men's deputies—to prepare the large masses of urban population for the comprehension of esthetic values and give them an artistic education. It is clear that the following measures should be undertaken to accomplish this: Publication of popular pocket editions, finely prepared, on the history of Russian and West-European art, which would give understanding for, and familiarize the worker with, the great masters in painting and sculpture; publication at popular prices of reproductions of representative specimens of Russian and European art, especially of works dealing with social themes, the toiling life of peasants and workers (Adler, Millet, Manet, Mentzel, Maddox, Brown and the Russian Traveling Exhibitors): arranging lectures on art which, in a popular way, with the aid of movies, will acquaint the toilers with the evolution of art styles, the influence of social surroundings on art, technical problems connected with the art of different epochs, and finally, the building at the art section of a special art library and reading room—these are the chief important means for the artistic education of the large masses of the toiling urban population.
And, lastly, the fourth—and perhaps the most essential and important problem facing the art sections attached to the Soviets of workers' deputies—is making the proletariat and the toiling classes capable of not only comprehending and criticising things beautiful, whether in the form of stage representations or creations of the brush or chisel, but also of themselves creating those beautiful things, first, in forms inherited from the past, and then, in new forms corresponding to the psychology of these new classes. Establishment of schools of drawing, modeling, recitation and theatrical art, creation of People's Art Academies with lecture halls and convenient studios—these are the means that could gradually transform the toilers from passive observers and critics of beauty into creative artists of beauty, builders of a new proletarian-socialist art which—we believe—will surpass in its grandeur the art of the past.
In connection with the above-stated problems of the art sections attached to the Soviets, there should naturally spring to life a number of committees entrusted with the task of beautification of cities, organizations of national holidays and pageants, organization of revolutionary-socialist concerts and performances; also committees in charge of publications, lectures, libraries, schools—committees composed of representatives from44
