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Proletarian Monism

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Alexander Bogdanov and the Politics of Knowledge after the October Revolution

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ((MAENMA))

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Abstract

The chapter sets out with the claim that Bogdanov’s theory of proletarian culture was foundational not only for the Proletkult movement (Proletarian Cultural-Enlightenment Organisation) but also for the artistic debates on the programmes of ‘art in production’ and ‘art in life’. Here Bogdanov’s concepts of proletarian monism and world-building are used to reformulate a set of political tasks for art and culture after the October Revolution. Relying on archival materials and previously ignored Proletkult’s publications, the chapter examines Bogdanov’s political project of the Workers’ Encyclopaedia and proletarian science and discusses how Bogdanov develops a new understanding of the socialisation of production in relation to knowledge, education, class and emancipation. This theory is then treated in relation to a central political problem for the platform of proletarian culture that is the disappearance of the actual industrial proletariat after the revolution and civil war. The chapter concludes by analysing how the theorists of proletarian culture and productivism consider what the proletariat is in this context and how alternative biopolitical ideas about constituting a new post-revolutionary subject emerge to compensate for the discrepancy between the actually existing structures of class and the imaginary industrial proletariat.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Plan organizatsii izobrazitelnogo otdela moskovskogo proletariata [The Organisation Plan of the Art Department of the Moscow Proletariat], Gorn, 1 (1918), 66–67 (p. 66).

  2. 2.

    See: Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in the Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 21–60.

  3. 3.

    On the clandestine struggle of Lenin against Proletkult, see: John Biggart, ‘Bukharin and the Origins of the “Proletarian Culture” Debate’, Soviet Studies, XXXIX, 2 (1987), 229–246; James D. White, Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 419–431. On the decline of Proletkult see: Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia, pp. 193–253.

  4. 4.

    Kristine Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions. The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press), pp. 7–17; Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 79–108.

  5. 5.

    About their engagement with Proletkult, see: L., ‘Proletkult’, LEF, 4 (1923), 216–217. Osip Brik was probably the most critical of Proletkult, but it cannot be said that he was a stranger to the organisation. Brik was a part of the organising committee of the first Proletkult’s conference in St Petersburg. On Brik and Proletkult see: Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia, pp. 26–29; p. 146. On Chuzhak’s participation see: Ibid., p. 58.

  6. 6.

    Cited in: Kristine Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions. The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism, p. 20.

  7. 7.

    Cited in: Aleksandr Nikolaevich Lavrentiev, Alexei Gan (Moscow: Russkii avangard, 2010), p. 135.

  8. 8.

    Plan organizatsii izobrazitelnogo otdela moskovskogo proletariata [The Organisation Plan of the Art Department of the Moscow Proletariat], p. 66.

  9. 9.

    Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia, pp. 150–152.

  10. 10.

    See: Camila Gray, The Russian Experiment in Art 1863–1922 (London: Thames and Hudson), pp. 236, 245.

  11. 11.

    See: Iskusstvo v proizvodstve (Moscow: Khudozhestvenno-Proizvodstvennyi Soviet Otdela IZO Narkomprossa, 1921), and Osip Brik, ‘V poriadke dnia’ [The Order of Priority], in Iskusstvo v proizvodstve (Moscow: Khudozhestvenno-Proizvodstvennyi Soviet Otdela IZO Narkomprossa, 1921), pp. 7–8.

  12. 12.

    See, for example, a collection on art production legislation. The elaboration of the law with regards to artistic labour appears impressive even for our own time: V. Melik-Khaspabov, B. Kozin, Sbornik zakonov i postanovlenii o trude rabotnikov iskusstv i khydozhestvennom proizvodstve [Collection of Laws and Acts on Labour of Art Workers and Artistic Production] (Moscow: Vserabis, 1925). Once the market economy had been reintroduced under the banner of NEP (New Economic Policy), work in the cultural sector seemed to be paid much better than industrial labour. Kristine Kiaer discovered that while working for the state-owned factories, Mayakovsky and Rodchenko received enormously high payments for their advertisement posters. The payment for their work approached the levels of remuneration for senior management, while workers at the same factory were paid miserable wages and some even lived in beer barrels due to lack of housing: Kristine Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions. The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism, pp. 170–173.

