Lenin’s Critique of the “Proletarian Cultural Faction” and Its Implications for China’s Cultural Construction

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly criticised cultural nihilist currents from the strategic height of cultural subjectivity and spiritual independence, advancing the important thesis of “continuing the Chinese cultural lineage through creative transformation and innovative development.” How to handle the dialectical relationship between inheriting and developing fine traditional Chinese culture, as a major课题 [n1] in the project of building a strong nation and rejuvenating the nation, is self-evidently important. Looking back in history, the “Proletarian Cultural Faction” (无产阶级文化派), as a representative current of cultural nihilism, aroused Lenin’s high vigilance and profound critique, concentrated in the following aspects: criticising its adherence to Machism, an idealist epistemological position, and stressing that cultural construction must be guided by the scientific theory of Marxism; criticising its separatist tendency to break away from the leadership of the proletarian party, and making clear that ideological and cultural work must adhere to “the overall leadership of the Russian Communist Party”; criticising its nihilist attitude of discarding all past cultural heritage, and elucidating that socialist cultural development should uphold the principles of dialectical rejection and critical inheritance; criticising its attempt to create a proletarian culture by laboratory methods, and stressing that cultural construction must be grounded in practice and rely on the people. Revisiting these ideas still holds important implications for our development of a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics in the New Era and for building a culturally strong nation.

党的十八大以来，习近平总书记多次从文化主体性和精神独立自主的战略高度批判文化虚无主义思潮，提出“在创造性转化和创新性发展中赓续中华文脉”这一重要论断。如何处理好中华优秀传统文化继承和发展的辩证关系，作为强国建设、民族复兴进程中的重大课题，其重要性不言而喻。回溯历史，“无产阶级文化派”作为文化虚无主义的代表性思潮，曾引起列宁的高度警惕与深刻批判，集中表现在：批判其坚持马赫主义这一唯心主义认识论立场，强调文化建设必须坚持马克思主义的科学理论引领；批判其妄图脱离无产阶级政党领导的独立主义倾向，明确思想文化工作必须坚持“俄国共产党的总的领导”；批判其抛弃以往一切文化遗产的虚无主义态度，阐明社会主义文化发展应秉持辩证扬弃、批判继承的原则；批判其试图以实验室方式创造无产阶级文化的做法，强调文化建设必须立足实践、依靠人民。重温这些思想，对于我们今天发展新时代中国特色社会主义文化、建设文化强国仍然具有重要的启示意义。

I. Critique of the Errors of “Machism” and Adherence to the Marxist Theoretical Foundation

一、批判“马赫主义”的迷误，坚持马克思主义理论根基

Machism was an idealist philosophical school that arose in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe alongside the development of the natural sciences. Its representative figures, Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius, denied the objective reality of matter, reducing the essence of the world to “elements” and equating these elements with “complexes of sensations.” They denied the independence of matter from consciousness, claimed that the concept of matter exceeded the scope of experience, attempted to blur the boundary between matter and consciousness with the term “element,” and systematically attacked and distorted the materialist conception of matter and epistemology of dialectical materialism.

马赫主义是19世纪末20世纪初伴随欧洲自然科学发展而兴起的唯心主义哲学流派，其代表人物恩斯特·马赫（ErnstMach）、理查德·阿芬那留斯（RichardAvenarius）等人否认物质的客观实在性，将世界的本原归结为“要素”，并将要素等同于“感觉的复合”，否认物质对意识的独立性，主张物质概念超出经验范围，试图以“要素”混淆物质与意识的界限，系统攻击和曲解辩证唯物主义的物质观和认识论。

Theory is the guide for action; without correct theoretical guidance, cultural construction loses its direction. The core leader of the “Proletarian Cultural Faction,” Alexander Alexandrovich Bogdanov, was originally an important member of the Bolsheviks. Later, influenced by Machism, he attempted to break away from the scientific guidance of Marxism to construct a so-called “pure proletarian culture,” which Lenin rejected. As early as 1904, in his philosophical work *Empiriomonism*, Bogdanov proposed the identity of the elements of physical experience and psychological experience, and declared that Richard Avenarius’s idealism “from the very beginning had a realist colouring.” Lenin expressed disagreement with this view, and in a letter to Gorky in February 1908, he mentioned that “his works make me even less confident that his views are correct.” By this time Lenin had already sensed that Bogdanov was shifting from spontaneous materialism to Machism. In 1906, Bogdanov further equated social existence with social consciousness, declaring the identity of the elements of physical and psychological experience to be an “indisputable fact.” This made Lenin even more certain that Bogdanov had completely fallen into Machism, and he denounced him for “following an extremely erroneous path, a non-Marxist path.” But Bogdanov did not take Lenin’s criticism seriously and persisted in his erroneous stance. He not only regarded objective physical phenomena as “socially organised experience,” the sum total of individual sensory experience, but also dressed up bourgeois philosophical ideas as “proletarian culture” and fed them to the working class, levelling various accusations against Marxist philosophy, sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire of Machism. Besides Bogdanov, the Russian Machists Vladimir Alexandrovich Bazarov, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, Yakov Alexandrovich Berman, Pavel Solomonovich Yushkevich, and Sergei Alexandrovich Suvorov all, under the guise of exploring Marxist philosophy, used Machist views to revise the basic theories of dialectical materialism.

理论是行动的先导，缺乏正确的理论指引，文化建设就会迷失方向。“无产阶级文化派”的核心领导人亚历山大·亚历山德罗维奇·波格丹诺夫原是布尔什维克重要成员，后受马赫主义影响，试图脱离马克思主义的科学指导构建所谓“纯无产阶级文化”，遭到列宁的拒斥。早在1904年，波格丹诺夫在其哲学著作《经验一元论》中就提出物理经验的要素和心理经验的要素具有同一性，并宣称理查德·阿芬那留斯的唯心主义“一开始就有实在论的色彩”。列宁对此观点表示异议，并于1908年2月致信高尔基，提到“他的著作使我更不相信他的观点是正确的”，此时的列宁已经觉察到波格丹诺夫正在从自发的唯物主义转向马赫主义。1906年，波格丹诺夫进一步将社会存在与社会意识等同，宣称物理经验和心理经验要素的同一是“毋庸置疑的事实”，这使列宁更加确信波格丹诺夫已经完全倒向马赫主义，并斥责其“走的是极端错误的道路，非马克思主义的道路”。但波格丹诺夫对列宁的批评不以为然，仍然坚持自己的错误立场，不仅将客观物理现象看作“社会地组织起来的经验”，是个人感觉经验的总和，而且将资产阶级哲学思想粉饰为“无产阶级文化”输送给工人阶级，对马克思主义哲学发出种种责难，在马赫主义的泥潭中越陷越深。除波格丹诺夫之外，俄国马赫主义者弗拉基米尔·亚历山大罗维奇·巴扎罗夫、阿那托利·瓦西里耶维奇·卢那察尔斯基、雅科夫·亚历山大罗维奇·别尔曼、帕维尔·索洛莫诺维奇·尤什凯维奇和谢尔盖·亚历山大罗维奇·苏沃诺夫等均以探索马克思主义哲学为名，用马赫主义观点修正辩证唯物主义基本理论。

It was precisely because the “Proletarian Cultural Faction” abandoned the Marxist theoretical foundation and started from “pure experience” and “psychological experience” to understand the objective world that they inevitably fell into idealist errors in the construction of proletarian culture. In his article “Religion, Art, and Marxism,” Bogdanov referred to works of art as “artistic ideas,” claiming that art was the organically organised sum total of people’s lives and experience. Basing his argument on the divergence of class and social group standpoints, he denied that culture possessed historical continuity. The poet of the “Proletarian Cultural Faction,” Vladimir Timofeyevich Kirillov, even in his work *We* vehemently opposed inheriting traditional artistic heritage, calling for “burning Raphael to ashes and smashing all museums to pieces.” Valerian Fyodorovich Pletnev believed that establishing proletarian study centres was the prerequisite for proletarian cultural creation. In his view, proletarian culture could be researched and produced solely through the individual will and pure experience of the proletariat, thereby denying that social practice is the source and driving force of cultural production. It can be seen that the leaders of the “Proletarian Cultural Faction” placed individual sensory experience above social reality, severed the inheritance and development between proletarian culture and all cultural heritage, seriously violated the laws of cultural development, and fell into the rut of idealism.

正是由于“无产阶级文化派”抛弃马克思主义理论根基，从“纯粹经验”“心理经验”出发认识客观世界，注定了他们在无产阶级文化建设中陷入唯心主义的迷误。在《宗教、艺术和马克思主义》一文中，波格丹诺夫把艺术作品称为“艺术的意念”，认为艺术是有机组织起来的、人们生活和经验的总和，以阶级、社会集团立场分歧为依据，否定文化具有历史继承性。“无产阶级文化派”的诗人弗拉基米尔·季莫费耶维奇·基里洛夫甚至在其作品《我们》中极力反对继承传统的艺术遗产，号召“把拉斐尔烧成灰、把博物馆统统捣毁”。瓦列里安·费奥多罗维奇·普列特涅夫认为，开设无产阶级讲习所是无产阶级进行文化创作的先决条件。在他看来，无产阶级文化仅凭无产阶级的个人意志和纯粹经验就能研究和制造出来，以此否认社会实践是文化产生和发展的源泉。可见，“无产阶级文化派”领导人把个人感觉经验凌驾于社会现实之上，割裂无产阶级文化与一切文化遗产之间的继承性和发展性，严重违背文化发展规律，陷入唯心主义的窠臼。

In response, in *Materialism and Empirio-Criticism*, Lenin thoroughly exposed the reactionary essence of Machism and forcefully countered the revisions and attacks on Marxist philosophy by Bogdanov and others. After reviewing the divergences in worldviews between Marx and Engels and Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, and others in the history of modern philosophy, Lenin pointed out that modern revisionism was accustomed to playing with words, using seemingly neutral, objective terms to pose as materialism and create theoretical justifications for its opportunist line. For example, Machism used terms like “element,” “physical,” and “psychological” to replace traditional concepts such as “matter,” “consciousness,” and “spirit,” claiming that the material world could be decomposed into “neutral elements” transcending the physical and psychological worlds. But these “new” terms “mean absolutely nothing; this is just talking empty nonsense and putting on airs.” Their essence was a pure subjectivism, an extension and reprint of Berkeleyism, whose fundamental aim was to confuse the meaning and dialectical relationship between social existence and social consciousness, leading Marxist philosophy towards idealism and mysticism. This kind of deceptive discourse could easily interfere with the working class’s understanding and judgement of the foundations of Marxist philosophy. For this reason, Lenin pointed out that “this ambiguity of concepts must be eliminated,” and that an uncompromising struggle must be waged against Machist philosophy and the Russian Machists like Bogdanov. Subsequently, in a letter to his sister Anna Ilyinichna Yelizarova-Ulyanova, Lenin again emphasised that Bogdanov and Lunacharsky were “dishonest, cowardly enemies of Marxist philosophy.” Given that they used the name of “proletarian culture” to instil subjective idealism into the masses, attempting to shake the position of Marxist philosophy and bringing serious harm to the smooth conduct of the workers’ movement and the unity of the Bolshevik Party in thought and organisation, the denunciation and struggle against them could not be relaxed.

