 was a turning point not only for Soviet cultural policy but for policy in all fields. It was the beginning of a new revolution which overturned everything but the Stalinist leadership, an upheaval so violent that it seemed that the ruling party had revolted simultaneously against the society it governed and its own governing institutions. Among these institutions was the Commissariat of Enlightenment, headed by A. V. Lunacharsky and responsible for implementing policy in the sphere of education and the arts. In 1928 the Commissariat was accused of “softness” in its dealings with the intelligentsia, lack of “Communist vigilance,” and failure to understand the significance of “class war on the cultural front.” This “softness” was not peculiar to the Commissariat, except in degree. Right deviation in the party, it was said, had led a bureaucratized government apparat in retreat from true communism to liberalism; and the essence of this retreat was conciliation of the bourgeois peasantry and intelligentsia.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 267 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1974

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References

1. In discussion of educational problems the term “proletarian” was often loosely used to cover not only workers and workers’ children but Communist Party members, Komsomols, and poor peasants and their children. However, statistical breakdowns of social composition (sotsial'nyi sostav) in the 1920s usually distinguished between “proletarian” and “poor peasants, ” sometimes with separate categories for children of proletarians and children of poor peasants, and gave a separate listing for party and Komsomol members.

2. Lunacharsky, A. V., “Khudozhestvennaia politika sovetskogo gosudarstva,” Zhizn' iskusstva (Leningrad), 1924, no. 10, Mar. 4, p. 1.Google Scholar

3. They were organized in the Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP, later RAPP) and were often referred to in the mid-twenties as napostovtsy, from their journal Na postu.

4. Bergavinov, S. (Kiev party organization), XIII s"ezd RKP(b) : Mai 1924 g. (Moscow, 1963), pp. 469–70.Google Scholar

5. Policy toward universities in the Civil War period is discussed in my book, The Commissariat of Enlightenment : Soviet Organisation of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921 (London and New York, 1970), and by McClelland, James C. in “Bolshevik Approaches to Higher Education, 1917-1921,” Slavic Review, 30, no. 4 (December 1971) : 818–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Pravda, Feb. 27, 1921, p. 1 : D. Bogolepov, “Vysshaia shkola i kommunizm.“

7. E. A. Preobrazhensky, “O professional'no-tekhnicheskom obrazovanii, ” Pravda, Sept. 10, 1921, p. 2.

8. Odinnadtsatyi s"esd RKP(b) : Mart-aprel' 1922 g. (Moscow, 1961), pp. 85-86, 142.

9. Resolution on work among youth, Thirteenth Congress. KPSS v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s"ezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. 3 (Moscow, 1970), p. 109.

10. Zinoviev discussed the general university purge with the collegium of Narkompros at its meeting of March 26, 1924 (Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktiabr'skoi revoliutsii i sotsialisticheskogo stroitel'stva [TsGAOR], Moscow, fond 2306, op. 1, d. 2945). On Trotskyism, see N. Akimov, Krasnoe studenchestvo, 1928-29, no. 14, p. 4 : “Everyone remembers the Trotskyite fever from which the university cells especially suffered in 1923-24. The partial purge of the party at that time affected primarily the university organizations, more than 25 percent of whose members were purged as decadent and ideologically hostile elements.”

11. As a result of the purge about 18, 000 students (13-14 percent of total) were expelled, “of which three-fourths were removed for completely unjustified academic failure and the rest for various other reasons” (Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1925, no. 4, p. 118). But as I. I. Khodorovsky of Narkompros had made clear, academic requirements varied according to the social origin of the student (Pravda, May 17, 1924, p. 6).

12. See, for example, protest from Smolensk gubkom and agitprop to Central Committee agitprop department, Sept. 27, 1924 (Smolensk Archives, WKP 518, p. 71).

13. Resolution of collegium of Narkompros, Sept. 23, 1924 (TsGAOR 2306/1/3328), published in Eshenedel'nik NKP, 1924, no. 21(41), p. 2.

14. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1924, no. 8, pp. 5, 51, and 73. The secondary school reorganization added a “professional bias” (profuklon) to the two senior classes, but the school was still classified as general-educational, not technical, to university-entrance level.

15. See Bukharin's comments in Partita i vospitanie smeny (Moscow, 1924), p. 108.

16. Lunacharsky, A. V., Prosveshchenie i revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1926), pp. 415–16.Google Scholar

17. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1925, no. 7-8, pp. 102-3.

18. Izvestiia, May 26, 1926, p. 3, and July 30, p. 5.

19. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1927, no. 4, p. 14.

20. TsGAOR 5574/5/2, conference of Proletstud, January 1927, p. 9.

21. Kommunisticheskaia revoliutsiia, 1927, no. 8, p. 46.

22. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1928, no. 1, pp. 1 ff.

