RAPKh

(Russian Association of Proletarian Artists), an association of Soviet artists founded in Moscow in 1931 from the AKhRR (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia), OMAKhRR (Youth League of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia), and OKhS (Society of Self-taught Artists). Its members included T. G. Gaponenko, F. D. Konnov, and la. I. Tsirel’son.

Proceeding from a vulgar sociological understanding of matters of artistic creativity, RAPKh launched a campaign for so-called purity of proletarian art. It artificially divided Soviet artists into those who were bourgeois and those who were proletarian. RAPKh promoted cliquism and crude methods of administration in art. In 1931 and 1932 the association published the journal Za proletarskoe iskusstvo (For Proletarian Art). RAPKh was disbanded in 1932.