对此，列宁在《唯物主义和经验批判主义》中彻底揭露了马赫主义的反动实质，有力回击了波格丹诺夫等人对马克思主义哲学的修正与攻击。列宁在梳理近代哲学史上马克思恩格斯与伊曼努尔·康德、乔治·贝克莱等人的世界观分歧后指出，现代修正主义惯于玩弄字眼，以一些近似中立、客观的术语冒充唯物主义，为其机会主义路线制造理论根据。譬如，马赫主义用“要素”“物理”“心理”等术语代替传统的“物质”“意识”“精神”等概念，宣称物质世界可分解为超脱物理和心理世界的“中性的要素”，但这些“新”字眼“根本没有什么意思，这不过是讲些无聊的空话，装腔作势而已”，本质是纯粹主观主义、贝克莱主义的延伸和翻版，根本目的是混淆社会存在和社会意识的内涵及其辩证关系，将马克思主义哲学引向唯心主义和神秘主义。这种迷惑性的话语，容易干扰工人阶级对马克思主义哲学根基的认知和判断，为此列宁指出，“必须消除概念的这种模棱两可性”，必须对马赫主义哲学和俄国的马赫主义者波格丹诺夫等人进行不调和的斗争。随后，列宁在给姐姐安娜·伊利尼奇娜·叶利扎罗娃-乌里扬诺娃的信中再次强调，波格丹诺夫、卢那察尔斯基是“马克思主义哲学方面的不诚实的、卑怯的敌人”，鉴于他们借用“无产阶级文化”之名向民众灌输主观唯心主义，企图动摇马克思主义哲学地位，给工人运动的顺利开展和布尔什维克党在思想和组织上的统一带来严重危害，对他们的斥责与斗争绝不能缓和。

It is worth noting that, while criticising the philosophical positions of Bogdanov and others, Lenin put forward and elucidated the principle of Party spirit in philosophy, fundamentally answering the question of “what thought should guide” proletarian cultural construction. He stressed that only by adhering to the Marxist class standpoint and orientation could proletarian cultural construction obtain correct ideological guidance and avoid losing its way. Bogdanov and others believed that Marxist theory possessed Party spirit, and that when solving problems it was inevitably biased due to preconceived notions. Therefore, they strongly advocated the principle of “non-Party spirit” in philosophy and the social sciences, maintaining that the opposition between materialism and idealism was unimportant, and devoted themselves to constructing a philosophy that transcended both. They substituted “physical” and “psychical” for “nature” and “spirit”, using fresh terminology and cumbersome rhetoric to conceal the fundamental opposition between the two basic lines, two basic schools, and two great camps of materialism and idealism, and under the guise of “non-Party spirit” and “neutrality” they smuggled in idealist views. In response, Lenin called the positivists and Machists “contemptible middle parties” and stressed: “Marx and Engels were from beginning to end Party-spirited in philosophy; they were adept at detecting every ‘latest’ school’s betrayal of materialism and its indulgence of idealism and fideism.” In modern society, whether political economy or philosophy, all sciences possess Party spirit and necessarily defend the interests of specific classes and strata — “the professors of political economy are merely learned hired hands of the bourgeoisie; and the professors of philosophy are merely learned hired hands of the theologians.” The task of Marxism is to strike back against the reactionary forces and reactionary doctrines that revise and slander its worldview and methodology, to guide people in seeing through the true face of all varieties of bogus Marxism, and ultimately, under the leadership of correct revolutionary theory, to realise the liberation of the proletariat and all humanity.

值得一提的是，列宁在批判波格丹诺夫等人哲学立场的同时，提出并阐明哲学的党性原则，从根本上回答了无产阶级文化建设“以什么思想为指导”的问题，强调只有坚持马克思主义阶级立场和方向，无产阶级文化建设才能获得正确的思想指引，才不会迷失方向。波格丹诺夫等人认为，马克思主义理论具有党性，解决问题时难免因先入之见失之偏颇。因此，他们极力推崇哲学和社会科学的“无党性”原则，主张唯物主义与唯心主义的对立无关紧要，致力于构建超乎二者之上的哲学。他们以“物理”“心理”代替“自然界”和“精神”，借新鲜术语、烦琐辞令掩盖唯物主义与唯心主义两条基本路线、两个基本派别、两大阵营的根本对立，打着“无党性”“中立”的幌子偷运唯心主义观点。对此，列宁将实证论者、马赫主义者称为“可鄙的中间党派”，并强调：“马克思和恩格斯在哲学上自始至终都是有党性的，他们善于发现一切‘最新’流派对唯物主义的背弃，对唯心主义和信仰主义的纵容。”在现代社会，无论是政治经济学还是哲学，都是有党性的科学，必然维护特定阶级与阶层的利益——“经济学教授们不过是资产阶级手下的有学问的帮办；而哲学教授们不过是神学家手下的有学问的帮办。”马克思主义的任务，便是回击反动势力、反动学说对其世界观和方法论的修正和诋毁，引导人们认清各类冒牌马克思主义的真实面目，最终在正确革命理论引领下实现无产阶级与全人类的解放。

II. Criticising the Falsity of “Independentism” and Smashing the Illusion of Culture Breaking Away from Party Leadership

二、批判“独立主义”的虚妄，粉碎文化脱离党的领导的幻想

Before the October Revolution, the Proletarian Cultural Association [n] maintained a political stance of independence from the bourgeois Provisional Government, a position that Lenin affirmed, because such independence helped unite the working class and also helped resist the encroachment of bourgeois ideology. However, after the October Revolution, the Soviet became the new form of state organisation in Russia, implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat. At this time, the leaders of the Proletarian Cultural Association still clung to the association’s independence, declaring it an independent cultural organisation that, together with the Party and the trade unions — which were respectively in charge of politics and economics — formed a tripartite separation of powers, thereby attempting to shake off the leadership of the Soviet regime and the Russian Communist Party, and to pursue cultural independence and the association’s “complete autonomy”. Bogdanov even declared that the Bolshevik Party was merely a “soldiers’ party”, whose role was limited to leading the proletariat in armed struggle, and that in cultural construction it was “useless”. In reality, this tendency toward independentism — breaking away from the Party and the state in political and organisational terms — on the part of the “Proletarian Culturalist” faction was extremely dangerous. By rejecting the leadership of the Party and the Soviet state over cultural affairs, it effectively meant handing over the leadership of literature and art to the petty bourgeoisie.

十月革命前，无产阶级文化协会在政治立场上保持对资产阶级临时政府的独立性，这一立场得到了列宁的肯定，因为这种独立性有助于工人阶级的联合，也有助于抵御资产阶级意识形态的侵扰。然而，十月革命后，苏维埃成为俄国新型的政权组织形式，实行无产阶级专政。此时，无产阶级文化协会的领导人却仍执着于协会的独立性，宣称协会是一个独立的文化组织，与分管政治、经济的党和职工会三权分立，试图以此摆脱苏维埃政权和俄共的领导，谋求文化独立和协会的“完全自治”。波格丹诺夫甚至宣称，布尔什维克党只是“士兵党”，其作用仅局限于领导无产阶级进行武装斗争，在文化建设方面则是“不中用的”。实际上，“无产阶级文化派”这种在政治和组织上脱离党和国家的独立主义倾向极具危险性，它拒绝党和苏维埃国家对文化事业的领导，实际上意味着要将文学艺术的领导权拱手让给小资产阶级。

Apart from Bogdanov, other important leaders of the association were equally fixated on pursuing an independent status and autonomous rights. In the summer of 1918, when the Party and the Soviet government were facing the dual predicament of foreign armed intervention and civil war, Pavel Ivanovich Lebedev-Polyansky, then chairman of the central committee of the Proletarian Cultural Association, openly declared in the association’s central organ Proletarian Culture: “Proletarian culture can develop only under conditions where the proletariat fully exercises its independence, free from the influence of any government decree.” In his view, proletarian culture was a culture with a sharp class consciousness, fundamentally incompatible with the individualism and anarchist spiritual culture represented by the petty bourgeoisie — handicraft workers and professionals — and the peasantry. Therefore, the Proletarian Cultural Association had to establish its own “independent kingdom” and carry out independent cultural creation. But in fact, the attributes of proletarian culture did not depend on the proletarian origins of its creators; many proletarians were thoroughly imbued with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas and vacillated between class struggle and class cooperation. Hence, to cut the proletariat off from other social classes, and to sever culture from Party leadership, inevitably fell into metaphysical delusion. In October 1920, the First All-Russian Congress of the Proletarian Cultural Association was held in Moscow. Lenin instructed the People’s Commissar for Education, Lunacharsky, to correct at the congress the erroneous tendency of the “Proletarian Culturalist” faction to seek political and organisational independence from the Soviet state organs, and to clarify the association’s subordinate relationship to the People’s Commissariat for Education. However, Lunacharsky violated the agreement with Lenin and, in his speech to the congress, affirmed the association’s special status and absolute autonomy, supported the association’s work being free from Party and state supervision, and denied the Party’s leading role in cultural development.

