Creating a National Library for the Workers' State: The Public Library in Petrograd and the...

Creating a National Library for the Workers' State: The Public Library in Petrograd and theRumiantsev Library under Bolshevik RuleAuthor(s): Mary StuartSource: The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 233-258Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4211475 .

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SEER, Vol. 72, No. 2, April I9W4

Creating a National Library for

the Workers' State: The Public

Library in Petrograd and the

Rumiantsev Library under

Bolshevik Rule

MARY STUART

ON 27 January I992, by ukase of the president of the Russian Federa- tion, the V. I. Lenin State Public Library, better known as the Lenin Library or 'Leninka', was renamed the Russian State Library.1 With this decree, i6i years after its establishment as a state institution and I 3 I years after its transfer from St Petersburg to Moscow, the national library of the former Soviet Union ended almost exactly sixty-eight years of identification with the Bolshevik revolution. It remains to be seen whether the third phase of its existence will differ as radically from the 'Lenin' phase as the latter did from the original 'Rumiantsev' incarnation. Clearly, however, the second metamorphosis is as much a function of the changing political landscape, and therefore as extrinsic and arbitrary, as was the first.

In the wake of Lenin's death, on 2I January I924, officials of the Bolshevik government moved quickly to make use of his image and immense moral authority, both to secure and legitimate their rule and to unify and mobilize the populace.2 Among the many icons and devices that were employed as part of this campaign to memorialize Lenin, one of the most powerful was the practice of attaching his name to a public institution or body.3 The memorial designation conferred status and pre-eminence on an institution and gave it an edge in competing for state funding at a time of severely limited resources. As one contemporary observer wrote, 'Names create an obligation and

Mary Stuart is Associate Professor in the Library of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign.

1 A. Liakin, 'Kak nazvali "Leninku"', Kul'tura, I February I992, 5, p. 3; Knizhnoe obozrenie, 3 IJanuary 1992, 5, p. 2.

2This is the central thesis of Nina Tumarkin in her book on the Lenin cult. See Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, Cambridge, Massachusetts, I 983.

3 Ibid., p. I52.



234 MARY STUART

Lenin's name obligates more than any other. Much must be done to live up to this name.'4

Under instructions from the Council of People's Commissars (Sov- narkom) to identify an institution within its jurisdiction to rename in Lenin's honour, officials from the People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros) met on 24January 1924 to consider possible candidates for the designation. Although the Rumiantsev Museum Library was hardly a bastion of revolutionary zeal (in I923 none of the librarians was a Party member), it was none the less a powerful symbol of the coming cultural transformation and therefore a logical choice. It had been Lenin's belief that the dissemination of culture to the masses would be achieved gradually and quietly, utilizing the old tsarist cultural and intellectual institutions as the agents of change. Libraries, in Lenin's view, would play a crucial role in this process. On 5 February 1924 commissar of education A. V. Lunacharskii announced the decision to rename the Rumiantsev Museum Library after Lenin and establish it as the country's premier library. On 5 November 1924

Narkompros recommended to the Central Executive Committee that the State Lenin Library be designated the national library, and the decree was issued on 6 February 1925.

Lunacharskii's choice was anything but impetuous. In the constella- tion of Russian cultural institutions the Rumiantsev Library had been on the ascendant ever since the Bolshevik seizure of power. Its establishment as the national library of the Soviet Union was the cul- mination of a long process that began with the revolution, not by design, but rather as the result of a confluence of social and political currents. There was no blueprint for recreating the Rumiantsev Library as a socialist institution, just as there was no larger coherent, preconceived programme to Bolshevize the nation's cultural establishment after the October revolution. Like Bolshevik policies in the political and economic spheres in this period, cultural policy was elaborated in a series of adhoc decisions. The transformation of the Rumiantsev Library was the result of such a series of decisions, taken in response to conditions and events within the library and Narkompros and under pressure of social and economic realities. That these decisions were informed by ideology in no way diminishes their essentially extemporaneous character.

The Rival Libraries

At the time of the October revolution Russia had enjoyed a world-class national library for more than a century. Founded in I 795, the Public

4 Leninets, 'Publichnaia biblioteka imeni t. Lenina; novoe imia, novye zadachi', Knigo- nosha, 2 February 1924, 5 (36), p. 7.



CREATING A NATIONAL LIBRARY 235

Library in St Petersburg was built on the magnificent Zaluski collection that had been confiscated by the Russian government in Warsaw after the victory over the Poles the preceding year.5 The library was finally opened to the public in I8I4 and, with the vision and effort of librarians such as A. N. Olenin, I. A. Krylov, A. Kh. Vostokov, V. F. Odoevskii, M. A. Korf, V. I. Sobol'shchikov, V. V. Stasov and A. F. Bychkov, the library maintained its standing as second or third among the great European libraries throughout the nineteenth century. In I9I8 the Public Library ranked third in size after the British Museum and Bibliotheque nationale.6 A strong tradition of leadership in the profession of librarianship and a commitment to placing the resources of the library in the service of social and cultural progress defined the library's mission from the outset.

In contrast, the history of the Rumiantsev Library as a state institution was, in the words ofthe library's director in I913, 'in essence the history of boundless need, of a difficult struggle for any kind of satisfactory conditions of operation'.7 Originally amassed by the very

5 On the history of the Imperial Public Library before the October Revolution, see Mary Stuart, Aristocrat-Librarian in Service to the Tsar: Aleksei Nikolaevich Olenin and the Imperial Public Library, Boulder, Colorado, I 986; Imperatorskaia Publichnaia biblioteka za sto let, St Petersburg, 19I4; 0. D. Golubeva and A. L. Gol'dberg, V.I. Sobol'shchikov/ 0. D. Golubeva, V. F. Odoevskii, Moscow, I983 (hereafter Golubeva and Gol'dberg, V.I. Sobol'shchikov); 0. D. Golubeva, Khraniteli mudrosti, Moscow, I988; Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, Leningrad, I 963 (hereafter Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki); Mary Stuart, "'A Potent Lever for Social Progress": The Imperial Public Library in the Era of the Great Reforms', Library Quarterly, 59, I 989, 3, pp. 199-222; Mary Stuart, 'The Evolution of Librarianship in Russia: The Librarians of the Imperial Public Library, i8o8-i868', Library Quarterly, 64, 1994, I, pp. I-29.

