KRUPSKAYA, PROLETKUL’T AND THE ORIGINS OF SOVIET CULTURAL POLICY

Abstract

Although it has not always been recognized, cultural revolution was at the heart of the Bolshevik project. Its implementation, none the less, was problematic not least in the areas of defining what form such a cultural revolution should take and how it should be promoted. The article focuses on the educational work of Nadezhda Krupskaya (1869–1939), a leading pioneer of early Soviet cultural transformation. She had a lifelong involvement in the education of male and female workers. She was influenced by numerous educational ideas including those of John Dewey. The main theme of the article is to show that, although there was strong and ever‐increasing pressure to develop a largely vocational, productionist curriculum, Krupskaya consistently defended the notion that education was also about the all‐round development of the individual. She believed that this aim was entirely compatible with Marx’s own ideas. From her successive positions in ministries and academic institutions, Krupskaya kept this theme alive even in the face of inexorably advancing Stalinist utilitarianism.

KEYWORDS:

• Russia
• culture
• revolution
• Krupskaya
• Lenin
• Stalin

Notes

1. “Better fewer but better” (Lenin 1967, vol. 3, p. 774). Although this is Lenin’s last work it does reflect a consistent line in his ideas about class and culture.

2. On early conflicts between Bogdanov and Lenin see Read (1979, pp. 40–57). On the revolutionary period see Read (1990).

3. For a fuller account see Read (1997).

4. “K voprosu o sotsialisticheskoi shkole” 1918 (On the question of the socialist school), in Krupskaya (1988, pp. 51–59).

5. “Iz knigi ‘Narodnoe obrazovannie i demokratiia’” 1915 (From the book Popular Education and Democracy) in Krupskaya (1988, p. 34).

6. For an interpretation of the rise and fall of Soviet communism which gives prominence to the role of productionism and of cultural revolution in these processes see Read (2001).

7. See Fitzpatrick (1978).

8. See Read (1979, 1990) for a fuller discussion of these issues.

9. “Glavpolitprosvet i iskusstvo” 1921 (The political education department and art), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 76).

10. “Problema kommunisticheskogo vospitaniia” 1921 (Problems of communist education), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 79).

11. “K voprosu o kommunisticheskom vospitanii molodezhi” 1922 (On the question of the communist education of youth), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 101).

12. Note the use of term “interests” rather than “principles” or “morality”.

13. “Lenin o prosveshchenii i narodnom uchitele” 1927 (Lenin on education and people’s teachers), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 179).

14. “O politekhnizme” 1929 (On polytechnism), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 198).

15. “Marks o kommunisticheskom vospitanii podrastaiushchego pokoleniia” 1933 (Marx on the communist upbringing of the rising generation), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 316).

16. “Uchenie Marksa dliia sovetskogo pedagoga – rukovodstvo k deistviiu” 1938 (The teaching of Marx for the Soviet pedagogue – putting leadership into action), in Krupskaya (1988, p. 399).