除波格丹诺夫外，协会其他重要领导人也同样执着于追求独立地位与自治权利。1918年夏，党和苏维埃政府正面临外国武装干涉与国内战争的双重困境，时任无产阶级文化协会中央主席的帕维尔·伊万诺维奇·列别杰夫-波梁斯基却在中央机关刊物《无产阶级文化》中公然宣称：“无产阶级文化只有在无产阶级充分发挥独立性，不受任何政府颁布的法令影响的条件下，才能发展。”在他看来，无产阶级文化是一种阶级意识鲜明的文化，与以手工业者、自由职业者为代表的小资产阶级和农民群体所体现的个人主义、无政府主义精神文化格格不入，因此，无产阶级文化协会必须建立自己的“独立王国”，开展独立的文化创作。但事实上，无产阶级文化的属性并不取决于其创作者的无产者出身，不少无产者头脑中浸透着资产阶级和小市民的思想意识，也在阶级斗争与阶级合作的立场上摇摆不定。因此，将无产阶级从其他社会阶级中割裂出来，将文化从党的领导中剥离出来，难免陷入形而上学的妄想。1920年10月，无产阶级文化协会第一次全俄代表大会在莫斯科召开。列宁委托教育人民委员卢那察尔斯基在会上纠正“无产阶级文化派”试图在政治和组织上独立于苏维埃政权机关的错误倾向，明确协会对教育人民委员部的隶属关系。然而，卢那察尔斯基却违反与列宁的约定，在大会发言中肯定了协会的特殊地位和绝对自主权，支持协会工作不受党和国家的监督，否定了党对文化发展的领导作用。

There is no doubt that the views of the “Proletarian Culturalist” faction were not only theoretically erroneous but also, in practice, would cause great harm to the socialist cultural construction of Soviet Russia. While waving the banner of “proletarian”, this faction infused the proletariat with the decadent, degenerate, and metamorphosed content of the bourgeois ideological system — formalism, decadentism, and the like — and in the field of literature and art cultivated captives for the bourgeoisie. Lenin could not allow their erroneous statements to confuse thought and disturb people’s minds, so he subjected them to profound critique and correction. In the draft resolution “On Proletarian Culture”, Lenin criticised the Proletarian Cultural Association’s special demand for “complete independence” and “absolute autonomy”, and clarified the tasks of the association and its position within the system of cultural-educational organisations. He pointed out: “All organisations of the Proletarian Cultural Association must unconditionally regard themselves entirely as auxiliary organs within the system of the People’s Commissariat for Education, and, under the general leadership of the Soviet regime (especially the People’s Commissariat for Education) and the Russian Communist Party, must fulfil their tasks as part of the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” In Lenin’s view, the proletarian party was the practitioner and promoter of Marxist theory; only under the Party’s leadership could this scientific theory be transformed into a programme of action for cultural construction. Moreover, politics, economics, and culture were not, as the association’s leaders claimed, “completely parallel”, but rather an interwoven, interdependent whole. The proletarian party had to lead not only political and economic work but also bore the responsibility of leading ideological and cultural work. While stressing that the proletariat could not hand over revolutionary leadership to the bourgeoisie, Lenin attached particular importance to the propaganda, education, and inculcation of Marxist theory, hoping through this means to dismantle the “hegemony” of bourgeois ideology and to maintain and consolidate the proletariat’s position as the “ideological leader”. At the same time, Lenin clarified the dual leadership role of the proletarian party: it was both the leading force in defeating the reactionary forces of the bourgeoisie and the spontaneous forces of the petty bourgeoisie in the political and military spheres, and the leading force in breaking free from the ideological influence of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, spreading the ideas of scientific socialism, and building proletarian culture in the spiritual sphere. This meant that the Party had both to seize and hold political leadership and to firmly occupy the cognitive high ground of the proletariat and the broad masses, thereby seizing cultural leadership.

毋庸置疑，“无产阶级文化派”的这些观点不仅在理论上错误，在实践中也会给苏俄社会主义文化建设带来极大危害。该派别虽然打着“无产阶级”的旗号，却将资产阶级思想体系中形式主义、颓废主义等腐朽没落、蜕化变质的内容灌输给无产阶级，在文学艺术领域为资产阶级培养俘虏。列宁无法任由其错误言论混淆思想、扰乱人心，对其展开深刻批判与纠正。在《关于无产阶级文化》的决议草案中，列宁批判了无产阶级文化协会提出“完全独立”“绝对自治”的特殊要求，明确了无产阶级文化协会的任务及其在文化教育组织中的定位。他指出：“无产阶级文化协会的一切组织必须无条件地把自己完全看做教育人民委员部机关系统中的辅助机构，并且在苏维埃政权（特别是教育人民委员部）和俄国共产党的总的领导下，把自己的任务当做无产阶级专政任务的一部分来完成。”在列宁看来，无产阶级政党是马克思主义理论的践行者和推动者，只有在党的领导下，这一科学理论才能转化为文化建设的行动纲领。而且，政治、经济和文化也并非如协会领导人所言“完全平行”，而是相互交织、彼此依存的整体。无产阶级政党不仅要领导政治和经济工作，同样肩负着思想文化工作的领导职责。他在强调无产阶级不能把革命领导权让给资产阶级的同时，格外重视马克思主义理论的宣传、教育和灌输，希望通过这种方式瓦解资产阶级意识形态的“领导权”，维护和巩固无产阶级作为“思想领导者”的地位。与此同时，列宁明确了无产阶级政党的双重领导角色，既是在政治和军事领域战胜资产阶级反动势力和小资产阶级自发势力的领导力量，也是在精神领域摆脱资产阶级、小资产阶级思想影响，传播科学社会主义思想、建设无产阶级文化的领导力量。这也就意味着，党既要夺取并掌握政治领导权，也要牢牢占据无产阶级和广大人民群众的认知高地，掌握文化领导权。

In October 1920, Lenin further clarified that the Proletarian Cultural Association was an integral part of the People’s Commissariat for Education, and even used the formula “the Russian Communist Party + the People’s Commissariat for Education = the sum total of the Proletarian Cultural Association” to clearly define the organizational structure and power relations between the association and the commissariat, thereby promptly correcting the association’s tendency to break away from Party leadership. Lenin’s critique resonated with his wife, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, who pointed out in her *Brief Remarks on the Proletarian Cultural Association* that the work objectives of the People’s Commissariat for Education and the Proletarian Cultural Association were entirely consistent: both were to combat bourgeois culture and promote the political education and cultural development of the proletariat. They were not antagonistic or mutually exclusive, but rather “two parts of the same work.” Therefore, as an agency at the departmental level, the Proletarian Cultural Association was organizationally subordinate to the People’s Commissariat for Education, and in its work “should take the directives of the People’s Commissariat for Education as its guiding principles.”

1920年10月，列宁进一步明确无产阶级文化协会是教育人民委员部的组成部分，甚至以“俄国共产党+教育人民委员部=无产阶级文化协会的总和”这一公式，清晰界定了协会与教育人民委员部的组织结构和权力关系，及时纠正了协会企图脱离党的领导的倾向。列宁的批判得到了其妻子娜杰日达·康斯坦丁诺夫娜·克鲁普斯卡娅的共鸣，她在《简论无产阶级文化协会》中指出，教育人民委员部和无产阶级文化协会的工作目标完全一致，都是同资产阶级文化作斗争，促进无产阶级的政治教育和文化发展，二者并非对抗和互斥的关系，而是“同一项工作的两部分”。因此，作为司级机构的无产阶级文化协会，在组织上隶属于教育人民委员部，在工作上“应以教育人民委员部的指令作为工作的指导方针”。

In the end, the principle proposed by Lenin — that the Party and the state should lead cultural work and guide its development — was adopted for discussion and passage at the November plenum of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). This decision ideologically and organizationally crushed the separatist ambitions of a handful of the association’s leaders, established the political direction and core leadership for proletarian cultural construction, and laid a solid foundation for the development of Soviet literature, art, and socialist culture.

最终，列宁提出的党和国家领导文化事业并引导其发展的原则，在俄共中央十一月全会中讨论通过。这一决策，从思想和组织上粉碎了协会少数领导人的独立企图，确立了无产阶级文化建设的政治方向和领导核心，为苏维埃文学艺术和社会主义文化的发展奠定了坚实基础。

III. Criticizing the Fallacy of “Nihilism” and Resisting the Tendency to Sever the Bloodline of Historical Culture

三、批判“虚无主义”的谬误，抵制割断历史文化血脉的倾向

How to treat the intellectual achievements and cultural heritage of humanity’s past was another focal point of Lenin’s struggle with the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction.” On this issue, Marx and Engels always examined culture within the context of historical materialism, holding that no new cultural form arises out of nothing; cultural development possesses historical continuity. People’s activities in creating history and culture are always constrained by given socio-historical conditions, and are “created under directly encountered, given, and inherited conditions.” [3]3 Karl Marx, *The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte*. However, the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction,” relying on Bogdanov’s theory of “organizational science,” regarded all past culture as a reflection of the “experience” of the ruling class of its time. They argued that because this experience differed according to class position, the class character of culture meant that proletarian culture and the old culture were “separated by a chasm” and had nothing in common.