6 V. Ia. Briusov, 'Spravka zaveduiushchego Moskovskim bibliotechnym otdeleniem o sostoianii bibliotechnogo dela v Rossii k oseni I9I8 g.' in Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, I9q8-i920, Moscow, I975 (hereafter Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, i9i8-I920), p. 33.

7 Piatidesiatilietie Rumiantsovskago muzeia v Moskve, 1862-I9I2; istoricheskii ocherk, Moscow, 19I3 (hereafter Piatidesiatilietie Rumiantsovskago muzeia), p.8i. Lu. V. Got'e, the library's director and author of the statement, repeated it in the library's I923 guidebook. See Gosudarstvennyi Rumiantsovskii Muzei, Putevoditel', i, Moscow, 1923 (hereafter Gosudar- stvennyi Rumiantsovskii Muzei, Putevoditel'), p. 48. On the history of the Lenin Library in this period, see Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina za ioo let, i862-1962, Moscow, I962 (hereafter-Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR); Gosudarstvennyi Rumiantsovskii Muzei, Putevoditel'; 40 let bibliotechnogo stroitel'stva v SSSR, ed. F. S. Abri- kosova, Moscow, 1958 (hereafter 40 let); lu. Got'e, 'Neskol'ko slov o nazrevshei reforme biblioteki Rumiantsevskogo Muzeia', Bibliotechnoe obozrenie, I9I9, I, pp. 56-6o (hereafter Got'e, 'Neskol'ko slov'); [Anon.], 'X let bibliotechnogo stroitel'stva', Sbornik Publichnoi biblioteki SSSR imeni V.I. Lenina, I, I928, pp.3-32 (hereafter 'X let'); N.M. Sikorskii, 'Glavnaia biblioteka strany (k 5o-letiiu preobrazovaniia Rumiantsevskoi publichnoi biblioteki v Gosudarstvennuiu biblioteku SSSR im. V. I. Lenina)', Kniga; issledovaniia i materialy, 3 ', I 975, pp. 6o-70; B. S. Gorbachevskii, Glavnaia biblioteka strany; ocherki o Gosudarstvennoi ordena Lenina biblioteke SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina, Moscow, I 975; Piatidesiatilietie Rumiantsovskago Muzeia; N. M. Sikorskii, 'Nekotorye problemy razvitiia Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina' in Natsional'naia biblioteka strany; problemy i perspektivy, Trudy Gosudar- stvennoi biblioteki SSSR, xII, Moscow, I975, pp. 7-28; R. I. Ivaniushina, 'Iz istorii spravochno-bibliograficheskoi raboty dvukh krupneishikh bibliotek Sovetskogo Soiuza (I9I8-1925 gg.)', Biblioteki SSSR; opyt raboty, I I, 1959, pp. 76-95 (hereafter Ivaniushina, 'Iz istorii spravochno-bibliograficheskoi raboty').



236 MARY STUART

wealthy statesman and archaeographer N. P. Rumiantsev, the collection was donated to the government in I828 by his heirs.8 Placed under thejurisdiction of the Public Library in 1845 but left essentially without financial support, the Rumiantsev Library was only marginally maintained until its transfer to Moscow in i86i .9 At the time of the October revolution the collections totalled I.5 million volumes. The library was one of four divisions within the Rumiantsev Museum, which also contained a fine arts division, an ethnographic department and a division of antiquities.

The decision of the Bolshevik authorities to elevate the Rumiantsev Library, rather than attempt to transform the Public Library into a Bolshevik institution, was influenced by several factors. Not the least of these was the government's overriding need to shape and secure a new political and social order. In practical terms this meant establishing control over the populace, creating a central executive authority and mechanisms for implementing and enforcing state policy, in effect imposing order and regulation on the chaos and instability of the revolutionary process.10 Attempts at state-building in the realm of culture on the part of the Bolshevik government in the years following the October revolution were halting, and in many respects unsuccess- ful, due in part to the widely disparate philosophies which were competing to inform policy on education and the arts. The effort to Bolshevize the institutions of higher education and the learned societies, for example, met with little success until well into the I920S.

In the case of the Rumiantsev Library, however, the government was able early on to claim the institution for its own purposes and refashion it in the spirit of the revolution.

Other political realities played a role in the rise of the Rumiantsev Library. As the younger and considerably poorer relation of the Public Library, it was less steeped in tradition and thus more malleable than the Public Library. Having languished for decades in the Pashkov House after the move to Moscow, the Rumiantsev Library was not instrumental in advancing the profession of librarianship in Russia, whereas the Public Library had served as the locus of its development. The Rumiantsev librarians, therefore, were less resistant to outside intervention in the library's affairs, and indeed stood to gain considerably from it. The role of the Public Library in the Bolshevization of the

8 A. E. Viktorov, 'Peredacha Rumiantsovskago muzeia v Ministerstvo narodnago pros- veshcheniia, po ofitsial'nym dokumentam' in Sbornik materialov dlia istorii Rumiantsovskago muzeia, i, Moscow, 188 2, pp. II 7-71.

