Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T06:01:45.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Collective Immortality: The Syndicalist Origins of Proletarian Culture, 1905-1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Robert C. Williams
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This pamphlet ivas written iviih an eye to the tsarist censorship. Hence, I was not only forced to confine myself strictly to an exclusively theoretical, particularly economic, analysis of facts, but to formulate the few necessary observations on politics with extreme caution, by hints, in allegorical language—in that accursed Aesopian language— to which tsarism compelled all revolutionaries to have recourse whenever they took up their pens to write a "legal" work.

V. I. Lenin

Collectivism was a Utopian dream that flourished in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and later became part of Soviet ideology. Eisenstein's early films, conductorless orchestras, and mass workers' choruses all aimed at inculcating the view that a collective—be it the party, the proletariat, or the masses—was to replace the individual as the determinant of social and political values. The popular "proletarian culture" movement that flourished during the civil war (1918-21) was one form of collectivism, but there were many others. Yet, as a body of ideas, collectivism in Russia preceded the 1917 Revolution by a decade or more and made a crucial contribution to bolshevism. Indeed, in the years after 1905, collectivism had as much a claim to bolshevism as did the party-centered authoritarianism of Lenin.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 389 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Discussion of bolshevism in 1907-10 has focused on either philosophy or politics, without linking them together. The philosophical issues are considered in David, Joravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science 1917-1932 (London, 1961), pp. 31–42 Google Scholar; D., Grille, Lenins Rivalc: Bogdanov und seine Philosophic (Cologne, 1966)Google Scholar ; and Alexander, Vucinich, Social Thought in Tsarist Russia: The Quest for a General Science of Society, 1861-1917 (Chicago and London, 1976), pp. 206–30 Google Scholar. On god-building, see Jutta Scherrer, “La crise de ['intelligentsia Marxiste avant 1914: A.V. Lunačarskij et le bogostroitel'stvo,” Revue des études slaves, 51, no. 1-2 (1978): 207-15; Jutta Scherrer, “'Ein gelber und ein blauer Teufel': Zur Entstehung der Begriffe ‘bogostroitel'stvo’ und ‘bogoiskatel'stvo, '” Forschungen sur Osteuropaischen Geschichte, vol. 25 (Berlin, 1978), pp. 319-30; George, Kline, Religious and Anti-religious Thought in Russia (Chicago and London, 1968), pp. 103–26 Google Scholar; and Kendall E., Bailes, “Sur la Theorie des Valeurs’ de A. V. Lunačarskij,” Cahicrs du monde russe et soviétique, 8, no. 2 (April-June 1967): 223–43 Google Scholar. Politically, Machism and god-building have been characterized as the “sophomoric mumblings” of a “philosophical heresy” caused by a “wave of deserters from the Bolshevik Center” whose “left-wing resistance” was one of the “political quarrels of the emigration” that “challenged Lenin's control of the party faction” (see Adam, Ulam, The Bolsheviks [New York, 1965], p. 273Google Scholar; Merle, Fainsod, How Russia is Ruled [Cambridge, Mass., 1963], p. 46Google Scholar; D., Shub, Lenin: A Biography [New York, 1948], p. 131Google Scholar; Robert, Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution [New York, 1969], pp. 21–23 Google Scholar; and B., Souvarine, Stalin, trans. C. L. R. James [New York, 1939], p. 129Google Scholar). For a suggestion that the Lenin-Bogdanov quarrel also involved money, see L., Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (New York, 1960), pp. 110–11 Google Scholar. In general, Lenin's labels have been accepted as if they described real ideas, positions, and groupings among the Bolsheviks. But double meanings were common in the Bolshevik underground as protection against censorship and police. “Lenin” and “Bogdanov” were, in fact, aliases, and the “editorial board of Proletarii” was really another name for the Bolshevik Center. In the language of the day, it appears that “philosophy” also implied “politics,” “matter” signified the “proletariat,” “materialism” meant “Marxism,” “idealism” suggested “liberalism,” “motion” denoted “revolution,” “energy” implied “violence,” and so forth. To establish the precise nature of this Aesopian code is beyond the purposes of this article, and demands further study. The main convenience of Aesopian language, which translated philosophy into politics, was that it enabled political messages to pass the censorship inside Russia, minimized police surveillance of the emigration, and observed socialist etiquette while vilifying one's rivals and enemies.