如何对待人类过往的思想成就与文化遗产，是列宁同“无产阶级文化派”斗争的又一焦点。在这一问题上，马克思恩格斯始终将文化置于唯物史观语境中考察，认为任何新的文化形态都不是凭空产生的，文化发展具有历史继承性，人们创造历史与文化的活动始终受到既定社会历史条件的制约，“是在直接碰到的、既定的、从过去承继下来的条件下创造”。然而，“无产阶级文化派”却以波格丹诺夫的“组织科学”理论为依据，将过去的一切文化视为当时统治阶级“经验”的反映，认为这种经验因阶级立场不同各有差异，进而断言文化的阶级性使无产阶级文化与旧文化之间“隔着一条鸿沟”，二者毫无共通之处。

Based on this position, the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” adopted a nihilistic attitude in rejecting all past cultural heritage, vainly attempting to create proletarian culture “starting from zero.” They equated the culture created in the bourgeois era with bourgeois culture, denouncing it as “old, useless waste” that was not only of no benefit to the development of proletarian culture but would actually poison the spiritual world of the proletariat. For example, Lebedev-Polyansky optimistically declared that in the field of poetry and literature, the proletariat already possessed the capacity to completely destroy the old capitalist society (including bourgeois culture). Pavel Karpovich Bessalko directly denied any relationship of inheritance between the old and new cultures. Pletnev, in his programmatic article “On the Ideological Front,” pointed out that although the economic and political power of the bourgeoisie had been overthrown by the proletariat, its “ideology still exists and continues to cause trouble.” Therefore, the proletariat must develop its own class culture to resist the corrosive influence of the bourgeoisie’s powerful and decadent ideology. Bogdanov, in the opening of *Science and the Proletariat*, stated bluntly that science has a class character; bourgeois science was constructed primarily by bourgeois intellectuals based on their class background and the empirical materials they controlled, and thus served as a tool for bourgeois rule. In his view, because bourgeois science was divorced from manual labor and mass practice, and was characterized by tedious argumentation and dry formality, it was difficult for the working class to understand and accept. Even if a few worker representatives overcame this obstacle to understanding, they would, by absorbing the spirit of capitalist culture, “unwittingly turn into spiritual aristocrats with the narrow-mindedness of a guild. Their souls would be branded with the stamp of bourgeois culture,” rendering them unable to promote the development of proletarian culture. Based on this understanding, the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” proposed that the prerequisite for the development of proletarian culture was “a spiritual break with the past,” even raising extreme slogans such as “the past is poison” and “old wineskins cannot hold new wine.”

基于这一立场，“无产阶级文化派”以虚无主义态度拒斥以往的一切文化遗产，妄图“从零开始”创造无产阶级文化。他们将资产阶级时代所创造的文化等同于资产阶级文化，斥之为“旧的无用的废物”，认为其对无产阶级文化发展毫无裨益，反而会毒害无产阶级的精神世界。例如，列别杰夫-波梁斯基盲目乐观地宣称，在诗歌与文学领域，无产阶级已具备彻底摧毁资本主义旧社会（包括资产阶级文化）的能力。帕维尔·卡尔波维奇·别萨利科则直截了当地否认新旧文化之间的继承关系。普列特涅夫在纲领性文章《在意识形态战线上》指出，尽管资产阶级的经济和政治权力已被无产阶级推翻，但其“意识形态依然存在，并且还在作怪”。因此，无产阶级必须发展本阶级的文化，以抵御资产阶级腐朽且强大的意识形态的侵蚀。波格丹诺夫在《科学和无产阶级》开篇直言，科学具有阶级性，资产阶级科学是由资产阶级知识分子基于其阶级背景和掌握的经验材料主导建构而成，因而是服务于资产阶级统治的工具。在他看来，资产阶级科学由于其脱离体力劳动和群众实践，且议论烦琐和形式枯燥，难以被工人阶级理解和接受。即使少数工人代表克服了这种理解障碍，也会因沾染资本主义文化精神，“不知不觉地变成了带有行会狭隘性的精神贵族。他的心灵被打上了资产阶级文化的烙印”，无法推动无产阶级文化的发展。基于上述认知，“无产阶级文化派”提出无产阶级文化发展的前提是“在精神上同过去决裂”，甚至提出“过去即毒药”“旧皮囊不能装新酒”等极端口号。

It is worth noting that within the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” attitudes toward cultural heritage were not entirely uniform. Some members did mention drawing on the essence of past culture. For instance, Lunacharsky believed that “it is absurd to discard past science and art on the pretext of their bourgeois character”; the “newness” of proletarian culture did not lie in being different for the sake of being different, but in absorbing all past cultural achievements. Bogdanov, in his *On Artistic Heritage*, listed “acquiring the heritage” — mastering the cultural essence of past eras — as one of the two main tasks of the proletariat in the artistic field (the other being independent creation). However, the precondition they assumed for cultural inheritance was that the proletariat had already formed an independent worldview, mode of thinking, and all-encompassing perspective; otherwise, “it is not the proletarian who masters past culture as his own heritage, but past culture that masters the proletarian.” In other words, only when the proletarian party and proletarian culture occupied a leading ideological position and exerted a decisive influence could the cultural heritage of past eras be absorbed and utilized. In reality, however, critically inheriting historical cultural heritage and establishing a new proletarian culture are not two separate processes that occur sequentially, but can proceed simultaneously. It is precisely on the basis of rationally utilizing cultural heritage that spiritual nourishment can be drawn: “Only by precisely understanding the culture created throughout the entire development of humanity, and only by transforming this culture, can we build a proletarian culture.” [4]4 Vladimir Lenin, “On Proletarian Culture” (1920). Thus, although the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” exhibited slight differences in specific views, they all essentially regarded proletarian culture and cultural heritage as separate and opposed entities, mired in the nihilistic swamp of rejecting cultural tradition.

值得注意的是，“无产阶级文化派”内部对文化遗产的态度并非完全一致，部分成员也曾提及汲取过去文化的精华，如卢那察尔斯基认为“借口资产阶级性质而扔掉过去的科学和艺术是荒谬的”，无产阶级文化的“新”不在于标新立异，而在于吸纳过往一切文化成就。波格丹诺夫也在《论艺术遗产》中把“取得遗产”、掌握过去时代的文化精华列为无产阶级在艺术领域的两大任务之一（另一任务是进行独立创作）。但他们为文化继承假定的前提是：无产阶级已经形成独立的世界观、思考方式以及贯通一切的观点，否则“不是无产者掌握作为自己的遗产的过去文化，而是过去的文化掌握无产者”。换言之，只有在无产阶级政党和无产阶级文化占据意识形态领导地位、发挥关键影响力的前提下，才能吸收借鉴以往时代的文化遗产。但实际上，批判继承历史文化遗产与建立新的无产阶级文化并非先后割裂的两个过程，而是可以同步推进的关系。正是在合理利用文化遗产的基础上，才能从中汲取精神养分，“只有确切地了解人类全部发展过程所创造的文化，只有对这种文化加以改造，才能建设无产阶级的文化”。由此可见，“无产阶级文化派”虽然在具体观点上略有差异，但本质上都将无产阶级文化与文化遗产视为割裂对立的存在，深陷否弃文化传统的虚无主义泥沼。

In response to the erroneous tendencies of the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction,” Lenin, in works such as *On “Left-Wing” Childishness and Petty-Bourgeois Character* and *On Proletarian Culture*, sternly condemned their nihilistic attitude of denying the continuity of human culture, and profoundly elucidated the practical necessity for proletarian cultural construction to inherit all the excellent culture of the past and ancient and modern, and to absorb the nutrients of historical culture. In the spring of 1918, in response to some within the Bolshevik Party who overestimated the revolutionary situation of communism and the workers’ movement, arguing that parliamentary struggle was obsolete, opposing necessary compromises, and refusing to utilize the science, technology, and experts left by capitalism — unrealistic views — Lenin, from the heights of a new type of state and a new type of civilization, analyzed both the historical inevitability of Soviet power replacing the modern capitalist state and affirmed the historical contribution of modern capitalism to the progress of human civilization and cultural development. He resolutely opposed the extremist practice of abstractly opposing capitalism and socialism, criticized the “Left Communists” and the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” for blindly rejecting the fruits of human wisdom and naively imagining that socialism could be built without utilizing the cultural achievements of capitalism, and bluntly stated that such thinking “is the mentality of a Central African resident.” [5]5 Vladimir Lenin, *On “Left-Wing” Childishness and Petty-Bourgeois Character* (1918).

针对“无产阶级文化派”的错误倾向，列宁在《论“左派”幼稚性和小资产阶级性》《论无产阶级文化》等文章中，严厉谴责其否定人类文化继承性的虚无主义态度，深刻阐明无产阶级文化建设必须继承古今一切优秀文化、汲取历史文化养分的现实必要性。1918年春，针对布尔什维克党内一些人高估共产主义和工人运动的革命形势，提出议会斗争已经过时、反对必要妥协、拒绝利用资本主义遗留的科学技术和专家等不切实际的观点，列宁从新型国家和新型文明的高度，既分析了苏维埃政权取代现代资本主义国家的历史必然性，又肯定了现代资本主义对人类文明进步和文化发展的历史贡献。他坚决反对把资本主义同社会主义抽象对立的偏激做法，批判“左派共产主义”和“无产阶级文化派”盲目拒绝人类智慧成果，幻想不利用资本主义文化成就能够建成社会主义的幼稚想法，直言这种想法“是中非洲居民的心理”。

In *The Tasks of the Soviets in the Present Situation*, Lenin made it clear that the fundamental task after the proletariat seizes power is to develop the economy and raise labour productivity, so as to secure Russia’s transition to socialism. To accomplish this task, the strength of the proletariat and the working masses alone is far from sufficient; it is necessary to make use of all the civilisational achievements created by capitalism, especially experts in various academic and technical fields, and to combine their knowledge, technology and experience with the productive and daily practice of the working masses, so as to rapidly build a bridge for the transition to socialism and guarantee the economic construction and cultural development of the Soviet regime. In March 1919, faced with the impact of the civil war and foreign armed intervention on the Soviet national economy and social productive forces, Lenin further stressed that “it is not enough to destroy capitalism to fill one’s belly”; one must learn to master the science, technology, knowledge and personnel left by capitalism in order to advance socialist construction in Russia. In Lenin’s view, genuine proletarian culture is not a flash of inspiration, nor an empty appeal made out of sentiment; it must take the materials left by past society as its “foundation” and transform the valuable experience accumulated by the masses in social practice into the bricks and mortar for building a new cultural edifice. The reason Marxism has been able to stand firm in its struggle against various forms of opportunism and revisionism, and to occupy the high ground of truth after withstanding attacks from non-Marxist and anti-Marxist forces, becoming the spiritual guide of the proletariat and its party, lies at its core in the fact that it “did not discard the most valuable achievements of the bourgeois era; on the contrary, it absorbed and transformed everything of value in the two thousand years of human thought and cultural development”.