9 On the transfer, see Golubeva and Gol'dberg, V. I. Sobol'shchikov, pp. 201-08; V. V. Stasov, 'Rumiantsovskii muzei; istoriia ego perevoda iz Peterburga v Moskvu v I86o-i86I godakh' in idem, Sobranie sochinenii V. V. Stasova, II, St Petersburg, I 894, cols I 687- I 712.

10 This process is treated in Mary McAuley, Bread andJustice: State and Society in Petrograd, I9I7-I922, Oxford, I99I (hereafter McAuley, Bread andJustice).




Rumiantsev Library was thus pivotal, both in defining a standard against which the new national library would be judged and in constituting a problem for the Bolsheviks to solve.

There were geographic and economic considerations, as well as political factors, underlying the decision to promote the Rumiantsev Library. By early I 9 I 8 the Bolshevik government had elected to end its 'Petrograd period', as Lenin termed it," and had relocated to Moscow. In addition, the massive book expropriation campaign undertaken after the revolution provided the means to effect the recreation of the Rumiantsev Library as the Soviet national library. Within the span of three years, the holdings of the Rumiantsev Library were doubled, due in large measure to the acquisition of confiscated materials. With these developments it became practical to establish a new national library in the environs of the organs of government it was to serve.

The Cultural Context

As the custodians of the cultural apparatus before 1917, the intelligentsia could have rendered considerable assistance to the new government in running the nation's schools, libraries, museums and institutions of higher education. In reality, the Bolsheviks were forced to undertake the enormous task of state-building largely without the help of educated society.12 Although traditionally in moderate opposition to the tsarist regime, most Russian intellectuals and professionals condemned the Bolshevik seizure of power and remained hostile to the government for some time.13 The majority of artists and intellectuals had welcomed the February revolution, which removed most con- straints on their autonomy and permitted a degree of creative freedom undreamt of only a few years earlier, but they feared that the Bolsheviks

11 V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, 'Pereezd Sovetskogo pravitel'stva iz Petrograda v Moskvu' in V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, Izbrannye sochineniia, II, Moscow, I963, p. 152.

12 McAuley, Bread andJustice, p. 5. 13 DavidJoravsky, Soviet Marxism and Natural Science, I9I7-I932, New York, I961 (hereafter

Joravsky, Soviet Marxism), p. 63; Loren R. Graham, The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party, I927-I932, Princeton, NewJersey, I967 (hereafter Graham, Soviet Academy), pp. 25-26; Joel Shapiro, A History of the Communist Academy, 19i8-1936, PhD dissertation, Columbia University, I976 (hereafter Shapiro, Communist Academy), pp. I 4-15; Kendall E. Bailes, Science and Russian Culture in an Age of Revolutions: V. 1. Vernadsky and His Scientific School, i863-1945, Bloomington, Indiana, I990 (hereafter Bailes, Science and Russian Culture), p. 148; Alexander Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge: The Academy of Sciences of the USSR (IgI7-I970), Berkeley, I 984 (hereafter Vucinich, Empire ofKnowledge), p. 92; Katerina Clark, 'The "Quiet Revolution" in Soviet Intellectual Life' in Russia in the Era ofNEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch and Richard Stites, Bloom- ington, Indiana, I99I (hereafter Clark, 'Quiet Revolution'), p. 222; McAuley, Bread and Justice, pp. 321-22; Moshe Lewin, 'The Civil War: Dynamics and Legacy' in Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War, ed. Diane P. Koenker, William G. Rosenberg and Ronald Grigor Suny, Bloomington, Indiana, 1989, p. 409.



238 MARY STUART

posed a threat to these recent gains.14 Many from the artistic commu- nity, as well as the intelligentsia, simply avoided contact with the new Soviet institutions as far as possible. 15

Among pre-revolutionary library and book studies specialists there was a strong tradition of non-partisan librarianship.16 Beyond a liberal belief in popular enlightenment and in books and libraries as an instrument of social progress, these specialists generally opposed the application of specific ideologies in library work.17 In i9I i the first All-Russian Congress on Libraries passed a resolution declaring that 'libraries must be free of any political, religious, or national ten- dency'.18 Shortly after the October revolution N. K. Krupskaia began to dominate the field of public librarianship, and her emphasis on the primac.y of partiinost', or party-mindedness, in libraries was highly objectionable to most of the pre-revolutionary specialists.19

In the days and weeks following the October revolution academics and other professionals debated what policy to adopt towards the new Soviet government. Some elected immediately to go on strike (including teachers in Moscow and Petrograd), others passed resolutions condemning the seizure of power and/or declaring non-recognition (including the Petrograd section of the Academic Union, many academic councils of higher educational institutions, and the general conference of the Academy of Sciences).20 Most publicly pursued a line of neutrality that was in fact thinly veiled antagonism.21

At the same time, the Bolshevik authorities found themselves desper- ately short of qualified personnel to staff the new institutions of state.22 The former officials of the tsarist and Provisional governments were largely unco-operative,23 especially in the cultural and intellectual

14 James C. McClelland, 'The Professoriate in the Russian Civil War' in Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War, ed. Diane P. Koenker, William G. Rosenberg and Ronald GrigorSuny, Bloomington, Indiana, I989 (hereafter, McClelland, 'Professoriate'), pp. 243- 49; Kendall E. Bailes, 'Natural Scientists and the Soviet System' in Party, State and Society in the Russian Civil War, pp. 268-70.

15 Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Commissariat ofEnlightenment: Soviet Organization ofEducation and the Arts under Lunacharsky, October 1917-I92I, Cambridge, 1970 (hereafter Fitzpatrick, Commis- sariat), pp. 68-69, I I 0.

16 Boris Raymond, Krupskaia and Soviet Russian Librarianship, 1917-i939, Metuchen, New Jersey, I 979 (hereafter Raymond, Krupskaia), p. 63.

