Proletarskaia Kultura (Proletarian Culture) was known by its portmanteau name, Proletkult. It was an artist cooperative established in 1917 and its formation was supposed to provide the foundations for a new proletarian art, "liberated from bourgeois, pre-Soviet culture." Its mission emphasized that the proletariat would create a new culture in Soviet Russia and the art produced by that new culture would propagate the collective accomplishments of individuals, workers and peasants. Although Proletkult members tried ...