2. Bialik, B. A., ed., V. I. Lenin i A. M. Gor'kii (Moscow, 1958), pp. 105-7, 110–12 Google Scholar.

3. Grille, , Lenins Rivale, p. 37; Google Scholar K. Ostroukhova, “Gruppa ‘Vpered’ (1909-1917 gg.),” Proletarskaia revoliutsiia, 1924, no. 6 (29), p. 205.

4. This summary of Bogdanov's ideas is drawn from his various writings between 1904 and 1910: Novyi tnir (Stat'i 1904-1905) (Moscow, 1905) ; Empiriomonism, vol. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1906) ; Is psikhologii obshchestva, 2nd ed. (St. Petersburg, 1906) ; “K kharakteristike filosofii proletariata,” Raduga (Geneva), no. 4 (February 1908), pp. 88-112; Bogdanov's introduction to Ernst Mach, Analysis of Sensations, reprinted in Die neue Zeit, 26 (1907-8): 695-700; Prikliucheniia odnoi filosofskoi shkoly (St. Petersburg, 1908) ; “Strana idolov i filosofiia marksizma,” in Ocherki po filosofii marksizma (St. Petersburg, 1908), pp. 215-42; Vera i nauka (kniga V. I Vina “Materialism i empiriokrititsism” ) (Moscow, 1910); Padenie velikago fetishisma (Moscow, 1910).

5. E., Mach, Analysis of Sensations and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical (1887) (Chicago and London, 1914), p. London Google Scholar.

6. A., Bogdanov, Prikliucheniia odnoi filosofskoi shkoly, p. 38Google Scholar.

7. N. N., 0 proletarskoi etike (Moscow, 1906), pp. 11, 20, 32Google Scholar.

8. A., Bogdanov, Krasnaia zvesda (Moscow, 1918), pp. 93-9SGoogle Scholar.

9. A., Lunacharskii, Religiia i sotsializm, vol. 11 (St. Petersburg, 1911), p. 38SGoogle Scholar.

10. Lunacharskii, A, “Meshchanstvo i individualizm,” in Ocherki filosofii kollektivisma: Sbornik pervyi (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 245, 254, 326, 343Google Scholar.

11. Gor'kii, Maksim, “Razrushenie lichnosti,” in Ocherki filosofii kollektivisma, p. 396 Google Scholar.

12. Maxim, Gorky, Mother (1906), trans. M. Wettlin (New York, 1962), p. 1962 Google Scholar.

13. Gor'kii, Maksim, “O tsinitsizme” (1908), Stat'i: 1905-1916 gg. (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 74–75 Google Scholar. See also A. Lunacharskii in Litcraturnyi raspad, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 87–88, 118Google Scholar.