17 The writings of L. B. Khavkina exemplify this philosophy of librarianship. For a bibliography of her writings, see Iu. V. Grigor'ev, L. B. Khavkina (I871-I949), Moscow, 1973,

pp *113-23. 18 Quoted in Iu. N. Stoliarov, 'Leninskoe nasledie - dostoianie sovremennosti', Sovetskoe

bibliotekovedenie, I990, 6, p. 22. See also A. A. Gromova, Bibliotechnoe delo v Rossii (v i908-19I4 godakh), Moscow, 1955 (hereafter Gromova, Bibliotechnoe delo), pp. 2 7-29.

19 On Krupskaia's philosophy of librarianship, see Raymond, Krupskaia. 20 L. V. Ivanova, Formirovanie sovetskoi nauchnoi intelligentsii (1917-I927 gg.), Moscow, I 980,

p. 23; Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge, p. 92; McClelland, 'Professoriate', p. 244. 21 Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge, pp. 82, 96. 22 Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, p. 19; Joravsky, Soviet Marxism, p.63. 23 T. H. Rigby, Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom I9I7-I922, Cambridge, 1979 (hereafter Rigby,

Lenin's Government), pp. 43-45.




institutions,24 and yet, without Bolshevik cadres to replace them, the new government had no choice but to utilize the old 'bourgeois' officials and specialists. This has been described as the Bolsheviks' policy of 'expedient accommodation' with the old intelligentsia.25 Persons with skills needed for the construction of socialism could be recruited by the state as long as th ey did not actively oppose the regime. The work of such persons would aid in building socialism, and their political views would be overlooked.26 There was some expectation that they would be converted to the cause given sufficient time and exposure to the true path. In practice the Bolsheviks had to strike a delicate balance between encouraging the bourgeois specialists and investing them with sufficient authority to function effectively on the one hand, and dampening their autonomy and esprit de corps on the other.27 The recruitment of pre-revolutionary government officials proceeded on such a scale that by August I 9 I 8 nearly half of the officials in the central administration (and ninety per cent of the upper-echelon officials) had held some sort of administrative post before October I917.28 By the same token, most universities, scholarly societies and research institutes remained in the hands of the bourgeois specialists.29

These were not ideal circumstances for fabricating a new socialist culture, and there were calls for a more radical course of action, such as shutting down the Academy of Sciences,30 regarded by one critic as a 'sanctuary of bourgeois thought and an institutional antithesis to Marxist plans for organized research'.31 Accommodation of the old intelligentsia was never considered a permanent solution, and from the outset plans were made to train new cadres of Bolshevik intellectuals to staff the country's scholarly and scientific agencies and institutions, as well as the organs of government. In I9I8 the Socialist Academy of Sciences was created as a counterweight to the 'bourgeois' universities and Academy of Sciences, and specifically to propagate Marxism- Leninism in the social sciences.32 It suffered from a lack of zeal on the part of its members, for whom Marxist theory was mainly 'intellectual

24 The Ministry of Education is a notable example. See Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, pp. I I- i6.

25 Sheila Fitzpatrick, 'The "Soft" Line on Culture and Its Enemies: Soviet Cultural Policy, I922-I927', Slavic Review, 33, I974,2, pp. 267-87.

26Joravsky, Soviet Marxism, p. 65; Shapiro, Communist Academy, p. 3. The classic example is the eminent mineralogist and geochemist V. I. Vernadskii. See Bailes, Science and Russian Culture.

27 Lewis H. Siegelbaum, 'State and Society in the 1920S' in Reform in Russia and the U.S.S.R.: Past and Prospects, ed. Robert 0. Crummey, Urbana, Illinois, I 989, p. I 34.

28 Rigby, Lenin's Government, p. 62.

29Joravsky, Soviet Marxism, p. 65; Shapiro, Communist Academy, p. 7; Bailes, Science and Russian Culture, p. 148.

30 Ibid., pp. I50, 154. 31 Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge, p. 84. 32 Shapiro, Communist Academy.



240 MARY STUART

decor' rather than a focus of research.33 As one scholar observed, 'for several years [the Socialist Academy] was scarcely more than a library and a debating club .. .'.34 The Marxist historian M. N. Pokrovskii, who was the most active organizer of alternative Marxist scholarly institutions and a sworn enemy of the pre-revolutionary academic establishment, wanted to name the new institution the Communist Academy, but it was argued that 'Socialist' might have greater appeal for potential recruits. (It was renamed the Communist Academy in 1924.)

The same desire for alternative intellectual and cultural institutions led to the creation in 192I of the Institute of the Red Professoriate,35 designed to train instructors in history, sociology, economics and philosophy who would also be conversant with Marxist-Leninist theory, for institutions of higher education. This was considered essential both to gain control of those institutions and to prevent them from producing another generation of specialists hostile to Bolshevik ideology. As one historian has summed up the problem, 'How was a new generation of "red specialists" to be trained by teachers longing, as Lenin put it, for "an orderly bourgeois republic"?'36 Originally there were to be two Institutes of the Red Professoriate, one each in Moscow and Petrograd, but, ironically, due to a shortage of qualified Marxist instructors, only the Moscow Institute was established.

The Academy of Sciences and the Universities in Transition

Although the Academy of Sciences had publicly denounced the Bol- shevik take-over in the weeks following the revolution, it remained largely immune from government intervention in its affairs for more than a decade. Since the Academy represented the 'acme of Russian scholarly life',37 the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to rely on the academicians to promote Russian science. When first approached by the government for a pledge of co-operation in January i9i8, the Academy agreed to consider requests from the Bolsheviks on a case by case basis, and immediately proceeded to ask for more money for research. This initial encounter set the pattern for the Academy's relations with the government in the I920S. Using this strategy, the Academy managed to retain its autonomy and refuse reform until the end of the decade, and to expand its activities dramatically.38 For their part the Bolsheviks were willing to tolerate the idiosyncracies of the

33 Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge, p. 89. 34 Ibid., pp. 8I-82.