23. Ibid., p. 26.

24. Relations between teachers and the Soviet government in the early years are described in detail in Ronald Hideo Hayashida, “The Third Front : The Politics of Soviet Mass Education, 1917-1918” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1973), and briefly in Fitzpatrick, Commissariat of Enlightenment, pp. 34-43. The major Western work on Soviet schools in the 1920s is Oskar, Anweiler, Geschichte der Schule und Pädagogik in Russland vom Ende des Zarenreiches bis zum Beginn der Stalin-Ära (Berlin, 1964).Google Scholar

25. “Union of workers in education and socialist culture” (Rabpros). The trade unions objected to Narkompros’ choice of the “political” word “socialist” in the title, and it dropped out of use in the early 1920s.

26. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia (Moscow, 1931), p. 180.

27. For an emotional statement on the situation of teachers, their services to the people, and the identity of their cause of popular enlightenment and that of the Communists see Zinov'ev, , “Proletarskaia revoliutsiia i uchitel'stvo,” Pravda, Apr. 24, 1924, pp. 2–4Google Scholar.

28. See V. Kolokolkin, “O sel'skoi intelligentsii” (discussion of comrade Kalinin's theses), Pravda, May 20, 1924, p. 6.

29. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1925, no. 2, pp. 39 (Rykov) and 72-73 (Zinoviev).

30. Ibid., 1927, no. 4, p. 43; 1926, no. 1, p. 34; 1926, no. 9, pp. 85-86.

31. Ibid., 1929, no. 8-9, p. 103 (of the period 1926-28).

32. Ezhenedel'nik NKP, 1924, no. 18(39), p. 12, and no. 21(41), pp. 8-9; TsGAOR 2306/1/3328, presidium of NKP collegium, Sept. 29, 1924; Smolensk Archives WKP 11, agitprop collegium of Sychevsky Ukom, Aug. 12, 1924.

33. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1924, no. 8, p. 9.

34. Direktivy VKP(b) po voprosam prosveshcheniia, p. 194.

35. See Bukharin’s remarks on Komsomol and Pioneer “avantgardism, ” XIV s"ezd VKP(b), 18-31 dek. 1926 g. (Moscow, 1926), p. 824.

36. Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1925, no. 2, p. 140.

37. Ibid., 1926, no. 9, p. 77.

38. Ibid., 1926, no. 6, pp. 108-9.

39. Ibid., 1926, no. 9, p. 82.

40. Literary policy, unlike its educational counterpart, has been admirably documented by both Western and Soviet research, notably in Maguire, Robert A.’s Red Virgin Soil : Soviet Literature in the 1920’s (Princeton, 1968)Google Scholar, Brown, Edward J.’s Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 (New York, 1953)Google Scholar, and Sheshukov, S. I.’s Neistovye revniteli : Iz istorii literaturnoi bor'by 20-kh godov (Moscow, 1970)Google Scholar. Since literature is only one of the three contexts in which I discuss the opposition of “hard” and “soft” lines in this article, I have not attempted a thorough treatment : I have assumed that the relative familiarity of the material allows me to be more selective here than in the earlier sections of the article dealing with educational problems on which there is little published work.

41. See Sheshukov, Neistovye revniteli, p. 114 and passim.

42. Letter of the Central Committee RKP(b), “O Proletkul'takh, ” Pravda, Dec. 1, 1920, p. 1.

43. See, for example, Bukharin’s call to “smash the old theater” in Pravda articles of October 16 and December 16, 1919, and Lunacharsky’s protest circulated to party leaders (Lunacharsky, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 3 [Moscow, 1964], pp. 100-105) ; his clash with Lunacharsky at the 1922 Komsomol Congress (V Vserossiiskii s"esd RKSM [Moscow and Leningrad, 1927], pp. 127 and 141).

44. Dmitrii, Furmanov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1961), pp. 352–53 Google Scholar. S. I. Kanatchikov (who was in fact still alive in 1925) had headed the Central Committee press department at the beginning of the twenties; I. M. Vareikis was its head in 1924-26.

45. Trotsky’s low assessment of the achievement of proletarian writers and rejection on principle of the possibility of true “proletarian culture” developing in the transitional period to socialism were made known in his Literatura i revoliutsiia, written in 1923 and published as articles in Pravda toward the end of that year. See Leopold, Averbakh, Nashi literaturnye raznoglasiia (Leningrad, 1927), p. 34.Google Scholar

46. Sheshukov, Neistovye revniteli, p. 207.

47. For evidence of pre-1923 Central Committee interest in literary politics see Ermakov, A. F. in Obogashchenie metoda sotsialisticheskogo realizma i problema mnogoobraziia sovetskogo iskusstva (Moscow, 1967), pp. 356–62 Google Scholar.