14. J., Dietzgen, Some of the Philosophical Essays on Socialism and Science, Religion, Ethics and Critique-of-Reason and the World at Large (Chicago, 1906), pp. 90, 101, 132Google Scholar. German editions of Dietzgen's include: Kleinere philosophische Schriften (Stuttgart, 1903Google Scholar) ; Das Wesen der menschlichen Kopfarbeit (Stuttgart, 1903) ; Erkenntnis und Wahrheit (Stuttgart, 1908). For commentary on Dietzgen, see Huygens, C, “Dietzgens Philosophie,” Die neue Zeit, 21 (1902): 197–207Google Scholar; M. Hitch, “Dietzgenism,” International Socialist Review, 8, no. 5 (November 1907): 347-56; Roland-Hoist, H., Josef Dietsgens Philosophie in ihrer Bedeutung für das Proletariat (Munich, 1910Google Scholar) ; and E., Untermann, Die logischen Mangel des engeren Marxismus: Georg Plekhanov et al. gegen Josef Dietsgen (Munich, 1910Google Scholar). Most Russian translations of Dietzgen's works were done by P. G. Dauge, a Latvian Bolshevik living in Moscow who also was the Ulianov family dentist (see I. Ditsgen, Zavoevaniia (akvisit) filosofii i pis'ma o logike: Spetsial'no demokraticheskaia proletarskaia logika [St. Petersburg, 1906]; I., Ditsgen, Budushchce sotsial-demokratii [St. Petersburg, 1906]Google Scholar; and I. Ditsgen, Religiia i sotsial-demokratiia [St. Petersburg, 1916]). Dauge later tried to distinguish Dietzgen from Mach and god-building (see P. G. Dauge, Iosif Ditsgen [Moscow, 1934]). Russian commentary on Dietzgen includes: Andreev, N, “Dialekticheskii materializm i filosofiia Iosifa Ditsgena,” Sovremennyi mir, 1907, no. 2, pp. 1–35Google Scholar; G. Plekhanov, “Iosif Ditsgen,” Sovremennyi mir, 1907, no. 7, pp. 59—75; I. Gel'fond, “Filosofiia Ditsgena i sovremennyi positivizm,” in Ocherki po filosofii marksizma, pp. 243-90; V. Lenin, “K dvadtsatipiatiletiiu smerti Iosifa Ditsgena,” Pravda, no. 102 (306), May 5/18, 1913, in which Lenin called Dietzgen a materialist with occasional “incorrect concessions to idealism and agnosticism.”

15. K., Kautsky, Der Ursprung des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1908), p. 307 Google Scholar.

16. Mikha Tskhakaia used the term “right Bundist” to describe Lenin in May 1908 (see I. Dubinskii-Mukhadze, , Shcmmian [Moscow, 1965], pp. 139–Google Scholar). Marxist intellectuals in Moscow who were intrigued by syndicalism after 1905 included V. M. Friche (1870-1929), a lecturer in literature at Moscow University who edited Sorel's Reflections on Violence in 1907; V. Bazarov (V. V. Rudnev) (1874-1939), an economist; I. I. Skvortsev (Stepanov), who helped Lenin publish Materialism and Empirio criticism in 1909Google Scholar; V. M. Shuliatikov (1872-1912), a literary critic with the Bolshevik code name “Donat” ; the young historians M. N. Pokrovskii (1868-1932) and N. A. Rozhkov (1868-1927) ; A. V. Sokolov, the lawyer who wrote under the pen-name “St. Vol'skii” ; V. la. Kanel, a doctor; P. G. Dauge (1869-1946), a dentist and Dietzgen translator (see footnote 14) ; the former Bolshevik N. V. Vol'skii (Valentinov) ; and the future Vperedht G. A. Aleksinskii. Most of these men belonged to the “literary-lecture group” established by the Moscow RSDRP committee in 1905 and wrote for legal journals such as Pravda (1904-6), Bor'ba, Svetoch, Svobodnoe slovo, Voprosy dnia, and Istina. Like Bogdanov, they sought to develop Marxism as a tool for social and intellectual criticism, rather than as dogma (see G. A. Aleksinskii, “Vospominaniia,” in Hoover Institution Library, Nicolaevsky Collection, box 230, folder 3, pp. 40-41.

17. Georgii, Plekhanov, Sochineniia, 24 vols. (Moscow, 1923-28), 15: 391Google Scholar. The Menshevik Fedor Dan also charged in 1907 that the Bolsheviks had “acquired a method for themselves; the action directe of the syndicalists” (see Leninskii sbornik, vol. 25 [Moscow, 1933], p. 11).

18. Friche's edition of Sorel appeared as Rasmyshleniia o nasilii (Moscow, 1907). On syndicalism, see J., Estey, Revolutionary Syndicalism (London, 1913)Google Scholar ; P., Stearns, Revolutionary Syndicalism and French Labor: A Cause without Rebels (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971Google Scholar); and B., Moss, The Origins of the French Labor Movement 1830-1914 (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1976)Google Scholar.

