The Enlightenment Commissar of early Soviet culture
On 15 November 1917, eight days into his post, Lunacharsky resigned as Commissar of Enlightenment after hearing that Bolshevik bombardment of the Moscow Kremlin had destroyed St Basil's Cathedral. 'I am powerless to stop this horror. I cannot work under these maddening thoughts.' He withdrew his resignation two days later and led the cultural revolution for twelve years.
After the October Revolution he served twelve years as the first People's Commissar of Enlightenment, building Soviet cultural policy through literacy campaigns, school reorganisation, and nationalisation of museums. He funded avant-gardists like Malevich and Mayakovsky while refusing to sell a single painting from the Tsarist collections. In his early years he championed 'God-building' (Bogostroitelstvo), reinterpreting Marxism as a collective religious sensibility: a stance that brought a rupture with Lenin. A prolific playwright and critic, he became an Academician and diplomat after 1929, dying in France shortly after being appointed Soviet ambassador to Spain.
Career Timeline
- 1890s–1904Marxist circles and exile; emerges as a literary critic
- 1905–1914Bolshevik and Vpered debates; develops ideas on revolutionary culture
- 1908–1911Published the two-volume Religion and Socialism
- 1914–17Anti-war internationalist position; anti-war activities in exile
- 1917.5Returns to Russia, joins the Mezhraiontsy — the inter-district unity faction
- 1917.8VI Congress: Mezhraiontsy merge into the Bolshevik Party
- 1917–1929People's Commissar for Enlightenment, overseeing schools, museums, theatres and publishing
- 1918–1921Balances avant-garde patronage with preservation of cultural inheritance
- 1923Published the portrait collection Revolutionary Silhouettes
- 1929–1933Moves to diplomatic and scholarly posts; dies after appointment as ambassador to Spain
Related historical events
- 1905–1907The Revolution of 1905PropagandistBack in St. Petersburg in 1905, he carried the revolution’s propaganda in the legal Bolshevik daily Novaya Zhizn.
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionMezhraiontsy oratorA popular orator of the Mezhraiontsy, he was arrested together with Trotsky after the July Days.
- 1917.10–1918.01The October RevolutionCommissar of EnlightenmentAs the first Commissar of Enlightenment he took charge of culture and education, launching the new government's literacy and schooling work.
- 1921–1928The New Economic Policy (NEP)People's Commissar of Enlightenment
- 1928–1937The Five-Year Plans and the Soviet TransformationEnlightenment commissarServing as commissar of enlightenment until 1929, he laid the foundations of likbez and the universal school system.
God-Building (Bogostroitelstvo) — The Temptation of Revolutionary Religion
Lunacharsky's most controversial intellectual adventure was 'God-building' (богостроительство). In the two-volume Religion and Socialism (1908–1911) he argued that Marxism itself harboured a kind of 'religious' sensibility (a sense of cosmic solidarity, a divinization of collective humanity) and that the proletariat should not simply destroy the old God but worship the collective power of humankind itself. This drew inspiration from Max Stirner, Nietzsche, and the empirio-criticism of Richard Avenarius. Lenin fiercely attacked Lunacharsky's position in Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1908) as 'reactionary' and idealist, and this philosophical collision soon became a political rupture. In 1909 Lunacharsky joined Bogdanov and Bazarov in forming the Vpered (Forward) group, which was expelled from the Bolshevik faction; they ran party schools for workers on Capri and in Bologna, pursuing an independent programme of revolutionary cultural education. By the First World War he had gradually retreated from god-building, and after 1917 he publicly repudiated his earlier philosophy. Yet the god-building era's core insight (that revolution is not merely a political and economic transformation but a rebirth of the human spirit, with culture as its medium) left a deep imprint on his cultural policy as Commissar of Enlightenment.
Commissar of Enlightenment — Architect of Cultural Revolution
Lunacharsky served as People's Commissar of Enlightenment from 1917 to 1929, laying the foundations of Soviet cultural and educational policy. He oversaw the literacy campaign (Likbez), school reorganization, and the nationalization of museums, theatres and publishing, keeping Soviet cultural policy open between avant-garde experimentation and preservation of inherited culture. Under his principle that 'culture belongs to all working people,' he funded avant-gardists like Malevich and Mayakovsky with state money while refusing to sell a single painting from the Tsarist collections. In party debates he was closer to Bogdanov's Vpered group, yet retained Lenin's trust. He died in 1933 shortly after being appointed ambassador to Spain.