48. A stenogram of the debate was published in K voprosu o politike RKP(b) v khudozhestvennoi literature (Moscow, 1924).

49. Maguire (Red Virgin Soil, pp. 417 ff.) concludes that Voronsky’s actual participation in the Trotskyite opposition remains unproved, pointing out that the label of “Trotskyism” was often indiscriminately and vindictively applied. The same suggestion has been made by some post-1956 Soviet writers on Voronsky. There is, in fact, no hard evidence of Voronsky’s active membership in the post-1923 opposition; but it should be remembered that unfounded accusations of actual opposition membership are characteristic of the late thirties and not of any period of RAPP’s activity. The most scholarly of Voronsky’s Soviet rehabilitators— Dement'ev, A. G. in Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1962), p. 1046 Google Scholar, Sheshukov, Neistovye revniteli, p. 43, Kuznetsov, M. M. in “Krasnaia nov',” Ocherki istorii russkoi sovetskoi shurnalistiki, 1917-1932 (Moscow, 1966), p. 229 Google Scholar—agree that Voronsky belonged to the 1926-28 opposition and was expelled from the party in 1928 for that reason. Their common (unidentified) source is probably the entry in Deiateli revoliutsionnogo dvisheniia v Rossii, 5 vols. (Moscow, 1927-33) : “In 1926-28 Voronsky belonged to the Trotskyite Opposition and conducted active fractional work, in connection with which he was expelled from the ranks of the VKP(b); however, later he broke with the Opposition and was reinstated as a member of the party. He now works in Moscow as a senior editor of Russian and foreign classics” (vol. 5, pt. 2, p. 1030). My own impression is that this entry is probably accurate. Real opposition membership was clearly embarrassing to Voronsky’s post-1956 Soviet rehabilitators, and this could explain the hinted doubts to which Maguire refers. But, if we take it that Voronsky was expelled from the party as a Trotskyite in 1928 and readmitted about 1930, what plausible explanation is there except the obvious one—that he had belonged to the 1926-28 opposition?

50. Lunacharsky, early 1925, published Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vol. 64, p. 35.

51. See, for example, his article in Na postu, 1925, no. 1(6), June. Lunacharsky was not insincere, in that he had always been an advocate on principle of proletarian culture and really did object to Trotsky’s views on it. But he disliked VAPP’s modus operandi, and the rapprochement was primarily tactical.

52. Voronsky, “Mr. Britling Drinks the Cup to the Dregs, ” Krasnaia nov', 1926, no. 5, pp. 202-3.

53. Ermakov, Obogashchenie metoda, pp. 276-77.

54. Published in Pravda, July 1, 1925.

55. Sheshukov, Neistovye revniteli, p. 197.

56. See, for example, the speech by Bliakhin of the press department to the VAPP conference, Biulleten' V .A.P.P;., no. 1, Apr. 10, 1926, in Smolensk Archives, WKP 257.

57. Trotsky, writing in 1930 on the occasion of Mayakovsky’s suicide, described Gusev as Molotov’s right-hand man in the sphere of cultural repression (Biulleten' Oppozitsii, 1930, no. 11, p. 40).

58. Voronsky, “Open Letter to Comrade Gusev, ” Krasnaia nov', 1927, no. 6, pp. 241-42.

59. Kuznetsov, “Krasnaia nov1', ” p. 229. Since Krasnaia nov' was a journal of political and social comment as well as a literary journal, the Stalinist/Bukharinist anxiety over its control by an oppositionist is neither surprising nor misplaced.

60. The opposition made no reference to cultural policy in its theses to the Fifteenth Party Congress (Averbakh, Na literaturnom postu, 1927, no. 22-23, p. 21). The locus classicus is Preobrazhensky’s speech on the phenomenon of “Eseninshchina, ” or disillusionment and decadence of youth, in the Communist Academy debate in the spring of 1927 : comment on this speech is to be found in Knorin’s article in Kommunisticheskaia revoliutsiia, 1927, no. 6, pp. 3 ff., and in Averbakh, “Oppozitsiia i voprosy kul'turnoi revoliutsii, ” Na literatumom postu, 1928, no. 8, p. 10; the text is in the stenogram published by the Communist Academy as Upadochnoe nastroenie sredi molodeshi (Moscow, 1927). The literary implications are developed by Lelevich, with acknowledgment to Preobrazhensky, in the Saratov gubkom journal Kommunisticheskii put', 1927, no. 21 (84), pp. 37 ff., and in his contribution to the almanac Udar, ed. A. I. Bezymensky (Moscow, 1927), pp. 94 ff.

61. See Bukharin, “The Proletariat and Questions of Artistic Policy, ” Krasnaia nov', 1925, no. 4, p. 266 : “Our society has two levels of conflict, internal and external. Externally it stands face to face with the bourgeois world, and there the class war becomes sharper… . Inside the country our policy in general does not follow the line of fanning class war but, on the contrary, goes some way to dampen it down ”

62. Lelevich, Kommunisticheskii put', 1927, no. 21(84), p. 40.

63. S. N. Krylov, ed., Puti razvitiia teatra (stenogram of debate in agitprop, May 1927), [M] 1927, p. 202 (Sapozhnikov).

64. Ibid., pp. 220-21.

65. Ibid., Lunacharsky’s closing speech, pp. 227 ff.

66. Ibid., Knorin’s closing speech, pp. 245 ff.

67. Stenogram published in B., Olkhovy, ed., Zadachi agitatsii, propagandy i kul'-turnogo stroitel'stva (Moscow and Leningrad, 1928).Google Scholar

68. Lutchenko, Voprosy istorii KPSS, 1966, no. 2, p. 33.

69. Quoted in Narodnoe prosveshchenie, 1928, no. 10, p. 140.