LEFT BOLSHEVISM

Science and the Working class
Alexander Bogdanov 1918

Preface to the English translation

This text is a summary of a presentation which Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928) gave at a
conference for the Proletkult organisations of Moscow, 23-28th February 1918. It was written during a period in which Bogdanov was very active in Proletkult. Another version of his speech was given at the First All-Russian Proletkult Conference held 15-20 September 1918, and was reprinted after this conference with 'Methods of Labour and Methods of Cognition' which had previously appeared in Proletarian Culture No. 4, August 1918.

 During the summer of 1918, Bogdanov was involved in the founding of the Communist University, founded 25th June 1918. It was a “higher education establishment conducting social and natural scientific research” which in pursuit of its tasks “researched the elaboration of questions of history, theory, and the Practice of socialism” (Bogdanov 1977). These experiences then feed into the discussion at the September Conference where Bogdanov gave a speech on the Workers' University. This was further elaborated in 'Proletarian University' which appeared in No. 5 of Proletarian Culture which came out in November 1918. 

This latter text is in preparation.

Fabian Tompsett,

 1st October 2015
ORCID

(PDF) Science and the Working Class (Bogdanov) (researchgate.net)