19. Riadovoi [Bogdanov], O sotsialisme (Geneva, 1904), pp. 15, 17, 21Google Scholar.

20. V. Bazarov [V. V. Rudnev], Anarkhicheskii kommunizm i marksism (St. Petersburg, 1906), pp. 155 and 160Google Scholar.

21. Berzin-Siemelis, la., “Pervye vstrechi s Leninym,” in Lenin v vospominaniakh revoliutsionerov Latvii (Riga, 1969), pp. 36–37 Google Scholar.

22. Plekhanov's review appeared in Sovremennyi mir, 1907, no. 11-12Google Scholar; see also Plekhanov, , Sochineniia, 16: 5-28Google Scholar.

23. Gor'kii to Piatnitskii, November 4, 1907, in Arkhiv A. M. Gor'kogo, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1954), pp. 210-11.

24. Voinov [Lunacharskii], “Novye put'i,” Raduga, no. 3 (November 1907), pp. 57, 71-72. Lunacharskii's unpublished manuscript, “Vopros o vzaimootnoshenii partii i professional'nykh soiuzov Shtuttgartskom Mezhdunarodnom kongresse,” Geneva, 1907, is found in Columbia University, Russian Archive, Alexinsky Collection.

25. Leninskii sbornik, vol. 25, pp. 112-21.

26. Lenin to Lunacharskii, November 11, 1907, in Literatumoe nasledstvo, no. 80: V. I. Lenin i A. V. Lunacharskii: Pcrepiska, doklady, dokumenty (Moscow, 1971), pp. 33-34.

27. V. I. Lenin, “Marksizm i revisionizm,” in Lenin, V. I., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed., vol. 17Google Scholar: Karl Marks (1818-1883) (1908) (Moscow, 1960), p. 25. Lunacharskii wrote to his wife on August 18, 1907, that in Stuttgart Lenin privately “talks viciously about syndicalism” (see Literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 80: V. I. Lenin i A. V. Lunacharskii, p. 619).

28. Lunacharskii, A, “Meshchanstvo i individualizm,” in Ocherki filosofii kollektivisma (St. Petersburg, 1909), p. 326 Google Scholar.

29. A. Bogdanov, “Filosofiia sovremennago estestvo ispytatelia,” in ibid., p. 133.

30. Plekhanov made his remark in a review of Enrico Leone's Sindikalizm (Moscow, 1907Google Scholar) (see Plekhanov, , Sochineniia, 16: 126Google Scholar).

31. Martov, L, “Religiia i marksizm,” Na rubezhe (St. Petersburg, 1909), pp. 35–36 Google Scholar.

32. F., Kretov, Bor'ba V. I. Lenina sa sokhranenie i ukreplenie RSDRP v gody Stolypinskoi reaktsii (Moscow, 1969), p. 116 Google Scholar; G. Kniazeva, Bor'ba bol'shevikov sa sochetanie nelcgal'noi i legal'noi partiinoi raboty v gody reaktsii (1907-1910 gg.) (Leningrad, 1964), pp. 137, 143-44; P., Barchugov, Soveshchanic rasshiremioi redaktsii “Proletarii” (Moscow, 1961), p. 37 Google Scholar; M., Andreevna, Perepiska, vospominaniia, stat'i, dokumenty (Moscow, 1968), p. 167 Google Scholar; Lenin wrote to Vorovskii on July 1, 1908, saying: “I will leave the [RSDRP Duma] fraction as soon as the ‘left’ and real ‘boycottism’ line take over” (see V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, 30 vols. [Moscow, 1928-37] 28: 546). The Armenian Bolshevik, S. Shaumian, wrote in December 1908 that Bogdanov was “really correct” and “we are all sorry that he left the editorial board,” but supported Lenin because, he said, Bogdanov's philosophy “destroys Marx's whole system” ( S., Shaumian, Izbrannye sochineniia, vol. 1 [Moscow, 1957], pp. 285-88Google Scholar).

