:Working-class culture

Many socialists with a class struggle viewpoint see working-class culture as a vital element of the proletariat which they champion. One of the first organisations for proletarian culture was Proletkult, founded in Russia shortly after the February Revolution, supported by Alexander Bogdanov, who had been co-leader of the Bolsheviks with Vladimir Lenin. The group included both Bolsheviks and their critics, and Bogdanov struggled to retain its independence following the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. His erstwhile ally Anatoly Lunacharsky had rejoined the Bolsheviks and was appointed Commissar for Education.

In Literature and Revolution, Trotsky examined aesthetic issues in relation to class and the Russian revolution. Soviet scholar Robert Bird considered his work as the "first systematic treatment of art by a Communist leader" and a catalyst for later, Marxist cultural and critical theories.{{cite journal |last1=Bird |first1=Robert |title=Culture as permanent revolution: Lev Trotsky's Literature and Revolution |journal=Studies in East European Thought |date=1 September 2018 |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=181–193 |doi=10.1007/s11212-018-9304-6 |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11212-018-9304-6 |language=en |issn=1573-0948}} Trotsky presented a critique of contemporary literary movements such as Futurism and emphasised a need of cultural autonomy for the development of a socialist culture. According to literary critic Terry Eagleton, Trotsky recognised “like Lenin on the need for a socialist culture to absorb the finest products of bourgeois art”.{{cite book |last1=Eagleton |first1=Terry |title=Marxism and Literary Criticism |date=7 March 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-94783-6 |page=20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h7k8t09BbIQC&q=trotsky+literature+and+revolution+socialist+realism |language=en}} Trotsky himself viewed the proletarian culture as “temporary and transitional” which would provide the foundations for a culture above classes. He also argued that the pre-conditions for artistic creativity were economic well-being and emancipation from material constraints.{{cite book |last1=Knei-Paz |first1=Baruch |title=The social and political thought of Leon Trotsky |date=1978 |publisher=Oxford [Eng.] : Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-827233-5 |pages=289–301 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture}} Political scientist Baruch Knei-Paz characterised his view on the role of the party as transmitters of culture to the masses and raising the standards of education, as well as entry into the cultural sphere, but that the process of artistic creation in terms of language and presentation should be the domain of the practitioner. Knei-Paz also noted key distinctions between Trotsky’s approach on cultural matters and Stalin's policy in the 1930s.{{cite book |last1=Knei-Paz |first1=Baruch |title=The social and political thought of Leon Trotsky |date=1978 |publisher=Oxford [Eng.] : Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-827233-5 |pages=289–301 |url=https://archive.org/details/socialpoliticalt0000knei/page/300/mode/2up?q=proletarian+culture}}

Marxist–Leninist states have declared an official working-class culture, most notably socialist realism, whose constant aim is to glorify the worker, in contrast to typical independent working-class cultures. However, Lenin believed that there could be no authentic proletarian culture free from capitalism and that high culture should be brought to the workers.

The millenarian nature of socialist working-class art is evident in the goals espoused by the leaders of revolutionary movements. The art forms for the masses were meant to shape a new consciousness and form the basis of a new culture and new man.{{Cite book |last1=Gleason |first1=Abbott |first2=Peter |last2=Kenez |first3=Richard |last3=Stites |title=Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington |year=1989 |pages=25 |isbn=0-253-20513-1 }}

Many Americans strongly believe the U.S. is a "Land of Opportunity" that offers every child an equal chance at social and economic mobility. The idea of Americans rising from humble origins to riches has been called a "civil religion",[https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?sq=mobility&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=all Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs] | By JASON DePARLE | January 4, 2012] "the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored",[http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/05useconomics_morton.aspx Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120503130834/http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/05useconomics_morton.aspx|date=May 3, 2012}} Economic Mobility Project| May 2007 and part of the American identity (the American Dream[http://www.ego4u.com/en/read-on/countries/usa/american-dream English grammar 4U online]| "In general, the American Dream can be defined as being the opportunity and freedom for all citizens to achieve their goals and become rich and famous if only they work hard enough.") This theme is celebrated in the lives of famous Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, and in popular culture (from the books of Horatio Alger and Norman Vincent Peale to the song "Movin' on Up"the theme song of the 1975–85 TV sitcom The Jeffersons).

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• Blue collar
• Culture of poverty
• Industrial novel
• Kitchen sink realism
• Labor history
• Proletkult
• Proletarian literature
• Proletarian poetry

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• {{cite journal |last=Navickas |first=Katrina |title=What happened to class? New histories of labour and collective action in Britain |journal=Social History |year=2011 |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=192–204 |doi=10.1080/03071022.2011.560644 |hdl=2299/6601 |s2cid=144699747 |hdl-access=free }}
• {{cite book |last=Rose |first=Jonathan |title=The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes |location=New Haven and London |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2001 }}

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Category:Social class subcultures