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[LUNACHARSKY AND GASTEV ON NEW MEN AND NEW CULTURE] Snariazhenie sovremennoi kultury [i.e. The Organisation of the Modern Culture] / with additional article by Alexander Lunacharsky ‘A New Russian Man’.

Gastev, A.

Kharkiv: GIZ Ukrainy, 1923. Item #735

37, [2] зp. 17,5x13 cm. Original printed wrapper. Near fine condition. Contemporary pencil notes in the article by Lunacharsky.

The important example of the collaboration of the two of the great minds of the early Soviet social and cultural reformation: Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875-1933) and Alexei Gastev (1882-1939).
Interestingly enough for this book the two has switched places: Gastev is giving his understanding of the development of culture, while the majority of his works are on the social and economical aspects of the song Soviet society; while Lunacharsky is giving his opinion on the social aspects.
Gastev calls for the ‘liquidation of the cowardliness towards the metal’ in art - this according to him is one of the main goals of post-revolutionary art.
Lunacharsky however articulates the critics towards LEF (calling the constructive part of the constructivism ‘the ideological slime’) and begs not to worship the machine. However Lunacharsky separates Gastev from LEF and agrees with his ideas of self-organisation and the fact that the culture should be kindled by the technological progress
It’s vital to note that by 1930 Lunacharsky became one of the harshest critics of Gastev and one of the people who have stimulated the end of The Institute of Labor and Gastev himself.
He has stated that ‘Gastev thinks that the worker should be the addendum to the machine, that is not right’ and ‘He is lifting the hand that will beat us tomorrow. The poetic temperament of Gastev led him astray. He has became machine-centric, and doesn’t look in the future’. (Lunacharsky, A. Inzhener-chelovek. 1930).
Gastev was arrested and executed in 1938.

Extremely rare. Not in the Worldcat.

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