35 L. V. Ivanova, 'Institut krasnoi professury (1921-1936 gg.)' in Ocherki istorii istoricheskoi nauki v SSSR, ed. M. V. Nechkina etal., iv, Moscow, I966, pp. 226-32.

36 Joravsky, Soviet Marxism, p. 63. 37 Bailes, Science and Russian Culture, p. 149. 38 Ibid., pp. I55-56; Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, p. 73.



CREATING A NATIONAL LIBRARY 24I

academicians in the interests of scientific and technological progress. From the outset the Bolsheviks made concessions to the Academy that they were unwilling to grant to other intellectual institutions.39 Early on Lenin cautioned Lunacharskii that he would have to pay for any 'china' he broke in the Academy.40 For their part many academicians, including the Academy's permanent secretary S. F. Ol'denburg, regarded the Bolsheviks as an improvement over the tsarist bureaucracy.4'

The Academy's strategy was very effective. Although the Bolsheviks rejected the Academy's demands for autonomy in principle, they tolerated them in practice,42 and in 1927 the Academy remained the 'most important unreformed tsarist institution', without a single Party member.43 In the first twelve years of Soviet rule the Academy had only one full member who professed to be a Marxist, the linguist N. Ia. Marr44 (who was director of the Public Library in Petrograd from I924 to 1930). Throughout the I920S the academicians managed to maintain a modus vivendi with the Bolsheviks that not only advanced their interests, but substantially aided Russian science as well.

In contrast, the universities refused to co-operate with the Bolsheviks from the outset.45 They insisted on total autonomy and encouraged students to boycott lectures by Communists.46 Government attempts to gain control of university administrative organs by packing them with working-class students failed when the students continued to align themselves with the university.47 When Narkompros abolished exam- inations and degrees, administrators at Moscow University defied the order. Narkompros retaliated with a series of decrees circumscribing faculty autonomy and imposing education reform.48 By the end of the civil war the universities were sufficiently depleted and drained that Narkompros simply issued a new university charter asserting government control of higher education.49 As one historian of higher education in the I920S has observed, the new statute 'surpassed even the reactionary I 884 charter in its complete denial of autonomy, and in its

39 Ibid., p. 68. 40 Bailes, Science and Russian Culture, p. I 54; Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, pp. 72-73. 41 Bailes, Science and Russian Culture, p. I 48. 42 Ibid., p. 156. 43 Graham, Soviet Academy, pp. 30-31 . 44 Vucinich, Empire of Knowledge, p. 82. 45 On the universities in this period, see McAuley, Bread and Justice, pp. 337-51; Fitzpa-

trick, Commissariat, pp. 73-88; McClelland, 'Professoriate', pp. 243-66; James C. McClell- and, 'Bolshevik Approaches to Higher Education, I917-192I', Slavic Review, 30, I97I, 4, pp. 8 I8-31 (hereafter McClelland, 'Bolshevik Approaches').

46 Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, pp. 73-74. 47 McClelland, 'Bolshevik Approaches', pp. 832-35. 48 Fitzpatrick, Commissariat, pp. 74-78. 49 McClelland, 'Professoriate', pp. 26I-62.



242 MARY STUART

subordination of university administration to the central governmental apparatus'.50

Libraries After the October Revolution

In Lenin's view it was not only the universities, technical institutes and learned societies that held the key to socialist construction; libraries too would perform a crucial role in educating the masses and promoting scientific and technical progress.51 Long before the revolution Lenin was polemicizing in support of the democratization of library services. His I913 article in Rabochaia pravda praised the New York Public Library as a model of efficiency and accessibility.52 To a considerable extent, his views echoed those of most of the leading pre-revolutionary library activists, such as L. B. Khavkina, A. A. Pokrovskii, B. 0. Borovich, N. A. Rubakin, P. M. Bogdanov and N. M. Lisovskii. Most of these 'bourgeois' library specialists advocated such practices as the rapid expansion of public libraries, increased inter-library co- operation, ideologically neutral reader services (not endorsed by Lenin), comprehensive, unrestricted acquisitions, greater emphasis on dissemination of knowledge to the masses and overall rationalization of library operations.

Shortly after the October revolution, public or mass libraries were placed under the jurisdiction of the adult education department, headed by Krupskaia, of the newly created Narkompros.53 The Petro- grad library division of Narkompros was established in February i 9 I 8, withjurisdiction over academic and research libraries, and inJuly I 9 18 a Moscow library division was created within Narkompros. AfterJuly

50 McClelland, 'Bolshevik Approaches', p. 829. 51 Lenin's views on libraries are summarized in V. I. Lenin, V. I. Lenin i bibliotechnoe delo,

2nd edn, Moscow, I977 (hereafter Lenin, Lenin i bibliotechnoe delo); K. I. Abramov, Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR, 3rd edn, Moscow, I980 (hereafter Abramov, Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela), especially pp. 115-42; Iu. N. Stoliarov, 'Leninskoe nasledie - dostoianie sovremennosti', Sovetskoe bibliotekovedenie, I990, 6, pp. I6-25; Iu. N. Stoliarov, 'V. I. Lenin: shveitsarsko-amerikanskaia sistema ili tsentralizatsiia', Sovetskoe bibliotekovedenie, 1991, 5, pp. 24-35 (hereafter Stoliarov, 'V. I. Lenin'); I. L. Benderskii and V. I. Kharlamov, 'Pri- glashenie k dialogu', Sovetskoe bibliotekovedenie, 1991, 5, pp. 35-45; Gromova, Bibliotechnoe delo, pp. 31-36; E. I. Kuzhel'kova, 'V. I. Lenin i biblioteki Peterburga-Petrograda', Trudy Leningradskogo bibliotechnogo instituta imeni N. K. Krupskoi, 3, 1958, pp. 29-43. A less favourable assessment was presented in a recent issue of a major Soviet library sciencejournal. See V. I. Kharlamov, 'Fenomen bibliotechnoi ideologii: s pozitsii istorika', Sovetskoe bibliotekovedenie, 199I,2, pp. 41-46.