  13. 13.

    Kristin Romberg, Gan’s Constructivism. Aesthetic Theory for an Embedded Modernism (Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018), p. 124.

  14. 14.

    The established association of Bogdanov’s organisational theory with the avant-garde is usually contrasted to the ideological correctness of dialectical materialism and realism. See for example: Izrael Vainshtein, ‘Iskusstvo i organizatsionnaia teoriia’ [Art and Organisational Theory], Vestnik kommunisticheskoi akademii, 11 (1925), 204–222.

  15. 15.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Ideal i Put’ [The Ideal and the Path to It], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp 349–351 (p. 349).

  16. 16.

    The underlining is Bogdanov’s. Bogdanov, A. Letter to Vladimir Bazarov. 1 July 1913. Fondo Bogdanov, Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso (FLLB), serie 2, fas. 1, doc 7, pp. 1–8 (p. 1).

  17. 17.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Novyi mir [The New World] (Moscow: Izdanie S. Dorovatovskogo i Charushnikova, 1905), p. 54. The word chelovek is masculine singular, but it is not as clearly gendered as the English man. Chelovek refers to all genders.

  18. 18.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Novyi mir [The New World], pp. 7–54. On the concept of comradeship see also his pamphlet: Alexander Bogdanov, Elementy proletarskoi kultury v razvitii rabochego klassa. Lektsii prochitannye v Moskovskom proletkulte vesnou 1919 goda [The Elements of Proletarian Culture in the Development of Working Class. Lectures Delivered at Moscow Proletkult in Spring 1919], (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo, Vserossiiskii Sovet Proletkulta, 1920).

  19. 19.

    Quotes from Nietzsche and Marx appear in the epigraph to ‘The New World’: Alexander Bogdanov, Novyi mir [The New World], p. 7.

  20. 20.

    On Bogdanov’s critique of nationalism and authoritarianism during the First World War see: Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Voennyi kommunizm i gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm’ [War Communism and State Capitalism], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp. 335–344.

  21. 21.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Sotsializm v nastoiashchem’ [Socialism in the Present], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp. 99–103.

  22. 22.

    Bogdanov writes about the new programme of proletarian Enlightenment elsewhere. See, for example, his pre-revolutionary work: Alexander Bogdanov, Kulturnye zadachi nashego vremeni [The Cultural Tasks of Our Time] (Moscow: Izdanie S. Dorovatovskago i A. Charushnikova, 1911).

  23. 23.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Proletarskii Universitet’ [The Proletarian University], Proletarskaia Kultura, 5 (1918), pp. 9–22.

  24. 24.

    About the Enlightenment legacy in the Russian nineteenth-century revolutionary movement and in the Soviet Union, see the general historical overview in: Yinghong Cheng, ‘From the Enlightenment to the Soviet New Man’, in Creating the New Man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities (Perspectives on the Global Past) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), pp. 8–47. About the concept of Soviet Enlightenment in Lenin and Bogdanov, see my article: Maria Chehonadskih, ‘The Comrades of the Past: The Soviet Enlightenment Between Negation and Affirmation’, Crisis and Critique, 4, 2 (2017), pp. 86–105. Some of the ideas developed below are drawn from this essay.

  25. 25.

    See: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘What is to be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement’, in Collected Works of Lenin, trans. by Joe Fineberg and George Hanna, 45 vols (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960–1977), vol. V, pp. 347–529.

  26. 26.

    Narkompros was founded in 1917, straight after the October Revolution. The abbreviation ‘narkompros’, that is Narodnyi komissariat prosveshcheniia, is often translated as ‘People’s Commissariat of Education’, but prosveshchenie in Russian literally means ‘enlightenment’. Confusion comes from the synonymous usage of the words ‘education’ and ‘enlightenment’ both before and after the revolution. This is due to the fact that mass illiteracy in the Russian Empire created circumstances under which the idea of public education appeared identical with the idea of enlightenment. Under Lunacharsky’s leadership, Narkompros implemented free and universal access to education, created unique communitarian system of preschool and school education, established programmes for the elimination of illiteracy, promoted women’s emancipation and gender equality, campaigned against religious prejudices and dealt with many other issues, including art and publishing projects. About the activity of Lunacharsky in Narkompros see: Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky. October 1917–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

  27. 27.

