Not so long ago, the question of proletarian culture was met with distrust in the overwhelming majority of party circles—and, quite often, with outright hostility. In the current transitional moment, however, attitudes have significantly changed. This question is increasingly drawing attention, and the number of supporters of the new culture is growing. True, the ice has not yet been completely broken, but cracks have already appeared; they are widening, and their gaping ruptures are beginning to attract proletarian eyes. And yet, it must be admitted that for many, this question remains unclear, and the very existence of a proletarian culture is called into doubt. Is there a proletarian culture? Yes, we answer decisively: its elements are clearly present. What you call class consciousness, proletarian ideology—these are precisely the elements of proletarian culture. Its development is uneven, but in the political and economic spheres, the influence of the working-class ideology extends far beyond its immediate ranks. Bulgakov, in his Philosophy of Economy, writes: "The number of actual followers of economic materialism is much greater than the number of its open and conscious adherents."

Now, in this transitional moment of the social revolution, when the proletariat, together with the poorest peasantry, has risen to power, an urgent and pressing need has emerged: the proletariat must define its position in areas such as education and art. None of the sincere supporters of the working class would deny the immense importance of the question of education. We, the workers, cannot allow the education of the people to remain in the hands of bourgeois methods. At the most crucial moment in a person’s life—when their soul is being shaped, often in a way that lasts for life—we cannot allow it to be subjected to the influence of our most bitter enemy: the bourgeoisie. We must develop our own socialist methods of education, which are directly connected to the socialist ideal. No less important to the working class is art. Art not only develops our consciousness—it also structures the order of our feelings, helping to eliminate the common dissonance between thought and emotion, and bringing them into full harmony. In doing so, it lends power and unwavering consistency to the pursuit of our aims. Moreover, art enriches us with an immense wealth of experience—experience that a person may never fully encounter in practical life with the depth and scope provided by its depiction in literature. In this sense, the preliminary engagement with art helps to anticipate real-life contradictions and clashes, thereby strengthening our capacity in struggle.

The development and formation of proletarian culture has two aspects. One is the properly cultural-enlightenment side, which consists in assimilating the bourgeois legacy, in defining our proletarian attitude toward it, and in absorbing the elements of proletarian culture already created by the workers' movement. The other side must be expressed in the creation of conditions for the manifestation of the proletariat’s creative forces—and in the very act of creation itself. This second task is the more difficult one. It is this that we wish to discuss in the present article. Clarifying the processes of creativity, in particular, will help us determine how the intelligentsia, which is gravitating toward the working class, might participate in the formation of proletarian culture—and what the role of the proletariat itself should be.

The question of creativity is one of the least clarified. The bourgeois intelligentsia, taking advantage of this state of affairs, all too eagerly hides in this last fortress of theirs and diligently shrouds itself in a fog of mysticism, invoking all manner of incantations meant to obstruct our access to these "sacred meadows." But the working class will not be stopped by the magical illusions cast by the last Mohicans of the bourgeoisie. With the tried and tested weapon of organized consciousness, it will succeed in drawing them out from the remotest ravines into the light of day, exposing the nakedness of their false self-importance. From a narrow caste- and guild-like self-interest, these gentlemen spin fantastic tales: that the sacred meadows of creativity are accessible only to chosen souls, to the priests of art, who enter them clad in white robes and incense smoke. But creativity is a fundamental need of every human being. It is revealed in the overcoming of contradictions that people encounter in practical life—especially for the worker, in the sphere of labor, in the struggle with external nature; and also in the realm of thought, when the thread of logical sequence is broken and must be reestablished. The priestly caste of art will immediately pose the question: “So, according to you, there is no difference between a genius and an ordinary worker?” Yes, we say—essentially, none. The only difference lies in the intensity and in the greater or lesser sensitivity of the cerebral apparatus. The geniuses themselves did not see it otherwise; it is no accident that Goethe defined genius as the capacity for concentrated attention, and Darwin as patience.

From this point of view, it becomes clear that the processes of creativity—whether in overcoming the contradictions of everyday labor or in the more complex forms of creativity found in great discoveries, inventions, and the artistic realm—are essentially the same. The difference lies only in the forms these processes take. One form is logical, which includes scientific discoveries and inventions; the other is artistic, which encompasses the realm of art.

The course of scientific creativity is based on logical thinking and proceeds under the control of consciousness, which manifests in the gathering of the necessary material for a given task and in organizing that material into a logically coherent structure. But the matter does not end there. Our psyche is not exhausted by consciousness; it is only its bright, directly accessible part. Beyond it lies a much broader and darker region of the psyche—the subconscious: a vast repository of experience, a storehouse of countless impressions too faint or too ordinary to be grasped, impressions vaguely perceived and then forgotten. When consciousness finishes the work of accumulating and arranging material, then—if the discovery has ripened—the subconscious comes to assist. It enters into contact with consciousness, breaking into it like a powerful, fertilizing stream, and from its hidden wealth brings forth what was lacking to solve the problem. As a result of this synthesis, an apparently unexpected discovery emerges—something new, something capable of directing the further development of an entire field of knowledge and thought along new paths and with new methods. This is supported by rich scientific material concerning the life of the subconscious, by the historical development of discoveries, and by the very possibility of discovery itself under specific historical conditions. The testimonies of scientists, and their biographical accounts of their research, speak in favor of this view as well. Poincaré, for instance, recounts that he made one of his discoveries in mathematics not during intense work with calculations, but as he was getting into a car, thinking of something entirely different. At first glance, this seems like a chance discovery. But this is not the case. Only one assumption is valid here: when the conscious work on a problem ends, the subconscious work—running in parallel—continues along its own path, even if consciousness is entirely occupied with other matters.