52 V. I. Lenin, 'Chto mozhno sdelat' dlia narodnago obrazovaniia' in Lenin, Lenin i bibliotechnogo delo, pp. 31-33. (Originally published in Rabochaia pravda, 18July 19I3.)

53 Library organization after the revolution is described in K. I. Abramov, 'Pervye meropriiatiia sovetskoi vlasti v oblasti bibliotechnogo dela', Biblioteki SSSR, 36, 1967, pp. 14-34 (hereafter Abramov, 'Pervye meropriiatiia'), especially pp. 14-21; K. I. Abra- mov, 'Pervoe gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie po voprosam reorganizatsii bibliotechnogo dela (iiul' I9I8 g.)', Biblioteki SSSR, 28, I965, PP- 54-72 (hereafter Abramov, 'Pervoe gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie'); N. Karklina, 'Pervye dekrety sovetskoi vlasti o biblio- technom dele', Bibliotekar', 1954, I, pp. I2-I6 (hereafter Karklina, 'Pervye dekrety').




these two divisions were placed under the newly created Central Com- mittee of State Libraries, which was dissolved in February I9I9; inJune I 9 I 9 the Moscow library division was reorganized and givenjurisdiction over research libraries nationwide. Finally, in November I920 Glav- politprosvet, the central administrative organ for all cultural and educational institutions, was established under Krupskaia's direction. From the creation of Narkompros in November I 91 7, until her death in I 939, Krupskaia played a leading role in the national library establishment.

In the first days after the Bolshevik seizure of power, Lenin addressed a memorandum to the Public Library calling for immediate reform of library operations.54 In this document he prescribed immediate imple- mentation of domestic and foreign inter-library loan; operation of the reading room from 8 am until i i pm seven days a week; and transfer of the requisite number of former employees of the tsarist ministry of education to the Public Library. The memorandum also made reference to the progressive experience of American and Swiss libraries in providing services to the public. This assessment was probably based on his own first-hand experience of Swiss libraries and on his exposure to literature on American libraries. (The 19 I 3 article in Rabochaia pravda, for example, was written after Lenin read the New York Public Library's annual report for I91 I.) In his subsequent writings this became the 'Swiss-American system', which is essentially a metaphor for efficiency in library operations, with particular emphasis on establishing a net- work of free public libraries and centralizing all library services. This term was not part of the lexicon of library science, but rather purely Lenin's invention, and as a result it was frequently misunderstood by the library science establishment and the educational bureaucracy alike.

Other directives mandating reorganization of library services nationwide were issued in the early months of the revolution, and when libraries failed to implement reforms as Lenin had envisaged them, Sovnarkom instructed Narkompros to organize a programme of reform. On 26 April i9i8 Sovnarkom directed Lunacharskii to organize a conference on the reorganization of library services. On 7 June Sov- narkom ordered Narkompros to proceed with the centralization of library services and introduction of the Swiss-American system. After the conference on reorganization was announced forJuly, Lenin sent a telegram, dated 2 7June I 9 I 8, to Petrograd librarians threatening 'harsh revolutionary retribution' if they failed to participate.55 Although meet- ings were held in July and August, they did not produce the desired

54 V. I. Lenin, 'O zadachakh publichnoi biblioteki v Petrograde' in Lenin, Lenin i bibliotechnoe delo, p. 45.

55 'Telegramma v Petrograd [sic] Bibliotechnomu otdelu Narodnogo Komissariata po prosveshcheniiu o vyvoze v Moskvu predstavitelei bibliotek Petrograda na soveshchanie po voprosu o tsentralizatsii bibliotechnogo dela' in Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, i9i8-1920, p. I 8.



244 MARY STUART

results. The Central Committee of State Libraries was established in August, but was soon bogged down in rivalry between the Moscow and Petrograd factions. The Moscow contingent advanced the argument that the committee could not function effectively as long as it remained in Petrograd, isolated from the central organs of government, but ultimately they failed to convince Narkompros officials that the committee should relocate in Moscow. After their victory over the Moscow delegates the Petrograd librarians focused the committee's attention on the needs of research libraries in Petrograd.

Again in January I9I9 Sovnarkom rebuked Narkompros officials for their failure to introduce the Swiss-American system and demanded monthly progress reports. M. N. Pokrovskii, deputy head of Nar- kompros, issued an internal memorandum to Narkompros staff explaining that Sovnarkom had expressed displeasure with their failure to establish the 'American-Swedish' system.56 Pokrovskii's unfam- iliarity with the term suggests how poorly grasped and perhaps also how poorly defined was the proposed reform.