    Anatoly Lunacharsky, ‘Speech at the First All-Russia Congress on Education’ [1918], in On Education. Selected Articles and Speeches, trans. R. English (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981), pp. 10–30 (p. 16). We have to note that the original title says ‘Congress on Enlightenment’.

  28. 28.

    Fitzpatrick summarises the speech in: Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky. October 1917–1921, pp. 95–96.

  29. 29.

    Alexader Bogdanov, ‘Pismo Lunacharskomy’ [Letter to Lunacharsky], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp 352–355.

  30. 30.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘O khudozhestvennom nasledstve’ [On the Artistic Inheritance], in Iskusstvo i rabochii klass (Moscow: Proletarskaia Kultura, 1918), pp. 31–54 (p. 37).

  31. 31.

    See: Alexander Bogdanov, Nauka i rabochii klass [Science and the Working Class], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp. 360–376. On the development of the encyclopaedia in various epochs see also: Milonov, Y., ‘Na put k rabochei entsiklopedii’ [Towards the Worker’s Encyclopaedia]. 19 January 2022. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 1230, op. 1, ed. khr. 463, pp. 115 (pp. 5–9).

  32. 32.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nauka i rabochii klass [Science and the Working Class], p. 374.

  33. 33.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nayka i rabochii klass. Doklad, chitannyi na konferentsii Proletarskikh Kulturno-Prosvetitelnykh Obshchestv goroda Moskvy 23 fevralia 1918 g. [Science and the Working Class. Theses Presented at the Conference of the Proletarian Cultural-Enlightenment Societies of Moscow, February 1918] (Moscow: Izdanie Soiuza Rabochikh Potrebitelnykh Obshchstv, 1919), p. 15.

  34. 34.

    M. Smitt, ‘Proletarizatsiia nayki’ [Proletarisation of Science], Proletarskaia Kultura, 11–12 (1919), 27–33 (p. 31).

  35. 35.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nauka i rabochii klass. Doklad, chitannyi na konferentsii Proletarskikh Kulturno-Prosvetitelnykh Obshchestv goroda Moskvy 23 fevralia 1918 g. [Science and the Working Class. Theses presented at the Conference of the Proletarian Cultural-Enlightenment Societies of Moscow, February 1918], p. 16.

  36. 36.

    Pavel Ivanovich Lebedev-Polianskii, O proletarskoi kulture. Stenogramma rechi, proiznesennoi v Moskve 20 noiabria 1920 g. [On Proletarian Culture. Verbatim Report of a Speech Delivered in Moscow on 20 November, 1920] (Rostov-on-Don: Donskoe oblastnoe otdelenie gos. izdatelstva, 1921) pp. 9–11. This paragraph with quotations from Smit and Lebedev-Polianskii appeared in my article: Maria Chehonadskih, ‘The Comrades of the Past: The Soviet Enlightenment Between Negation and Affirmation’, pp. 97–98.

  37. 37.

    Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia, pp. 165–168.

  38. 38.

    See: Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Proletarskii Universitet’ [The Proletarian University], pp. 9–22. For the programme of lectures for the Literary and Publishing Department of the Caucasian and Eastern bureau of Proletkult see: Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov, Konspekty obshchikh lektsii dlia studiitsev proletkulta. Vipusk 2. Ekonomika i kulturnoe razvitie [Synopsis of Lectures for the Proletkult’s Studio Students. Part 2. Economy and Cultural Development] (Rostov-on-Don: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo, 1920), p. 2.

  39. 39.

    Milonov, Y., ‘Na put k rabochei entsiklopedii’ [Towards the Workers’ Encyclopaedia]. 19 January 2022, p. 22.

  40. 40.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Proletarskii Universitet’ [The Proletarian University], pp. 10–14. On Bogdanov’s and Gorky’s schools in Italy see: Daniela Steila, Scienza e rivoluzione. La recezione dell’empiriocriticismo nella cultura russa (1877–1910) (Firenze: Le Lettere, 1996), pp. 305–322.

  41. 41.

    Milonov, Y., ‘Na put k rabochei entsiklopedii’ [Towards the Worker’s Encyclopaedia]. 19 January 2022, p. 22.

  42. 42.

    Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia, pp. 165–168.

  43. 43.

    See the summary of the discussions and the defense of proletarian science in: Nikolai Sizov, ‘Proletariat i nauka’ [The Proletariat and Science], Gorn, 8 (1923), 89–102.

  44. 44.

    Milonov, Y., ‘Na put k rabochei entsiklopedii’ [Towards the Worker’s Encyclopaedia]. 19 January 2022, p. 32.

  45. 45.

    Preniia po doklady tov. Arvatova ‘Politika i taktika proletkulta’ [Discussion of the Report of the comrade Arvatov ‘The Politics and Tactics of the Proletkult’], Boris Arvatov’s remark. 14 December 1921. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 1230, op.1, ed. khr. 100, pp. 22–26 (p. 26).

  46. 46.

    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments’, in Collected Works of Lenin, trans. by Julius Katzer, 45 vols (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1960–1977), vol. XIV, pp. 60–79 (p. 65). We refer to a famous Foucauldian aphorism about the disappearance of epistemic arrangements, which produced the figure of man and humanism: Michel Foucault, The Order of Things. An Archeology of the Human Sciences (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 422.

  47. 47.

    See: Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in the Revolutionary Russia, p. 69.

  48. 48.

    On this see: Ibid., pp. 70–90.

  49. 49.

    Protokol obshchego sobraniia rabotnikov proletkulta ot 14 dekabria 1921 goda [Minutes of the General Meeting of Proletkult’s Workers on 14 December 1921], Boris Arvatov’s remark, 14 December 1921. RGALI, f. 1230, op.1, ed. khr. 100, pp. 1–16 (p. 16).

  50. 50.

    Boris Arvatov, ‘Politika i taktika proletkulta’ [The Politics and Tactics of Proletkult], 1921. RGALI, f. 1230, op.1, ed. khr. 100, pp. 17–23 (pp. 17–18).

  51. 51.

    Ibid., pp. 18–20.

  52. 52.

    Preniia po doklady tov. Arvatova ‘Politika i taktika proletkulta’ [Discussion of the Report of the comrade Arvatov ‘The Politics and Tactics of the Proletkult’], 14 December 1921, pp. 24–25.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., p. 26.

  54. 54.

    Lynn Mally, Culture of the Future. The Proletkult Movement in the Revolutionary Russia, pp. 170–173.

  55. 55.

    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘The New Economic Policy and the Tasks of the Political Education Departments’, p. 66.

  56. 56.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Voennyi kommunizm i gosudarstvennyi kapitalizm’ [War Communism and State Capitalism], pp 335–344.

  57. 57.

    See the overview of the policies implemented during the War Communism period in: Silvana Malle, The Economic Organization of War Communism 1918–1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

  58. 58.

    Pismo C.K.R.K.P, ‘O proletkultakh’ [Letter from the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), ‘On Proletkults’], Vestnik Rabotnikov Iskusstv, 2–3 (1920), p. 67.

  59. 59.

    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘On Proletarian Culture’, in Collected Works, trans. by J. Katzer, 45 vols (Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1960–1977), vol. XXXI, pp. 316–317. For his understanding of Soviet modernization also see: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, ‘Better Fewer, But Better’, in Collected Works, trans. by D. Skvirsky and G. Hanna, 45 vols (Moscow: Progress Publisher, 1960–1977), vol. XXXIII, pp. 487–502.

  60. 60.

    See, for example: S. Zander, ‘Proletarskaia kultura i proletarskaia revolutsiia (K itogam nedavnei diskussii)’ [Proletarian Culture and Proletarian Revolution (The Outcomes of Recent Discussion)] Gorn, 8 (1923), 67–86.

  61. 61.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Proletarian Poetry’, Labour Monthly, IV, 5–6, May–June (1923), 276–285 (p. 279). The English translation is a shortened version of the original text, published as ‘What is Proletarian Poetry?’ in Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Chto takoe proletarskaia poeziia?’ [What is Proletarian Poetry?], Iskusstvo i rabochii klass (Moscow: Proletarskaia Kultura, 1918), pp. 3–30.

  62. 62.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘O khudozhestvennom nasledstve’ [On the Artistic Inheritance], in Iskusstvo i rabochii klass (Moscow: Proletarskaia Kultura, 1918), pp. 31–54 (pp. 51–52).