在《苏维埃政权的当前任务》中，列宁明确指出，无产阶级夺取政权后的根本任务是开展经济建设、提高劳动生产率，以保障俄国向社会主义过渡。而完成这一任务，仅凭无产阶级和劳动群众的力量远远不够，必须利用资本主义创造的一切文明成果，尤其是各种学术和技术领域的专家，将其知识、技术和经验同劳动群众的生产生活实践相结合，才能快速搭建起向社会主义过渡的桥梁，保障苏维埃政权的经济建设和文化发展。1919年3月，面对国内战争和帝国主义武装干涉对苏维埃国民经济与社会生产力的冲击，列宁进一步强调，“仅靠摧毁资本主义，还不能填饱肚子”，必须学习掌握资本主义遗留的科学、技术、知识和人才，以推动俄国社会主义建设。在列宁看来，真正的无产阶级文化不是一瞬间的灵感迸发，也不是空有情怀的口头号召，而必须以过去社会遗留的材料为“地基”，将人民群众在社会实践中积攒的宝贵经验转化为建设新文化大厦的砖瓦材料。马克思主义之所以能在与各种机会主义、修正主义的斗争中立足，在经受各种非马克思主义和反马克思主义的攻击后仍然能够占据真理制高点，成为无产阶级及其政党的精神引领，核心就在于它“没有抛弃资产阶级时代最宝贵的成就，相反却吸收和改造了两千多年来人类思想和文化发展中一切有价值的东西”。

In May 1922, after suffering a stroke that gradually paralysed the right side of his body, making it difficult for him to write normally or handle government affairs, Lenin nonetheless commissioned Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, then deputy head of the Central Propaganda and Agitation Department, to write the article “On ‘Proletarian Culture’ and the Proletarian Cultural Association”, solemnly reaffirming that the proletarian party, in advancing cultural construction, must critically inherit the historical and cultural heritage, and warning Party members to guard against impetuousness and nihilism in the cultural sphere. The article pointed out that, compared with the advanced countries of Europe, Russia was a crude, uncivilised, largely illiterate backward country, and that creating proletarian culture faced numerous pressures and challenges, including: preventing lice on the head, eliminating bedbugs from beds, washing hands before meals and after work, keeping clothes clean and tidy, reducing illiteracy, mastering advanced management experience and civilised methods of operation, and eliminating bureaucratism in Party and state organs. The progressive, democratic and socialist elements contained in the bourgeois cultural heritage could provide intellectual wisdom and useful reference for proletarian cultural construction. The “proletarian culturalists”, divorced from the masses and from the actual cultural environment of Soviet Russia, ignored the real tasks of socialist cultural construction, rejected all fine cultural heritage, and talked emptily about “creating” a new proletarian culture — this was no different from “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”.

1922年5月，列宁中风后身体右侧逐渐瘫痪，难以正常写作和处理政务，但他仍委托当时中央宣传鼓动部副部长亚历山大·尼古拉耶维奇·雅科夫列夫撰写《论“无产阶级文化”和无产阶级文化协会》一文，郑重重申无产阶级政党在推进文化建设过程中，必须批判继承历史文化遗产，警示党内成员杜绝文化领域的急躁冒进和虚无主义。该文指出，与欧洲先进国家相比，俄国是一个粗野、不文明、文盲众多的落后国家，创建无产阶级文化面临诸多的压力和挑战，具体包括：防止头上长虱子、杜绝床上生臭虫、饭前工作后洗手、衣着干净整洁、减少文盲、掌握先进的管理经验和文明经营方式以及消除党和国家机关的官僚主义等。而资产阶级文化遗产中蕴含的进步、民主与社会主义因素，能够为无产阶级文化建设提供思想智慧和有益借鉴。“无产阶级文化派”脱离群众和苏俄实际文化环境，无视社会主义文化建设的现实任务，否弃一切优秀文化遗产，空谈“创制”新的无产阶级文化，无异于“把孩子和洗澡水一起倒掉”。

IV. Criticising the Narrowness of “Closed-Doorism” and Breaking Down the Tendency of Culture to Detach Itself from Practice and the People

四、批判“关门主义”的狭隘，破除文化脱离实践和人民的倾向

On the question of the method of cultural creation and the forces to rely on, Lenin and the “proletarian culturalists” were fundamentally at odds. Lenin consistently adhered to historical materialism, holding that the masses are the subjects of social spiritual production, the force to rely on in cultural construction, and that science, culture and art all originate from the social practice of the masses. The “proletarian culturalists”, however, adopted the posture of “saviours”, declaring that the proletariat was the sole force on which to rely for building proletarian culture, and advocated creating an independent environment for the Proletarian Cultural Association, cut off from the influence of the thought of the bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other classes. Under this guiding idea, they not only treated intellectuals and experts from other class backgrounds as enemies, but even shut the door on the peasantry, who constituted the majority of the population, barring them from the gates of socialist cultural construction. They expelled peasants, petty bourgeois and intellectuals from the management bodies of art training classes and cultural associations, and advocated creating a purely proletarian culture in closed environments such as laboratories and workshops, refusing to admit any “impurities” from other classes. Clearly, this method and stance of cultural creation — divorced from the masses, from real, living practice, and relying solely on subjective will and personal experience — not only departed from the Marxist tradition and basic spirit of linking theory with practice and unifying the subjective and the objective, but also weakened the power of proletarian culture to spread and exert influence, causing culture to lose its vitality in a closed environment.

在文化创作方式与依靠力量的问题上，列宁与“无产阶级文化派”存在根本分歧。列宁始终坚守唯物史观，认为人民群众是社会精神生产的主体，是文化建设的依靠力量，科学、文化和艺术皆源于人民群众的社会实践。然而，“无产阶级文化派”却秉持“救世主”的姿态，宣称无产阶级是建设无产阶级文化的唯一依靠力量，主张为无产阶级文化协会营造独立创作的环境，隔绝资产阶级、农民、知识分子等其他阶级思想的影响。在这种思想主导下，他们不仅敌视其他阶级出身的知识分子和专家，甚至将占人口多数的农民拒之于社会主义文化建设的大门之外，从艺术培训班和文化协会的管理部门中开除农民、小市民及知识分子出身者，主张在试验室、讲习所等封闭环境中创立纯无产阶级文化，拒绝掺杂其他阶级“杂质”。显然，这种脱离人民群众、脱离鲜活实际生活，仅凭主观意志和个人经验进行文化创作的方法和立场，既背离了马克思主义理论联系实际、主客观相统一的优良传统与基本精神，也削弱了无产阶级文化的传播力和影响力，使文化在封闭的环境中逐渐失去生命力。

In response, Lenin criticised this from two angles. On the one hand, Lenin criticised the “proletarian culturalists” for the defect of shutting themselves up in their workshops and detaching themselves from reality in cultural creation, making it clear that genuine proletarian culture must be grounded in the Marxist worldview, combined with the conditions of the life and struggle of the proletariat in its era of dictatorship, and developed “on the basis of carrying forward the excellent models, traditions and achievements of existing culture”. In Lenin’s view, the vitality of culture lies in practice. Proletarian culture must be linked to the communist ideal, using distinctive artistic means to sing the praises of the revolutionary spirit and enthusiasm of the proletariat in its struggle for its own liberation and for the liberation of all humanity, and to carry out literary and artistic creation around the tasks of Party and state construction. The artists of the Proletarian Cultural Association, by intending to detach themselves from practice and from the masses, and to confine their cultural research and creative activities to closed spaces such as laboratories, workshops and clubs, would not only fall into difficulty for lack of material and inspiration, but their works, being abstract and dry, would be hard for the working masses to understand and accept. In October 1920, at the Third All-Russian Congress of the Russian Communist Youth League, Lenin explicitly stressed that proletarian culture is by no means something that falls from the sky, still less the subjective fabrication of people who claim to be experts; “if anyone insists that it is, that is sheer nonsense”.

