Abstract
Abstract This paper analyses the historical genesis of Aleksandr Bogdanov’s conception of proletarian culture. In particular, the author deals with Bogdanov’s activity during his exile in Vologda, his organization of the Vpered group, and the debates over cultural politics amongst Russian Marxism in emigration. The systematic focus of the paper is on the concept of culture as based on the material and non-material capacities of the comprehension and the working and living conditions of the worker. The role of art in a system of culture is another important systematic focus of this analysis.
Highlights
This paper analyses the historical genesis of Aleksandr Bogdanov’s conception of proletarian culture
In Russia, where the founding members of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party were immediately arrested after its illegal foundation (1898), the party had to struggle for its organizational survival
In teaching workers the basics of Marxist political economy, Bogdanov had structured his course into questions and answers, a method which he employed in later courses designed for a working class public
Summary
It can be said that Bogdanov, “like the early anthropologists understood culture in the broadest sense, as encompassing tools, means of cooperation, speech, knowledge, art, customs, laws, ethics and so on – in other words, all the products, material and nonmaterial, of human labour”(Sochor 1988: 68) He referred to culture in the narrower sense, what he called ‘spiritual culture’, which included worldviews, artistic creativity, aesthetics, and political relations.
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