Even though they were not complying with government directives, research libraries were not inactive during this period. In I919 the librarians of the Public Library began publishing a scholarly journal devoted to issues in research librarianship, entitled Bibliotechnoe obozrenie.57 The prominent pre-revolutionary library specialist L. B. Khavkina argued in an article in Bibliograficheskii ezhemesiachnik that Russian librarians should emulate their colleagues in the West, where, in her view, public libraries actively served the cause of democracy.58 (Khavkina was later criticized by Krupskaia for her 'Kadet devia- tion'.)59 D. F. Kobeko, who had been summarily dismissed as director of the Public Library in January I 9I8 for political unreliability,60 was lauded as a champion of free thought in his obituary in Bibliotechnoe obozrenie in IgIg.61 An article in the same journal in I926 on the activities of the Russian Bibliological Society since the revolution reveals that organization's continued focus on traditional scholarship in book studies.62

Eventually the government organized the first All-Russian Library Congress (held in July I924) to propagate partiinost' among library workers. The congress adopted the slogan 'Books to the People'. In

56 Stoliarov, 'V. I. Lenin', p. 29. 57 Bibliotechnoe obozrenie, 1919-27 (not published I921-24). 58 L. Khavkina, 'Blizhaishie zadachi bibliotechnogo dela v Rossii', Bibliograficheskii ezheme-

siachnik, I9I8, I (9), pp. 2-5. 59 A. N. Vaneev, Razvitie bibliotekovedcheskoi mysli v SSSR, Moscow, 1980, p. I I. 60 'Rasporiazhenie ob uvol'nenii direktora publichnoi biblioteki' in Lenin, Lenin i biblio-

technoe delo, p. 250. 61 A. Nol'de, 'Pamiati Dmitriia Fomicha Kobeko', Bibliotechnoe obozrenie, 19I9, I, p. 120. 62 L. Il'inskii, 'Russkoe bibliologicheskoe obshchestvo (za gody revoliutsii)', Bibliotechnoe

obozrenie, 1926, 1/2, pp. 147-56.



CREATING A NATIONAL LIBRARY 245 December I 924 the first All-Russian Conference of Research Libraries was held to reorient research libraries to the needs of the workers.63 This body self-consciously adopted the slogan, 'Science to the People', but in fact discussed the usual issues in research librarianship, such as library governance in the West, compiling union catalogues, education for librarianship in Russia and the West, centralized cataloguing, preservation of library materials, international inter-library loan, and the relative merits of classified and subject catalogues.64 Although the conference did pass a resolution affirming that research libraries were obligated to assist in the propagation of Marxism-Leninism and the construction of a socialist society, there was no discussion of the means to achieve these goals.

Like other professionals, research librarians were reluctant to accept direction from outside their profession, and as their writings and conference programmes suggest, they continued to pursue their own agenda for librarianship after the October revolution. As a result, research libraries in general were slow to implement the reforms mandated by the government.65 Khavkina, writing in 1927, noted that substantive reform of research libraries had been undertaken only in the previous five years.66 A I937 study of the history of the Public Library since the October revolution cited the contents of Bibliotechnoe obozrenie and the programmes of library conferences as evidence of the persistence of bourgeois objectivism and academicism in research librarianship.67

The Old National Library and the New Government

The staff of the Public Library in Petrograd was anything but enthusi- astic about the Bolshevik seizure of power. Soviet sources, including the library's official sesquicentennial jubilee history, stress the non-co- operation ('sabotage') of the library administration with the Bolshevik

63 On this conference, see 0. D. Golubeva, N. Ia. Marr i Publichnaia biblioteka, Tbilisi, I986 (hereafter Golubeva, Marr), pp. 34-35; Raymond, Krupskaia, p. go; Iu. V. Grigor'ev, 'Osnovnye etapy razvitiia bibliotekovedeniia (1917-1967 gg.)', Uchenye zapiski Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul'tury, I6, I967, p. 213; Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi publichnoi biblioteki, p. 183; Abramov, Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela, pp. 21 I-I2; and the conference proceedings, Trudy pervoi konferentsii nauchnykh bibliotek RSFSR, Moscow, I926 (hereafter Trudy pervoi konferentsii nauchnykh bibliotek RSFSR).

64 Ibid. 65 Abramov, Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela, p. 213. 66 L. B. Khavkina, 'Nashi nauchnye biblioteki do i posle revoliutsii', Krasnyi bibliotekar',

1927, 10, p. 32. 67 A. Vol'per and N. Katsnel'son, 'Gosudarstvennaia Publichnaia biblioteka im. M. E.

Saltykova-Shchedrina za 20 let (I917-I937)', Bibliotekar', I937, II (hereafter Vol'per and Katsnel'son, 'Gosudarstvennaia Publichnaia biblioteka'), p. 48.



246 MARY STUART

authorities.68 Their first act of defiance was to close the library to the public during the revolution and in the ensuing weeks, ostensibly because the electricity had been cut off. 69 This decision was affirmed on 31 October by the library's governing council, consisting of librarians, paraprofessional employees, clerical staff, adjunct librarians and the administration.70 Sometime in early November a petition with fifty signatures demanding the reopening of the library was tacked to the door,71 and the library duly reopened on 13 November. The following day the non-Bolshevik library union organized a two-day strike for i6-i7 November to protest against the take-over. Although at a mass meeting on 15 November library employees initially voted in favour of the strike, in the end they recommended operating the reading room and retrieving paged books. Expressing concern for the safety of the collection (the petition on the door may have suggested the threat of mob action),72 the library's governing council affirmed this decision.

To break the resistance of the Public Library to Bolshevik authority, the director, D. F. Kobeko, was removed from his post in an order signed by Lenin, Lunacharskii, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich (head of the Sovnarkom chancery) and N. Gorbunov (Sovnarkom secretary).73 This directive, dated 29January i9i8, also stipulated the appointment of one Arkadii Press, who was not even a minor figure in Russian librarianship, as director.74 A government commissar, A. P.