33. Stalin to Tskhakaia, July 27, 1908, cited in Dubinskii-Mukhadze, , Shaumian, p. 156 Google Scholar.

34. Morozov, B. et al., Iz istorii bor'by V. I. Lenina sa ukreplenie partii (Moscow, 1964), p. 181 Google Scholar.

35. Stalin to M. Toroshelidze, spring 1909, cited in Dubinskii-Mukhadze, Shaumian, p. 156; see also Iskanderov, M. et al., Ocherki istorii Kommunisticheskoi partii Aserbaidzham (Baku, 1963), p. 129 Google Scholar.

36. Stalin to Vel'tman, December 31, 1910, in Hoover Institution Library, Okhrana Archive, file 17, folder 1.

37. Gruppa Vpered, “K tovarishcham bol'shevikam,” a pamphlet published in Paris in May 1910, cited in K. Ostroukhova, “Gruppa ‘Vpered, ’ ” p. 202. See also Gruppa, Vpered, Sovremennoe polozhenie i sadachi partii: Platjorma vyrabotannaia gruppoi bol'shevikov (Paris, 1910)Google Scholar ; Kretov, , Bor'ba V. I. Lenina, pp. 135-36, 141-42Google Scholar; Kniazeva, , Bor'ba bol'shevikov, pp. 129-38, 141Google Scholar.

38. Lenin to Gor'kii, April 11, 1910, in Bialik, V. I. Lenin i A. M. Gor'kii, pp. 51-53.

39. Bogdanov in Vpered, no. 1 (July 1910), p. 34Google Scholar; Plekhanov, G, “Vo vtoroi komissii Kopengagenskogo s” ezda,” Sotsial-demokrat, no. 17 (1910Google Scholar), in Plekhanov, , Sochineniia, 16: 374Google Scholar.

40. A., Bogdanov, Prikliucheniia odnoi filosofskoi shkoly, p. 66 Google Scholar.

41. Lunacharskii, A, “Zadachi sotsial-demokraticheskogo khudozhestvennogo tvorchestva,” Vestnik shizni, 1907, no. 1Google Scholar, cited in A., Lunacharskii, Kriticheskie etiudy ( “Russkaia literatura” ) (Leningrad, 1925), p. 6 Google Scholar.

42. Ocherki po filosofii kollektivizma, p. S.

43. Ibid., p. 118.

44. Ibid., p. 133.

45. Ibid., p. 138.

46. Ibid., p. 326.

47. Ibid., p. 357.

48. Vol'skii, St., Filosofiia bor'by: Opyt postroenniia etiki marksigma (Moscow, 1909), pp. 27–28 Google Scholar.

49. Ibid., p. 263.

50. Ibid., p. 265.

51. Ibid., p. 310.

52. St. Vol'skii, “O proletarskoi kul'ture,” Vpered, no. 2 (February 1911), pp. 73 and 82Google Scholar.

53. A., Lunacharskii, Vospominaniia i vpechatleniia (Moscow, 1968), p. 49 Google Scholar.

54. A., Bogdanov, Padenie velikago fetishizma, p. 74 Google Scholar; A., Bogdanov, Vera i nauka, pp. 194 and 211Google Scholar.

55. Gruppa Vpered, Sovremennoe polozhcnie, pp. 3 and 17Google Scholar.

56. M., Liadov, Po povodu partiinago krisisa: Chastnoe saiavlenie (Paris, 1911), p. 6 Google Scholar.

57. Lunacharskii, A, “Neizdannye materialy,” in Literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 82 (Moscow, 1970), p. 555 Google Scholar. See also “Tsenzura,” in Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, vol. 60 (Moscow, 1934), p. 472.

58. A., Bogdanov, Inzhener Menni, 3rd ed. (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 43 and 115Google Scholar. The first edition appeared in 1909.

59. Lunacharskii, “Neizdannye materialy,” p. 288.

60. A., Bogdanov, Elementy proletarskoi kul'tury v razvitii rabochego klassa (Moscow, 1920), p. 91 Google Scholar.