对此，列宁从两个方面展开批判。一方面，列宁批判“无产阶级文化派”在文化创作上闭门造车、脱离实际的弊端，明确指出真正的无产阶级文化要立足马克思主义世界观，结合无产阶级在其专政时代的生活与斗争的条件，在“发扬现有文化的优秀的典范、传统和成果”的基础上发展而来。在列宁看来，文化的生命力在于实践。无产阶级文化需与共产主义理想相联系，以独特的艺术手段歌颂无产阶级争取自身解放及全人类解放的革命精神与热情，围绕党和国家的建设任务开展文艺创作。而无产阶级文化协会的艺术家们意图脱离实践、脱离群众，把文化研究和创作活动局限在实验室、车间、俱乐部等封闭空间，不仅会因缺乏素材与灵感陷入困境，其作品也会因其抽象枯燥而难以被劳动群众理解和接受。1920年10月，列宁在俄国共产主义青年团第三次代表大会上明确强调，无产阶级文化绝非天外来物，更非自诩为专家的人的主观臆造，“如果硬说是这样，那完全是一派胡言”。

The facts also bear this out. Because it was divorced from the real and living social practice of the masses, the poetry of the Proletarian Cultural Association was filled with abstract images such as “stars,” “moon,” “sun,” and “universe,” as well as industrial symbols like machines, steel, factory buildings, and smokestacks; its prose, meanwhile, tended to portray workers in a tragic light and offer empty praise of the revolution, saying very little about the subjective consciousness of workers and working people or about their heroic struggle for their own liberation. The modes of expression and subject matter were monotonously repetitive, lacking novelty and emotional impact. In response, Lenin suggested to Bogdanov and others that literary and artistic creation should pay more attention to objective reality: instead of discoursing at length on purely rational, abstract things devoid of any breath of life, they would do better to “talk about how the evil bandits of capitalism have stolen the land, wasted all the oil, all the steel and timber, all the coal.” Lenin stressed that proletarian culture must be closely tied to the interests of the revolution and the working class, rooted in actual life, and reflect the politics and class struggle of reality, not merely be “art for art’s sake.” In a letter to Gorky, Lenin highly praised the literary works of Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Nikolai Alexeyevich Nekrasov, calling them important for the Russian people’s understanding and education. Their works, with sympathetic strokes and realist methods, exposed the barbarism of Russian serfdom, satirized the hypocrisy of landlords and the powerful, described the suffering of the lower classes, and expressed a longing for a better life. This mode of creation and expression both truthfully reflected the politics and class struggle of society and effectively inspired the masses in their struggle for liberation. Lenin believed that proletarian literature, art, and even Party newspapers and journals should all follow this principle: they should use “the simplest, most widely known materials” in their narration, stay closely connected with the implementation of the New Economic Policy and the realities of Russia’s economic development, “talk less about politics” – avoiding letting old-style political agitation take up too much space – and instead “talk more about economics,” focusing on the experiences and achievements of the new economic construction, going deep among the broad masses and the social reality in which they lived, and attending to the immediate interests and actual needs of workers and peasants. He stressed that only by being closely linked to the life of the people and to the masses’ practical struggle for communism could proletarian culture truly become a weapon for guiding work and educating the masses, serving the Party and the state in their cultural practice.

事实也印证了这一点。由于脱离人民群众真实而鲜活的社会实践，无产阶级文化协会的诗歌多是“星星”“月亮”“太阳”“宇宙”等抽象意象，以及机器、钢铁、厂房、烟囱等工业符号，散文则多以悲情视角塑造工人的可怜形象、空泛赞颂革命，对工人和劳动人民的主观意识以及他们为自身解放而进行的英勇斗争言之甚少，表现手法与题材单调重复，缺少新意和感染力。对此，列宁建议波格丹诺夫等人文艺创作应多关注客观现实，与其高谈阔论那些纯理性的、抽象的、毫无生活气息的事物，不如“谈谈资本主义的凶恶强盗们是如何抢走了土地，浪费了所有的石油，所有的钢铁、木材，所有的煤炭”。列宁强调，无产阶级文化需紧扣革命利益和工人阶级利益，扎根生活实际，反映现实中的政治与阶级斗争，而不仅仅是“为艺术而艺术”。列宁在给高尔基的信中，高度肯定列夫·托尔斯泰、米哈伊尔·叶夫格拉福维奇·萨尔蒂科夫-谢德林、尼古拉·阿列克谢耶维奇·涅克拉索夫等人的文学作品，称他们的文学作品对俄国人民具有重要的认识作用和教育意义。他们的作品以同情的笔触和现实主义的手法，揭露俄国农奴制的野蛮、讽刺地主和权贵们的伪善、描述底层人民的苦难、表达对美好生活的向往。这种创作和表达方式既真实反映了社会的政治与阶级斗争，又有效鼓舞了人民群众的解放斗志。列宁认为，无产阶级的文学、艺术乃至党报党刊，都应遵循这一原则，要用“最简单的、众所周知的材料”进行叙述，紧密联系新经济政策的实施和俄国经济发展现实，“少谈些政治”，避免老一套的政治鼓动占据太多篇幅，而应该“多谈些经济”，聚焦新经济建设的经验和成就、深入广大人民群众及他们所处的社会现实，关注并反映工农群众的切身利益与实际需求。他强调，唯有与人民生活、与人民群众争取共产主义的斗争实践紧密联系，无产阶级文化才能真正成为指导工作、教育群众的武器，服务于党和国家的文化实践。

On the other hand, Lenin criticized the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” for its narrow tendency to confine cultural construction within a small proletarian circle, divorced from revolutionary practice and the masses, and he clearly articulated the place and role of the peasantry and the intelligentsia in socialist cultural construction. In September 1922, the newspaper *Pravda* published a programmatic article of the Proletarian Cultural Association, “On the Ideological Front,” whose author, Pletnev, declared that the class consciousness of the proletariat was fundamentally incompatible with that of the peasantry, the bourgeoisie, and the doctors, engineers, and other intellectuals left over from bourgeois society. Lenin immediately annotated: “And what about the percentage of shipbuilders?” In response to the article’s idea that the proletariat should build a new science, new knowledge, and new technology on its own, Lenin wrote bluntly: “Utter nonsense.” This shows Lenin’s strong opposition to the Association’s sectarianism and ivory-tower tendencies – his opposition to their isolating themselves from other classes and ignoring the central role and function of the broad masses in cultural construction. Moreover, the Association’s leaders made a narrow distinction within the proletariat itself, holding that only those in direct contact with the production process – the “industrial proletariat” – could create works reflecting the proletariat’s political goals and social ideals and lead the development of proletarian culture. Consequently, their poetry always tied workers to factories, machine tools, cranes, and other machinery, deliberately highlighting a distinctiveness that set them apart from other classes.

另一方面，列宁批判“无产阶级文化派”将文化建设囿于无产阶级小圈子、脱离革命实践和人民群众的狭隘倾向，明确阐明农民和知识分子在社会主义文化建设中的地位与作用。1922年9月，《真理报》刊登了无产阶级文化协会的纲领性文章——《在意识形态战线上》，其作者普列特涅夫宣称，无产阶级的阶级意识与农民、资产者以及资产阶级社会遗留的医生、工程师等知识分子格格不入，列宁当即批注“而造船者的百分数呢？”针对文中依靠无产阶级自己建立新科学、新知识和技术的设想，列宁更是直批“一派胡言”。这足见列宁对协会宗派主义和闭门造车倾向的强烈反对，反对他们将自身独立于其他阶级，无视广大人民在文化建设中的主体地位和作用。此外，协会领导人还对无产阶级进行狭隘划分，认为只有与生产过程有直接接触的人，即“产业无产阶级”，才能创作出反映无产阶级政治目标和社会理想的作品、引领无产阶级文化发展。因此，他们的诗歌总是将工人同工厂、机床、起重车等机器绑定，刻意凸显区别于其他阶级的独特性。

Lenin always held that in Russia, a country where the peasantry formed the majority of the population, the peasantry was an object that the proletarian revolution and socialist construction had to win over and unite with, and that unity with the peasant masses was an important precondition for the victory of the proletarian cause. In the cultural sphere, he repeatedly stressed that truly vital works must reflect the immediate interests of the broad masses, not merely the ideology of a single class. The task of the Proletarian Cultural Association was to build a culture for the tens of millions of working people of the Soviet Republic, not a culture for a single class or a minority; “all cultural achievements will become the property of the entire people.”

列宁始终认为，在俄国这个农民人口占大多数的国家，农民是无产阶级革命和社会主义建设必须争取和联合的对象，与农民群众的联合是无产阶级事业胜利的重要前提。在文化领域，他反复强调，真正具有生命力的作品必须反映广大人民群众的切身利益，而非仅反映某一个阶级的思想意识。无产阶级文化协会的任务是建设苏维埃共和国千千万万劳动人民需要的文化，而非单一阶级或少数人的文化，“一切文化成果都将成为全民的财产”。

Besides the peasant masses, the old intelligentsia was also an object of hostility for the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction.” Although Lenin himself had been wary of the old intelligentsia, believing that they were influenced by the bourgeoisie and might betray the interests of the proletariat and serve the bourgeoisie, he firmly opposed the extremist practice of hating and discarding the old intelligentsia. In March 1919, the Eighth Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), following Lenin’s directives, formulated a policy of absorbing, utilizing, and remolding the old intelligentsia. Lenin stated clearly that it was “a naive idea” to think that “communism could be built with the clean hands of Communists alone, without the help of bourgeois specialists.” The fundamental task of the Soviet regime was to develop the economy, create productive forces more advanced than those of capitalism, and accelerate the transition to socialism. Because the proletariat lacked the knowledge, experience, and cultural cultivation needed for construction and management in important fields, it was necessary to win over and utilize the knowledge, experience, and technical skills of bourgeois specialists to solve the many difficulties of national construction. In Lenin’s view, the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction’s” abandonment of the help of the old intelligentsia and its attempt to rely on “specialists” trained in factories and study circles to build socialism was pure nonsense.

除农民群众外，旧知识分子也是“无产阶级文化派”敌视的对象。尽管列宁也曾对旧知识分子抱有警惕，认为他们受资产阶级影响，可能背叛无产阶级利益、为资产阶级服务，但他坚决反对仇恨、抛弃旧知识分子的偏激做法。1919年3月，俄共（布）第八次代表大会遵循列宁指示，制定了党吸收、利用、改造旧知识分子的政策。列宁明确指出，如果认为“只用清白的共产党人的双手，不要资产阶级专家帮助，就能建成共产主义，那是一种幼稚的想法”。苏维埃政权的根本任务是发展经济、创造比资本主义更发达的生产力，加速向社会主义过渡。而无产阶级因知识经验和文化素养的缺失，难以胜任重要领域的建设与管理工作。因此，必须争取、利用资产阶级专家的知识、经验和技术，解决国家建设中的诸多难题。在列宁看来，“无产阶级文化派”放弃旧知识分子的帮助，企图靠工厂和讲习所培养的“专家”建设社会主义，纯属无稽之谈。

V. Lessons from Lenin’s Critique of the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” for China’s Cultural Construction

五、列宁批判“无产阶级文化派”对我国文化建设的启示

Lenin’s critique of the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” not only exposed the reactionary essence of the Association’s leaders in their attempt to break away from the Party and the state and usurp cultural leadership, but also gave a positive response to major questions of principle concerning socialist cultural construction and the very survival of the Soviet regime: whether to uphold the guidance of Marxism, whether to uphold the Party’s cultural leadership, whether to critically inherit the historical and cultural heritage, and whether to be rooted in practice and the masses. This critique both enriched and developed Marxist cultural theory and powerfully advanced Soviet socialist cultural construction; it also has important implications for the continued advancement of socialist cultural construction with Chinese characteristics in the New Era.