Many of the mystical intuitionists are inclined to view creativity as divine inspiration—an innate gift possessed by chosen individuals who are supposedly able to create eternal values out of nothing, through some kind of magical inspiration. This view reflects both great self-conceit and profound ignorance. All serious studies of creativity affirm that it is only possible as the result of intense effort, following the accumulation of rich experience. Only through the accumulation of practical and theoretical knowledge can one arrive at genuine creativity and discovery. Every act of invention or discovery is possible only after a sufficiently necessary amount—and appropriate quality—of experience or material has been acquired.

The other form of creativity—in the artistic realm—is based not on direct rationality, but on non-mediated feelings or, as is often said, intuition. More precisely, it rests on a continuously maintained connection between consciousness and the subconscious. Only at the final stage, when a certain image has vividly and clearly formed in the imagination, does consciousness step in to control and verify whether this image corresponds to the general task at hand and to its place within the intended system. Art is, above all, figurative or image-based thinking; it does not argue, it shows. For that reason, it cannot rely solely on logical thinking—if only because nearly every complex image contains such a vast store of experience that it cannot be grasped by the conscious memory alone. Therefore, for the process of artistic creativity to proceed normally in the creation of images, the deep storehouse of subconscious experience is a constantly necessary supplement. In those cases where the connection between consciousness and the subconscious is poorly developed or functions unevenly, the result is a less complete form of art—for example, tendentious art. In such works, the image or system of images is incomplete, as if underdeveloped; they lack the proper and necessary unity of conscious and subconscious experience, fused together by the cement of feeling.

If we were to draw a conclusion and apply it to the intelligentsia aligning itself with the proletariat—what place it might occupy in the creation of proletarian culture—we would define it as follows: the intelligentsia that joins us may think with us, and if necessary, even for us—but it cannot feel for us. As far as logical thought, observation, and the systematization of experience are concerned, an intellectual who attentively studies the life and surroundings of the worker can quite well think on behalf of the worker, correctly outline the direction of development of proletarian ideology—as Marx and a number of other proletarian theorists have done. But when it comes to deeper experiences, to the emotional life of the worker, the intellectual is powerless. Their insight is limited. They have access only to what is spoken and what can be observed. But, as we have established, both of these are insufficient for the full realization of artistic expression. Artistic creation is, in its essence, a subconscious process, one that is only later brought under the control of consciousness as it is expressed; and the subconscious is fundamentally rooted in being—which the intellectual, by their very life, almost never shares with the proletariat. For an outsider—even the most attentive observer—it is impossible to penetrate the experiences that are still in the process of subconscious formation. Even the worker is only vaguely aware of the rustlings within their own soul, and only in the moment of intense creativity do these rustlings emerge as vivid and precise images in consciousness. It is still possible to depict the more primitive psychology of the worker—since its experiences are simpler, more or less accessible to observation, and lend themselves to a certain accounting. But to depict the essence of proletarian nature, particularly that of the most advanced layers of the working class—this must be lived. One may point to the ability of artists to “transform themselves” into other people. Yes, in great artists this quality is highly developed. But close examination shows that this ability to embody others is limited by the bounds of experience; the richness of the combinations depends only on the strength and talent of the artist.

A great artist may vividly and powerfully depict the types of a class foreign to him within the limits accessible to his observation and study, but he would not be able to say anything new—something emerging, and at the same time typical, capable of developing into something socially significant.

Limiting the role of the intelligentsia in the creation of proletarian culture, we do not wish to be understood in the simplistic manner of Lermontov’s valet, who divided the world into two halves: one being his master, and the other all the rest — rabble. Such a method must be rejected and cast out. However, one must recognize that those complex, swirling whirlwinds and storms of feeling experienced by the worker are more accessible for depiction by the worker themself than by an outsider, even if that outsider is sympathetic and closely aligned.

Here we are speaking only of equally great individuals who stand within the same ranks of the advanced vanguard, but who belong to different class groupings by origin. An opportunist can also be a worker, if he expresses the moods and aspirations of the backward, semi-proletarian masses who have not yet freed themselves from petty-bourgeois influences. Such a worker, no matter how talented, will not be an expression of the emerging tendencies in the path of development of the advanced vanguard of the working class, and therefore will not be able to portray them artistically.

In conclusion, we say: in resolving the question of creativity, the proletariat must apply the same tried and tested weapon with which it has conquered the political and economic strongholds of the bourgeoisie. This weapon is organized consciousness, fused with discipline and backed by the necessary stock of knowledge. With this very same weapon, the proletariat will conquer the last refuge of the bourgeois intelligentsia—creativity—and will disperse the suffocating mists of mysticism that have gathered around it. Through a persistent and consistent path of expanding experience, accumulating knowledge, and cultivating spiritual self-discipline—towards creativity.

Fedor Kalinin.