Strategic Calculation or Strategic Miscount? (V.I. Lenin about Libraries as Support Bases of Political and Cultural Education)

There is provided an unbiased analysis of the role of libraries in the success of the Social Democratic party in part of dissemination of its ideas among the broad masses of population. In the Soviet literature there was an unduly apologetic attitude towards the party libraries; in the post-Soviet years the opinions have divided: the part of library scientists continued to hold the dogmatic views, the other part radically denied anything positive in the Leninist concept of librarianship, the third part called for a considered evaluation of Lenin’s legacy in librarianship. Outreach efforts of Bolsheviks were carried out primarily through the legal and illegal party libraries that serve as supporting bases of their activities. In pre-revolutionary years there was established a network of such libraries, covering the whole country; there was launched production, reproduction and systematic distribution of promotional literature on party libraries. After the October Revolution (1917), this network, being legalized, formed the basis for operational creation of the network of public libraries in Soviet Russia, and then in the Soviet Union.

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