ABSTRACT
In order to create an institutionalized art form for the state, the Soviet government attempted to make the world of the arts a forum dominated by professionals with appropriate training and credentials. The push for professionalism in the arts came about with the Central Committee’s resolution of 1932, which abolished the many proletarian literary and artistic organizations and established single unions for each of the arts.119 These unions set standards to define professionalism; in music, the union deemed the ability to read Western musical notation a minimum requirement of a professional musician. 120 By that definition, most folk performers who had learned their trade by traditional means were not professionals, even if they could produce skillful renditions of a variety of folk tunes or dances. Professionalism was a corollary of the general move toward the industrialization of Soviet society: the new workers needed to be properly trained in order to advance the goals of the planned economy. There was a large-scale push toward technical education.121 Professionalization in the performing arts was also a means for the government to increase its control over amateur artistic activity, which had proved surprisingly unwieldy and chaotic in practice.122