  63. 63.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Chto takoe proletarskaia poeziia?’ [What is Proletarian Poetry?], p. 22.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., p. 24. See also: Alexander Bogdanov, Elementy proletarskoi kultury v razvitii rabochego klassa. Lektsii prochitannye v Moskovskom proletkulte vesnoi 1919 goda [The Elements of Proletarian Culture in the Development of the Working Class. Lectures Delivered at Moscow Proletkult in Spring 1919], pp. 55–56.

  65. 65.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nauka i rabochii klass. Doklad, chitannyi na konferentsii Proletarskikh Kulturno-Prosvetitelnykh Obshchestv goroda Moskvy 23 fevralia 1918 g. [Science and the Working Class. Theses Presented at the Conference of the Proletarian Cultural-Enlightenment Societies of Moscow, February 1918], pp. 9–11.

  66. 66.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Proletariat i iskusstvo’ [Proletariat and Art], in Voprosy sotsializma (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp 420–426 (p. 421).

  67. 67.

    Ibid., p. 425.

  68. 68.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nayka ob obshchestvennom soznanii. Kratkii kurs ideologicheskoi nauki v voprosakh i otvetakh [The Science of Social Consciousness. The Short Course of Ideological Science in Questions and Answers], 3rd edn. (Moscow: Kniga, 1923), p. 292

  69. 69.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Elementy proletarskoi kultury v razvitii rabochego klassa. Lektsii prochitannye v Moskovskom proletkulte vesnoi 1919 goda [The Elements of Proletarian Culture in the Development of the Working Class. Lectures Delivered at Moscow Proletkult in Spring 1919], p. 14.

  70. 70.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Tektology. Book 1, trans. by A. Kartashov, V. Kelle, P. Bystrov (Hull: Centre for Systems Studies Press, 1996), p. 3. Translation corrected and edited. Compare with: Alexander Bogdanov, Tektologiia. Vseobshchaia organizatsionnaia nauka [Tektology. The Universal Organisational Science] (Moscow: LENAND, 2019), p. 95.

  71. 71.

    See a detailed summary of Bogdanov’s art theory in: John Biggart, ‘Bogdanov’s Sociology of the Arts’, Cultural Science Journal, 13, 1 (2021), 223–238.

  72. 72.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Nauka i rabochii klass. Doklad, chitannyi na konferentsii Proletarskikh Kulturno-Prosvetitelnykh Obshchestv goroda Moskvy 23 fevralia 1918 g. [Science and the Working Class. Theses presented at the Conference of the Proletarian Cultural-Enlightenment Societies of Moscow, February 1918], p. 73.

  73. 73.

    Ibid.

  74. 74.

    Bogdanov, A. ‘Zamechaniia chitatelia po povodu rukopisi nachinaushchego avtora ozaglavlennoi “Na zare”’ [Comments from a Reader on a Novice Author’s Manuscript Entitled “On the Dawn”], 1913? Fondo Bogdanov, FLLB, serie 2, fas. 3, doc 16, pp. 1–6 (p. 6).

  75. 75.

    See, for example, a report on the work of the literary department: N. Pavlovich, ‘Rabota literaturnogo otdela’ [The Work of the Literary Department], Gorn, 1 (1918), pp. 44–46.

  76. 76.

    Aleksei Gan, Konstruktivizm [Constructivism] (Tver: Gostipografiia, 1922), pp. 25–26.

  77. 77.

    Plan organizatsii izobrazitelnogo otdela moskovskogo proletariata [The Organisation Plan of the Art Department of the Moscow Proletariat], p. 66.

  78. 78.

    See, for example: B. Ivanov, ‘Rabochii i izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo’ [Worker and Fine Arts], Gorn, 2–3 (1919), 92–93.

  79. 79.

    This is at least how the images—reproduced in the Proletkult’s journal—of the banners for the trade unions look: Dva znameni, vypolnennye v masterskikh IZO Moskovskogo proletkulta dlia professionalnykh soiuzov [Two Banners Made in the Studios of The Moscow’s Proletkult Art Department for the Trade Unions], Gorn, 2 (7) (1922), 158–59.

  80. 80.

