Translation:Proletarskaya Kul'tura/No.1/Comrades
Comrades!
The workers' movement is moving along different paths towards our great goal – world socialism. It emerged as purely economic and professional, then cooperative; it also began to develop into a political force; even later it took the form of a cultural organization. The bourgeois world not only struggled violently against these streams of new life: from the very beginning it tried to peacefully dominate them, to take them under its evaluation, and for a long time it succeeded. Although the proletariat had for a long time broken away from the class of small proprietors, for a long time it did not itself understand the full depth of its rupture with a society built on private property and economic power. It hesitated between the struggle and cooperation of classes, adhering to bourgeois parties, obeying bourgeois concepts of life. The release from custody was done little by little; there were stops, there was talk again from class independence to the blocks that bound it within an alien social system, to ideological opportunism. And when it seemed that the enormous growth of international socialism was going to finally consolidate the independent tactics of the proletariat in all areas, then a world war broke out with it, an unprecedented crisis of proletarian class consciousness.
The majority of the workers, even in the most advanced countries, followed the bourgeoisie, and not out of fear, but out of conscience, recognized its national interests as above their class, for peace and economy with their capitalists, in order to jointly exterminate their enemies, their own yesterday's and tomorrow's comrades. And the thought and feeling of the proletariat turned out to be in fact unreliable and price-stable. Why? Because they were faced with a new, unprecedentedly difficult question and did not have enough deep, holistic education behind them to solve it firmly and steadily, in their own way, from the point of view of their tasks and their ideals. Unable to solve it in this way, the working class submitted to someone else's decision, to one bound by the surrounding environment of the capitalist world.
Only the development of an independent spiritual culture can give the class a holistic upbringing that irrevocably guides the collective wave and thinking. This happened among the Bourgeois classes, this was their strength; it was not enough for the proletariat, this is its weakness. If they were completely independent culturally, then in even the most difficult and new environment, the old world could not prompt them with their thoughts, inspire them with their moods, corrupt them with their poison, make them their blind instrument.
The cultural movement of the working class lagged behind the economic and political movement. Now we see how severely it affected them and the entire historical fate of the working class in our era. This backwardness was doubly reflected on the fate of the Russian proletariat, by the fact that it made it impossible for the workers of the foremost countries to support our revolution in its struggle for peace, in its struggle for life against the enemies who surrounded it from below from within. Іt is the working class who will direct its greatest efforts to create what it lacks so much, let cultural independence be an alternative, and henceforth constant, slogan. The new culture should cover all areas of life and creativity, cover not partially superficially, but deeply and in all their breadth. We know: there is a proletarian politics; but how much more politicking, poisoning her, bourgeois in spirit, is being fed to her at every step! There is a comradely bond and comradely discipline; in them the soul, in them the strength of the class organisation; But don't we see how often their petty selfishness, careerism, the competition of personal ambitions, the thirst for power on the part of some, blind trust and not conscious submission on the part of others, are often undermined by the legacy of the old society with its fragmentation, the struggle of all against all, suppressing the power of some and the slavish obedience of others. Proletarian science has been developing since the time of Marx; but how little it has penetrated into the masses, how much the religion of the second superstitions and other remnants of the temporal thought of the past keeps close to it; and besides, how many areas of knowledge have not yet been touched upon by the criticism and reworking of the proletarian labour point of view; there the worker seeking the truth is compelled to simply take what the bourgeoisie and its intelligentsia will give, and at the same time, involuntarily and imperceptibly, to submit to their identical influence, to submit to their structure of thought. Proletarian art is born; but how young and weak these embryos are, how much imitation of alien forms of the past mixes with them, how little the creation of their new nature, their own special ways!
Yes, comrades, the cultural emancipation of the proletariat is necessary, the struggle for it is urgent; it is a struggle for a real true class self-determination.
However, it does not at all mean a simple break with the entire rich culture of the old world. No, the proletariat is the legitimate heir of all its valuable gains, spiritual as well as material; from this inheritance it cannot and should not give up. But it must be mastered in such a way that it does not take possession of the very soul of the proletariat, as a dead office possesses the soul of the bourgeoisie, so that it becomes only an instrument in the hands of the proletariat. In the old culture, everywhere that is useful to him, merges with that which is hostile to him, which can darken and weaken his collective consciousness. Since this is so, the proletariat must learn to accurately capture everything harmful and alien to itself in the heritage of the past, destroying this side of it with its hapless criticism. Criticism, on the other hand, fully achieves its goal when it indicates the best instead of the worst; and therefore it must be based on the independent creativity of the proletariat. Thus, cultural independence is the only way to conquer the spiritual treasures hitherto accumulated by mankind. We see: the work ahead is enormous, the difficulties and obstacles in the path of the work to which we call our comrades are enormous. But the proletariat did not come into the world for easy tasks. And we believe: their collective strength in their mighty growth and self-organisation will overcome everything, achieve everything. Long live Proletarian Culture, the great weapon of the victory of World Socialism!
Editorial