Proletkult
Description
1. By Maria Chehonadskih:
"Proletkult is a contraction of Proletarian Culture and Enlightenment Organisations. It was a mass organisation of scientific, educational and art societies for the proletariat, existing from 1917 to 1932. Proletkult was established by Bogdanov and Lunacharskii after the February Revolution in 1917. Bogdanov’s concept of ‘proletarian culture’ formed a basis for Proletkult ideology. He insisted on the autonomy of the proletariat from the party and believed that its culture should be developed in order to replace bourgeois culture and science. Proletkult had art studios, clubs and various educational institutions, but it completely lost its autonomy in 1922, and was reorganised into the associations of proletarian writers, artists, musicians and drama study. By the end of 1920s, most of Proletkult’s associations had become conservative Stalinist supporters." (http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/anthropocene-90-minutes)
2. From the Wikipedia:
"Proletkult (Russian: Пролетку́льт, IPA: [prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt]), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" (proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolution of 1917. This organization, a federation of local cultural societies and avant-garde artists, was most prominent in the visual, literary, and dramatic fields. Proletkult aspired to radically modify existing artistic forms by creating a new, revolutionary working-class aesthetic, which drew its inspiration from the construction of modern industrial society in backward, agrarian Russia.
Although funded by the People's Commissariat for Education of Soviet Russia, the Proletkult organization sought autonomy from state control, a demand which brought it into conflict with the Communist Party hierarchy and the Soviet state bureaucracy. Some top party leaders, such as V.I. Lenin, sought to concentrate state funding on the basic education of the working class rather than on whimsical artistic endeavors. He and others also saw in Proletkult a hotbed of bourgeois intellectuals and potential political oppositionists.[citation needed]
At its peak in 1920, Proletkult had 84,000 members actively enrolled in about 300 local studios, clubs, and factory groups, with an additional 500,000 members participating in its activities on a more casual basis." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletkult)
3. By Cedar and Eden Paul (1921) - Proletcult (proletarian culture)
"Proletcult is a compact term, a 'portmanteau word," for proletarian culture. In the pre-revolutionary phase, when a specifically proletarian culture is requisite as a fighting culture, as a means to the social revolution, Proletcult is practically synonymous with what is generally known in this country by the cumbrous name of Independent Working-Class Education. What do we understand by education? In the widest sense of the term, education signifies the sum of the environmental influences which act on the individual so as to promote his mental development, and transform him from the savage he is at birth into a civilised human being. But as a method of culture deliberately employed, Proletcult, like all educational methods, is tendentious, for it has a definite aim. Just as bourgeois education 'higher-class' education in public schools, private schools, and universities, and 'lower-class' education in the State schools has the definite aim of promoting the maintenance of the existing order; so Independent Working-Class Education has the definite aim of subverting that order. Both types of education are tendentious. The only difference between them in this respect is that bourgeois education is less consciously tendentious, and often claims to be entirely above the battle, to be purely impartial. Independent Working-Class Education proclaims itself to be candid but not impartial. Its frankness in this respect is a source of strength. An essential element of proletarian culture is the belief that all education outside the domain of the extremely abstract sciences like mathematics and outside the domain of the purely physical sciences like mechanics, all education which involves imparting a knowledge of man's place in nature and society, is necessarily tendentious. In the first chapter we offered a reasoned justification of tendency in science and education. Our present concern is not to justify Proletcult, but to explain what the word means." (https://ia800909.us.archive.org/32/items/proletcultprolet00pauliala/proletcultprolet00pauliala_bw.pdf)