    E. Khersonskaia, ‘Iz tovarishcheskikh besed o zhivopisi’ [From the Comradely Conversations About Painting], Gorn, 2–3 (1919), 94–95.

  81. 81.

    Platon Kerzhentsev, ‘O professionalizme’ [About Professionalism], Gorn, 2–3 (1919), 69–71.

  82. 82.

    Fedor Kalinin, ‘Put proletarskoi kultury i kultury burzhuaznoi’ [The Path of Proletarian and Bourgeois Cultures], Gorn, 1 (1918), 26–27.

  83. 83.

    Pavel Bessalko, Fedor Kalinin, Problemy proletarskoi kultury [The Problems of Proletarian Culture] (Petersburg: Antei, 1919).

  84. 84.

    O. Olenev, ‘Nakonets-to!’ [Finally!], Gudki, 1 (1919), 17–19; P. Iarovoi, ‘Cherez soderzhanie k tekhnike, cherez tekhniky k massam’ [From Content to Technics. From Technics to Masses], Griadushchee, 1–3 (1921), 51–60; V. Poliansky, ‘Pisma o literaturnoi kritike’ [Letters About Literary Criticism], Griadushchee, 4–6 (1921), 42–48.

  85. 85.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Kritika Proletarskogo Iskusstva’ [The Criticism of Proletarian Art], in Iskusstvo i rabochii klass (Moscow: Proletarskaia Kultura, 1918), pp. 55–79 (p. 62).

  86. 86.

    Ibid., p. 68.

  87. 87.

    Ibid, pp. 65–71.

  88. 88.

    Valeriian Pletnev, Tri tochki zreniia na proletarskuiu kulturu [Three Perspectives on Proletarian Culture] (Moscow: Proletkult, 1926).

  89. 89.

    Maria Zalambani, L’Arte Nella Produzione. Avanguardia e rivoluzione nella Russia sovietica degli anni ’20 (Ravenna: Pleiadi, Longo Editore (Collana da Franco Mollia), 1998), pp. 77–78.

  90. 90.

    Quoted in Ibid., p. 104.

  91. 91.

    Nikolai Chuzhak, ‘Literatura Zhiznestroeniia’ [The Literature of Life-Building], Novyi Lef, 11 (1928), 15–19 (p. 15).

  92. 92.

    Osip Brik, ‘V poriadke dnia’ [The Order of Priority], p. 8.

  93. 93.

    David Arkin, ‘Izobrazitelnoe iskusstvo i materialnaia kultura’ [Fine Arts and Material Culture], in Iskusstvo v proizvodstve (Moscow: Khudozhestvenno-Proizvodstvennyi Soviet Otdela IZO Narkomprossa, 1921), pp. 13–18 (pp. 13–14).

  94. 94.

    See, for example: Nikolai Tarabukin, Ot Molberta k mashine [From the Easel to the Machine] (Moscow: Rabotnik Prosveshcheniia, 1923). This work is available in English, but in a shortened version: Nikolai Tarabukin, ‘From the Easel to the Machine’, in Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, trans. Ch. Lodder (London: Harber and Row, 1982), pp. 135–142. About commodity and socialist object see: Boris Arvatov, ‘Everyday Life and the Culture of the Thing (Toward the Formulation of the Question)’, trans. Ch. Kiaer, October, 81, Summer (1997), 119–128.

  95. 95.

    See: Boris Arvatov, Art and Production, ed. John Roberts and Alexei Penzin, trans. by Shushan Avagyan (London: Pluto Press, 2017), pp. 57–58. Translation is modified. See: Boris Arvatov, Iskusstvo i Proizvodstvo [Art and Production] (Moscow: V-A-C press, 2018), pp. 78–79.

  96. 96.

    See: Boris Arvatov, Art and Production, pp. 93–121.

  97. 97.

    Ibid., p. 95.

  98. 98.

    Ibid., p. 96.

  99. 99.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Tektology. Book 1, p. 3.

  100. 100.

    See: Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on the North Sea: Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000).

  101. 101.

    Boris Arvatov, Art and Production, p. 104.

  102. 102.

    Ibid., pp. 104–105.

  103. 103.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Tektologiia. Vseobshchaia organizatsionnaia nauka [Tektology. The Universal Organisational Science], p. 137.

  104. 104.

    Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov, ‘Zavtra li?’ [Would It Be Tomorrow?], in Voprosy sotsializma [The Questions of Socialism] (Moscow: Politizdat, 1990), pp 305–321 (p. 310).

  105. 105.

    Alexander Bogdanov, The Philosophy of Living Experience. Popular Outlines, trans. D. G. Rowley (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016), p. 226.

  106. 106.

    Nikolai Chuzhak, ‘Under the Banner of Life-Building (An Attempt to Understand the Art of Today)’, Art in Translation, trans. Ch. Lodder, vol. 1, 1 (2009), 119–151 (p. 122).

  107. 107.

    Ibid., p. 121.

  108. 108.

    Ibid, p. 139.

  109. 109.

    Nikolai Chuzhak, ‘Bez rulia i bez peril (K nashei politike v literature)’ [Without the Handlebars and Handrail (On Our Politics in Literature)], Oktiabr Mysli, 1 (1924), 38–49 (p. 46).

  110. 110.

    Peter Galison, ‘Constructing Modernism: Cultural Location of Aufbau’, in Origins of Logical Empiricism, ed. by Ronald N. Giere, Alan W. Richardson (Minneapolis, London: Minnesota University Press, 1996), pp. 17–44 (p. 20).

  111. 111.

    Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution, ed. by William Keach, trans. by Rose Strunsky (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005), p. 375.

  112. 112.

    Boris Arvatov, ‘Utilitarizm v literature’ [Utilitarianism in Literature], Oktiabr, 12 (16), (1925): 100–6.

  113. 113.

    This paragraph on Taylorism appeared in my article: Maria Chehonadskih, ‘The Comrades of the Past: The Soviet Enlightenment Between Negation and Affirmation’, p. 95.

  114. 114.

    Alexander Bogdanov, Mezhdu chelovekom i mashinoi [Between Man and Machine] (Saint Petersburg: Priboi, 1913), p. 15.

  115. 115.

    Ibid. See also the critique of Soviet Taylorism in: Zenovia A. Sochor, ‘Soviet Taylorism Revisited’, Soviet Studies, 33, 2 (1981), 246–264.

  116. 116.

    See: Alexei Penzin, ‘Iskusstvo i biopolitika. Sovetskii avangard 1920-kh gg. i poslerevolutsionnye formy zhizhni’ [Art and Biopolitics. The Soviet Avant-garde of the 1920s and the Post-revolutionary Forms of Life], in Kultura i revolutsiia: fragmenty sovietskogo opyta 1920–1930 gg, ed. E. V. Petrovskaia (Mocow: RAN, Institut filosofii, 2012), pp. 47–90.

  117. 117.

    Alexei Gastev, ‘O tendentsiiakh proletarskoi kultury’ [On the Tendencies of Proletarian Culture], Proletarskaia Kultura, 9–10 (1919), 35–45.

  118. 118.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘O tendentsiiakh proletarskoi kultury (Otvet Gastevy)’ [On the Tendencies of Proletarian Culture (Response to Gastev)], Proletarskaia Kultura, 9–10 (1919), 46–52.

  119. 119.

    Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution, pp. 414–415.

  120. 120.

    Ibid., pp. 415–417.

  121. 121.

    Franz Kafka, ‘Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk’, in Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka, trans. by Willa and Edwin Muir (Random House: New York, 1993), pp. 305–328 (p. 326).

  122. 122.

    Alexander Bogdanov, ‘Prostota ili utonchennost?’ [Simplicity or Sophistication?], Proletarskaia kultura, 13–14 (1920), 58–67.

  123. 123.

    We gave this parable a communist interpretation. Other interpretations focus mainly on the paradoxes of the mutual exclusion of work and art, the play between contextualisation and re-contextualisation (whistling as art and non-art) or on the complex relationship between artist and audience. See, for example, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature, trans. by Dana Polan (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 16–27; and Maurizio Lazzarato, ‘Art, Work and Politics in Disciplinary Societies and Societies of Security’, Radical Philosophy, 149 (2008), 26–32.

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    Maria Chehonadskih

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Chehonadskih, M. (2023). Proletarian Monism. In: Alexander Bogdanov and the Politics of Knowledge after the October Revolution. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40239-5_4

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