Alexander Bogdanov and the Problem of the Socialist Intelligentsia

The two articles on Bogdanov in the present issue of The Russian Review concentrate on the same general problem but approach it from different angles and lead to different conclusions.1 The problem can be defined as the proper understanding of Bogdanov's position in the classical controversy about the intellectuals in the workers' movement. The first article, dealing with Bogdanov as the leader of the Vperedist faction of prerevolutionary bolshevism, presents him as yet another theorist of "the tutelary role of the social Democratic Intelligentsia in the workers' movement";2 a theorist whose views on this subject were in fact more consistent and extreme than Lenin's, and could therefore be used by those members of the intelligentsia who wanted, consciously or unconsciously, to constitute themselves into "a new class." The second article, devoted to the postrevolutionary period, subscribes to a more widespread opinion-to the view of Bogdanov as a theorist of a distinctively proletarian culture. From this perspective Bogdanov's Marxism-defined by him as a philosophy of "collectivism" and finding expression in the practices of the Proletkult-appears to be a staunch defense of the autonomy of the workers' movement and a warning against the excessive ambitions of the "organizing intelligentsia." In other words, the two authors see Bogdanov as an important contributor to the theory of intelligentsia as a potential "new class" but greatly differ from each other in defining the nature of his contribution: the first regards him as a de facto supporter of the tendency to form such a class, while the second classified him as a theorist for whom the possibility of a new class rule was a threat to the workers' movement, a danger which should have been resisted and avoided. To bring this difference into a sharp focus, we can say that the first