列宁对“无产阶级文化派”的批判，不仅揭露了协会领导人企图脱离党和国家、篡夺文化领导权的反动实质，而且正面回应了要不要坚持马克思主义指导、要不要坚持党的文化领导权、要不要批判地继承历史文化遗产、要不要扎根实践与人民群众等事关社会主义文化建设、牵涉苏维埃政权生死存亡的重大原则问题，既丰富发展了马克思主义文化理论、有力推动了苏俄社会主义文化建设，也对新时代持续推进中国特色社会主义文化建设具有重要启示意义。

(1) Upholding Xi Jinping’s Cultural Thought to Guide Cultural Construction

（一）坚持以习近平文化思想引领文化建设

Upholding correct ideological guidance is an inevitable requirement for cultural construction in the New Era. Only by taking the scientific theory of Marxism as its guide can cultural construction break through ideological obstacles and proceed steadily and far. Influenced by the idealist epistemology of Machism, the “Proletarian Culturalist Faction” broke away from the Party’s leadership, cut off the bloodline of historical culture, and turned its back on practice and the people, vainly attempting to use training classes, laboratories, and study circles as a base to concoct a so-called pure proletarian culture. The root of such erroneous conduct lay in the lack of guidance from a scientific theory.

坚持正确的思想引领是新时代文化建设的必然要求，只有坚持以马克思主义科学理论为指导，文化建设才能破除思想迷障，行稳致远。“无产阶级文化派”受马赫主义唯心主义认识论影响，脱离党的领导、割断历史文化血脉、背离实践和人民，妄图以培训班、试验室、讲习所为阵地炮制所谓纯粹的无产阶级文化，这类错误行径的根源在于缺乏科学理论的指导。

Looking back at history, Lenin took dialectical materialism and historical materialism as the theoretical foundation of cultural construction, drawing a clear line between Marxist philosophy and idealist philosophies such as Machism, and safeguarding the proletarian Party’s leadership over ideological and cultural work. Using Marxist dialectical thinking, he refuted the erroneous tendency to sever the old culture from the new, carefully distinguishing the essence from the dross in the cultural heritage, and utilizing the useful fruits left by capitalism to build socialism. Starting from the standpoint of historical materialism, Lenin affirmed the status of the masses as the makers of history, regarding the subjectivity and creativity of the masses as the driving force behind cultural construction and development. It was precisely under the guidance of Marxist scientific theory that the Soviet Union achieved many successes in such areas of cultural construction as the popularization of education and the development of literature and art.

回溯历史，列宁将辩证唯物主义和历史唯物主义作为文化建设的理论基础，划清了马克思主义哲学与马赫主义等唯心主义哲学的界限，维护了无产阶级政党对思想文化工作的领导权。他运用马克思主义辩证思维，驳斥割裂新旧文化的错误倾向，审慎甄别文化遗产中的精华与糟粕，并利用资本主义遗留的有益成果建设社会主义。从唯物史观出发，列宁肯定人民群众的历史创造者地位，将人民群众的主体性和创造性看作文化建设发展的动力源泉。正是在马克思主义科学理论的指引下，苏俄在文化教育普及、文学艺术发展等文化建设领域取得诸多成就。

Taking our stand in the present, Xi Jinping’s cultural thought, as an innovative theoretical achievement of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times, provides scientific guidance for our current cultural construction and for the work of propaganda and ideological-cultural work in the New Era with its profound theoretical vision and scientific theoretical framework. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has always held fast to the theoretical foundations of Marxism, employing the basic principles of Marxism to analyse contemporary Chinese cultural practice, ensuring that cultural construction always advances along the socialist direction. Confronting the new situation of exchange,交融 and confrontation among various currents of thought worldwide, the new课题 of advancing the construction of a modern Chinese civilisation through the continuity of Chinese civilisation, the new task of building a strong socialist cultural state in the New Era, and the new characteristics presented by social thought and culture, General Secretary Xi has put forward a series of important theses, profoundly answering the fundamental questions of what flag to raise, what path to take, what principles to uphold, and what goals to achieve in our country’s cultural construction in the New Era. These provide the action guide and fundamental basis for socialist cultural construction with Chinese characteristics in the New Era. On the new journey of the New Era, we must deeply grasp the rich connotations, spiritual essence and practical requirements of Xi Jinping’s cultural thought. Whether in the formulation of cultural development plans, the making of cultural policy, the development of cultural undertakings, or the flourishing of the cultural industry, we should take Xi Jinping’s cultural thought as our guide, threading it through every aspect and the entire process of cultural construction, ensuring that our country’s cultural construction always advances steadily along the correct path.

立足当下，习近平文化思想作为马克思主义中国化时代化的创新理论成果，以其深邃的理论视野和科学的理论架构，为我们当下的文化建设以及新时代宣传思想文化工作提供了科学指引。党的十八大以来，习近平总书记始终坚守马克思主义理论根基，运用马克思主义基本原理剖析当代中国的文化实践，确保文化建设始终沿着社会主义方向推进。围绕世界范围内各种思想文化交流交融交锋的新形势、以中华文明连续性推进中华民族现代文明建设的新课题、新时代建设社会主义文化强国的新任务以及社会思想文化呈现的新特点，习近平总书记提出一系列重要论断，深刻回答了新时代我国文化建设举什么旗、走什么路、坚持什么原则、实现什么目标等根本问题，为新时代中国特色社会主义文化建设提供了行动指南和根本遵循。新时代新征程，我们必须深刻领会习近平文化思想的丰富内涵、精神实质和实践要求，无论是文化发展规划的制定、文化政策的制定，还是文化事业的发展以及文化产业的繁荣，都应以习近平文化思想为指引，将其贯穿于文化建设的各方面和全过程，确保我国文化建设始终沿着正确的方向稳步前进。

(2) Strengthening the Centralised Unified Leadership of the Party over Propaganda and Ideological-Cultural Work

（二）加强党对宣传思想文化工作的集中统一领导

The proletarian party is the practitioner and promoter of Marxist theory; only under the Party’s leadership can this scientific theory be transformed into an action programme for cultural construction. The “Proletarian Culture Sect” advocated “cultural autonomy”, recklessly attempting to detach culture from the Party’s leadership, reducing the construction of proletarian culture to a utopian socialism divorced from the socialist direction. In response, Lenin explicitly demanded that Party leadership be threaded through all cultural work, including education, propaganda and public opinion, and mass organisations. He stressed that all types of educational and cultural institutions must “openly acknowledge the political leadership of the Communist Party”, and that mass cultural organisations such as the Proletarian Cultural Association, trade unions and the Communist Youth League must unconditionally submit to and serve the Soviet regime and “the overall leadership of the Russian Communist Party”. All Party newspapers and journals must strictly uphold the principle of Party spirit, embody the Party’s will, reflect the Party’s positions, and actively accept the Party’s leadership and supervision. These ideas of Lenin’s further clarified the political direction and leadership core of proletarian cultural construction, answering the key question of “who leads” cultural construction. Thanks to the correct guidance of these ideas, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Lenin’s time, even when faced with various non-Marxist currents of thought, always firmly held the leadership over cultural and ideological work, fundamentally ensuring that Soviet Russian cultural undertakings advanced in the direction of the fundamental interests of the proletariat and the masses of the people.

无产阶级政党是马克思主义理论的践行者和推动者，只有在党的领导下，这一科学理论才能转化为文化建设的行动纲领。“无产阶级文化派”鼓吹“文化自治”，妄图使文化脱离党的领导，让无产阶级文化建设沦为脱离社会主义方向的空想。对此，列宁明确要求把党的领导贯穿于教育、宣传舆论和群团组织等各项文化工作，强调各类教育和文化机构必须“公开承认共产党的政治领导”，无产阶级文化协会、工会和共产主义青年团等群众性文化组织，必须无条件服从并服务于苏维埃政权和“俄国共产党的总的领导”，党的一切报纸、杂志必须严守党性原则，体现党的意志、反映党的主张，主动接受党的领导和监督。列宁的这些思想，进一步明确了无产阶级文化建设的政治方向与领导核心，回答了文化建设“由谁来领导”的关键问题。得益于这些思想的正确指引，列宁时期的俄共（布）即便面临各种非马克思主义思潮的干扰，但始终牢牢掌握文化和意识形态工作领导权，从根本上确保苏俄文化事业沿着无产阶级和人民群众的根本利益方向推进。

On 2 June 2023, at the Symposium on Cultural Heritage and Development, General Secretary Xi Jinping explicitly put forward the strategic proposition of upholding “the Chinese Communist Party’s cultural leadership”, profoundly clarifying that Party leadership is the fundamental guarantee for the development of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, and that firmly grasping the Party’s cultural leadership is the key to advancing cultural construction in the New Era. At present, our country is in a critical period for realising the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Changes unseen in a century are accelerating, the tasks of reform, development and stability are arduous, and diverse value systems coexist and interweave. The more complex and volatile the domestic and international situation becomes, the more we must unwaveringly uphold the Party’s comprehensive leadership, implementing Party leadership in every aspect and the entire process of socialist cultural construction with Chinese characteristics. We must “firmly hold in our hands the leadership, management and discursive power over ideological work”, resolutely guard against the loss of ideological阵地 and the falling of leadership into other hands, and effectively safeguard the security of state power and cultural security.

