Platon Kerzhentsev

Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev (Russian: Плато́н Миха́йлович Ке́рженцев), real name Lebedev (Ле́бедев) (4 August 1881 – 2 June 1940) was a Russian state and party official, journalist, playwright and arts theorist who was involved with the Proletkult movement. From 29 December 1930 – 23 March 1933 he served Administrator of Affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, and was the second person to fill that post.

Kerzhentsev became a Bolshevik in 1904 and emigrated in 1912. He gained experience of mass theatre in Europe and anglophone countries during a period of exile. He was influenced by Percy MacKaye, Richard Wagner and Alexandr Bogdanov. He was in New York City in 1916, living in the same boarding house as Padraic Colum. Returning to Russia in 1917, he was a leading figure in the Proletkult movement, and head of ROSTA, forerunner of the TASS news agency. He had articles published in Vestnik Teatra, the Journal of the Theatre Department of Narkompros based in Moscow. In 1921, when Proletkult was taken under party control, on Lenin's instructions, and its founder, Alexander Bogdanov was ousted, Kerzhentsev was appointed Ambassador in Sweden. He returned in 1923, and criticised Bogdanov in Pravda where he focused on The Organizational Principles of a Uniform Economic Plan a text submitted to the First Conference on Scientific Organization of Labour (January 1921). In 1923-25, he ran an institute that studied labour organisation. He opposed piece work and other incentives which he believed would create a 'working class aristocracy.He was Soviet ambassador in Italy in 1925-26, and deputy head of the Central Statistical Administration, 1926-28.

...
Wikipedia