2023年6月2日，习近平总书记在文化传承发展座谈会上明确提出坚守“中国共产党的文化领导权”这一战略命题，深刻阐明党的领导是中国特色社会主义文化发展的根本保证，牢牢掌握党的文化领导权，是推进新时代文化建设的关键所在。当前，我国正处于实现中华民族伟大复兴的关键时期，百年变局加速演进、改革发展稳定任务艰巨、多元价值观念并存交织，国内外形势越是复杂多变，我们就越要毫不动摇地坚持党的全面领导，把党的领导落实到中国特色社会主义文化建设的各方面和全过程，“把意识形态工作的领导权、管理权、话语权牢牢掌握在手中”，坚决防范思想阵地失守与领导权旁落，切实维护国家政权安全和文化安全。

(3) Upholding the Soul-Vein of Marxism and the Root-Vein of Fine Traditional Chinese Culture

（三）坚守马克思主义的魂脉和中华优秀传统文化的根脉

Cultural construction and development require not only correct ideological guidance and strong political leadership, but also the nourishment of drawing on the excellent cultural achievements of both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, through historical inheritance. The “Proletarian Culture Sect” ignored the continuity and inheritance of history and cultural development, refusing to make use of the old cultural遗产 left by capitalism to build socialist culture. This not only violated the inherent laws of cultural development itself, but also revealed the cognitive deviation of cultural nihilism deep within their thinking.

文化建设与发展不仅需要正确的思想指引和坚强的政治领导，也需要在历史传承中汲取古今中外优秀文化成果的养分。“无产阶级文化派”无视历史和文化发展的连续性与继承性，拒绝利用资本主义遗留下来的旧文化遗产建设社会主义文化，不仅违背文化自身的发展规律，更暴露出其思想深处文化虚无主义的认知偏差。

The report to the 20th National Congress of the CPC clearly states: “Practice tells us: why the Chinese Communist Party can succeed, why socialism with Chinese characteristics is good, ultimately it is because Marxism works, because Marxism adapted to the Chinese context and the needs of the times works.” Marxism “works” precisely because it can continuously absorb the latest achievements of human civilisation to enrich itself, and this is a necessary condition for developing socialist culture. Entering the New Era, cultural nihilism,借助 digital information technology, stealthily permeates daily life, interfering with the cultural cognition and value concepts of the people, threatening our country’s cultural security and ideological security, and hindering the construction of a strong socialist cultural state. To effectively resist this erroneous current of thought and to flourish and develop socialist culture, we must uphold the “soul-vein” of Marxism and the “root-vein” of fine traditional Chinese culture. Upholding the “soul-vein” of Marxism means deeply studying the basic principles of Marxism, always taking Marxism as our guide, using its standpoints, viewpoints and methods to analyse and solve problems in cultural construction, ensuring that cultural construction has a scientific worldview and methodological foundation. Upholding the “root-vein” of fine traditional Chinese culture means resolutely resisting the nihilistic tendency to sever history and deny fine traditional Chinese culture, deeply excavating and interpreting the ideas, humanistic spirit and moral norms of fine traditional Chinese culture, revealing their contemporary value, and, in combination with new practice and the requirements of the times, making correct choices, promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. At the same time, with an open and包容 attitude, we should借鉴 and absorb the excellent cultural achievements of both ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, neither simply restoring the old nor blindly worshipping the foreign, developing socialist culture with Chinese characteristics for the New Era on the basis of inheriting the historical血脉. More importantly, we must realise the organic unity of the soul-vein of Marxism and the root-vein of fine traditional Chinese culture. We must let Marxism take root and grow in Chinese cultural soil, and let fine traditional Chinese culture achieve innovative development under the guidance of Marxism, promoting the formation of a cultural theory and cultural practice with Chinese characteristics.

党的二十大报告明确指出：“实践告诉我们，中国共产党为什么能，中国特色社会主义为什么好，归根到底是马克思主义行，是中国化时代化的马克思主义行。”马克思主义的“行”，正在于它能够不断汲取人类最新文明成果以丰富自身，而这正是发展社会主义文化的必要条件。进入新时代，文化虚无主义借助数字信息技术隐蔽渗透日常生活，干扰民众的文化认知和价值理念，威胁我国文化安全和意识形态安全，阻碍社会主义文化强国建设。要有效抵制这一错误思潮、繁荣发展社会主义文化，就必须坚守马克思主义的“魂脉”和中华优秀传统文化的“根脉”。坚守马克思主义的“魂脉”，就是要深入学习马克思主义基本原理，始终以马克思主义为指导，运用其立场、观点和方法分析和解决文化建设中的问题，确保文化建设具有科学的世界观和方法论基础。坚守中华优秀传统文化的“根脉”，就是要坚决抵制割断历史、否定中华优秀传统文化的虚无主义倾向，深入挖掘和阐释中华优秀传统文化的思想观念、人文精神、道德规范，揭示其时代价值，并结合新的实践和时代要求进行正确取舍，推动中华优秀传统文化创造性转化、创新性发展。同时，以开放包容的态度借鉴吸收古今中外的优秀文化成果，既不简单复古，也不盲目崇外，在传承历史血脉的基础上发展新时代中国特色社会主义文化。更为重要的是，要实现马克思主义魂脉与中华优秀传统文化根脉的有机统一，既要让马克思主义在中国文化土壤中扎根生长，又要让中华优秀传统文化在马克思主义指导下实现创新发展，推动形成具有中国特色的文化理论和文化实践。

(4) Insisting that Cultural Construction Focus on People and Rest on People

（四）坚持文化建设着眼于人、落脚于人

The vitality of culture lies in taking root in practice and serving the people; this is the driving force and value归宿 of cultural construction. In pursuit of the “purity” of proletarian culture, the “Proletarian Culture Sect” blindly excluded the broad masses of the people, including peasants and intellectuals, from socialist cultural construction, thereby both detaching from the realities of the people’s life and struggle and obliterating the important status and role of the masses of the people as the主体 and依靠 force of socialist cultural construction. In response, Lenin explicitly stated that literature and art belong to the people, that their creation must take root in the life of the masses, and that they must serve the millions of working people, fundamentally answering the questions of “for whom” and “relying on whom” in socialist cultural construction.

文化的生命力在于扎根实践、服务人民，这是文化建设的动力源泉和价值归宿。“无产阶级文化派”为了追求无产阶级文化的“纯粹性”，盲目将包括农民、知识分子在内的广大人民群众排斥在社会主义文化建设之外，既脱离了人民群众的生活与斗争实际，又抹杀了人民群众作为社会主义文化建设主体及依靠力量的重要地位和作用。对此，列宁明确指出文学艺术属于人民，其创作必须扎根群众生活，为千百万劳动人民服务，从根本上回答了社会主义文化建设“为了谁”“依靠谁”的问题。

At present, China’s cultural construction still exhibits tendencies toward closed-doorism and elitism. Some film and television works indulge in self-enclosed creative models, enthusiastically presenting repetitive plots such as “domineering CEOs,” “rebirth and return,” and “xianxia fantasy cultivation” that are detached from reality. These works lack both a sense of the times and practical significance, while also neglecting the openness and inclusiveness that culture ought to possess, making it difficult to meet the people’s growing cultural and spiritual needs. Some literary creations over-pursue artistic professionalism and highbrow refinement, catering to the aesthetic of a narrow elite and shutting out ordinary people, seriously deviating from the “mass-line” principle of cultural work. [n17] General Secretary Xi Jinping points out: “The people are the living source of creation; only by taking root among the people can creation obtain an inexhaustible and ever-renewing fountainhead.” Cultural construction in the New Era must break free from the closed-doorist and elitist tendencies that are detached from reality. It must take root in the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics, confront the real lives of the people, and perceive their joys, sorrows, aspirations, and concerns. At the same time, it must enhance the capacity to supply cultural services and products, so that cultural development better meets the people’s new expectations for spiritual and cultural life. The masses, as participants and practitioners of cultural construction, should rightly become the beneficiaries and co-sharers of cultural development. Cultural construction in the New Era must respect the people’s principal status and pioneering spirit, taking the people’s satisfaction as the fundamental criterion for testing the fruits of cultural development. Whether in the creation of cultural products or the conduct of cultural activities, it is necessary to take root downward, return to the “human” itself, and respond to the people’s expectations with works that have warmth, substance, and quality. At the same time, we must promote more balanced and sufficient cultural development, improve the public cultural service system, rely on modern information technology to drive the precise downward distribution of high-quality cultural resources, and promote the integration and sharing of cultural resources. From multiple angles and in all dimensions, we must advance the people’s shared enjoyment of the fruits of cultural development, and on the basis of culture benefiting the people and culture delighting the people, truly realize culture shared by the people.

当前，我国文化建设中仍存在关门主义和精英化倾向，部分影视作品沉溺于自我封闭的创作模式，热衷呈现“霸道总裁”“重生归来”“玄幻修仙”等脱离现实的重复剧情，既缺乏时代感与现实意义，也忽视了文化应有的开放性与包容性，难以满足人民群众日益增长的精神文化需求；部分文学创作过度追求艺术的专业性和高雅性，迎合少数精英审美，将普通民众拒之门外，严重背离“群众导向”的文化工作原则。习近平总书记指出：“人民是创作的源头活水，只有扎根人民，创作才能获得取之不尽、用之不竭的源泉。”新时代文化建设必须破除脱离实际的关门主义和精英化倾向，既要扎根中国特色社会主义伟大实践，直面人民现实生活，感知人民的喜怒哀乐与诉求关切；也要提升文化服务和文化产品供给能力，使文化发展更好地满足人民对精神文化生活的新期待。人民群众作为文化建设的参与者、实践者，理应成为文化发展的受益者、共享者。新时代文化建设必须尊重人民主体地位和首创精神，将人民满意作为检验文化发展成果的根本标准。无论是文化产品的创作，还是文化活动的开展，都要向下扎根，回归“人”本身，用有温度、有内涵、有品质的作品回应人民期待。同时，推进文化发展更加平衡充分，完善公共文化服务体系，依托现代信息技术推动优质文化资源精准下沉，促进文化资源的整合与共享，多角度、全方位地推进群众共享文化发展成果，在文化惠民、文化悦民的基础上真正实现文化共享于民。