68 On the history of the Public Library in this period, see the library's jubilee history, Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, Leningrad, I963 (hereafter Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki); Golubeva, Marr; Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, i9i8-i920; V. M. Barashenkov, 'Gosudarstvennaia Publichnaia biblioteka posle Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii', Trudy Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki 4, 1957, pp. 3-21 ; N. A. Efimova, 'Chitateli Publichnoi biblioteki i organizatsiia ikh obsluzhivaniia v pervye gody sovetskoi vlasti (1917-1920 gg.)', Trudy Gosudarstvennoi publichnoi biblioteki, 8, I960, pp. I 27-50 (hereafter Efimova, 'Chitateli'); Ia. I. Khotiakov, 'Spravochno-bibliograficheskaia rabota Publichnoi biblioteki v 19 I 7-1930 gg.', Trudy Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, 8, I960, pp. 15 I-85; K. Abramov, 'Leninskoe poruchenie', Bibliotekar', I964, I, pp. 10-12; Ivaniushina, 'Iz istorii spravochno- bibliograficheskoi raboty'.

69 This account of the situation in the library in the weeks following the October revolution is based mainly on material presented in the library's official history. A series of pieces attacking the library administration and demanding the reopening of the library appeared in Pravda during this period. See Pravda, 23-25 November 1917, I85-87.

70 Vol'per and Katsnel'son, 'Gosudarstvennaia Publichnaia biblioteka', p. 42. 71 The petition is described in a letter to the editor in Pravda, 24 November 191 7, i86. 72 In his diary the director of the Rumiantsev Museum Library recorded his fears that his

library would be looted. See Iu. V. Got'e, Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e, Moscow, July 8, 19I7 to July 23, I922, ed. and trans. Terence Emmons, Princeton, New Jersey, I 988 (hereafter Got'e, Time of Troubles), p. I 98.

73 Lenin, Lenin i bibliotechnoe delo, p. 250. The directory of members of the Academy of Sciences gives Kobeko's date of death as March 7, I917, which is obviously in error. See Akademiia nauk SSSR; personal'nyi sostav, i, Moscow, 1974, p. I6o. Another source, Lichnye arkhivnyefondy, Moscow, I962, lists the date of death as I 91 8.

74 This is the only mention of'Arkadii Press' in the literature on the library. The name does not appear in any of the standard biographical sources. Probably he was appointed as an interim director, although the directive does not qualify his title in that way.




Kudriavtsev, was also assigned to the library around this time to supervise its reorganization.75 (The post of commissar was abolished in I923.)76 The philosopher E. L. Radlov was appointed to the post of director later that year.77

In February I9I8 Narkompros raised the issue of evacuating the library's collections to the interior of the country because of the threat of German attack.78 The library council opposed the proposed evacuation with the rather specious argument that the Germans could at most occupy, rather than conquer, Petrograd, since the 'regular army', given the 'grave illness' afflicting Russia, would not resist their advance; as occupiers the Germans would not be entitled to consider Russian state property their own.79 Before this dispute could develop further, the threat of a German advance receded and the controversy was auto- matically resolved.

Another conflict between the Bolshevik authorities and the library staff arose over the issue of new statutes for the library. Apparently Narkompros undertook a revision of the library's statutes in order to increase oversight of library activities and public participation in decision-making. Whereas the old governing council was comprised mainly of librarians and other professional staf, the Committee proposed by Narkompros included paraprofessional and non-professional employees, as well as representatives from the Academy of Sciences, Book Chamber, Society for Librarianship, Petrograd University, Petrograd municipal government, union of academic librarians, and Narkompros appointees. The Committee was given responsibility for management of the library, and a new Council, consisting of nearly one hundred persons, mostly from outside the library, was charged with oversight.80 Not surprisingly, at least some of the librarians at the Public Library viewed this as an encroachment on their professional autonomy. Their own suggestions for the new statutes apparently would have strengthened the independence of the library staff from government involvement. Lunacharskii met with representatives of the library on I 6 February I 9 I 8 and presented the government's argument that the new statutes were intended to guide the library in reorganizing

I5 Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, p. I62; Abramov, 'Pervye meropriiatiia', p 18- I1I9.

6Golubeva, Marr, p. 17. 77 Biographical sources indicate that Radlov was director of the library from 19 I 7 to I924,

but this is clearly erroneous. Curiously, Radlov is not mentioned in the library's sesquicentennial jubilee volume. As a close associate of Vladimir Solov'ev and fellow philosophical idealist, Radlov's views were probably not in harmony with Bolshevik ideology, which raises the question of why he was appointed in the first place.

78 The library evacuated the collection to Olonetsk in I 81 2, anticipating an advance by the French army.

79 The memorandum is quoted in Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, p. I 6 1. 80 Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, i9i181920, pp. 205-07.



248 MARY STUART

its activities along socialist lines. The statutes as proposed by Nar- kompros were approved by that body on 22 April I9I8 and signed into law by Lunacharskii the following day.

According to the library's official history, by mid-I9I9 most of the staff had been converted to the Bolshevik cause. None the less, in the early I 920 the government continued to expend considerable effort on reforming the 'bourgeois' librarians, particularly through the medium of conferences. The first All-Russian Library Congress inJuly 1924 was followed by the first All-Russian Conference of Research Libraries in December, the second All-Russian Conference of Research Libraries in 1926, and a series of regional and specialized librarians' conferences throughout the decade.

It is difficult to gauge how effective were government attempts to recruit the library specialists and how much opposition to Soviet authority persisted. In a petition to Sovnarkom in 1927, the library administration claimed that progress had been made in serving the masses, which suggests that they had been dilatory at the beginning. One scholar has characterized the state of political consciousness among the staff in the 1920S as 'catastrophic'.81 An article in Pravda in 1928 called for the hiring of more Marxists in the library.82 That same year, out of approximately 200 employees, fourteen were Party members and four were members of the Komsomol.83 Most, if not all, of these were hired after the October revolution.

Another measure of collaboration might be the library's book exhibitions.84 Those from the period 1917-20 suggest a plurality of views, rather than a single Bolshevik line: the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia and Europe; the history of socialist thought; the centenary of Turgenev's birth; the educational philosophers Jan Komensky, Johann Pestalozzi and Friedrich Frobel. There was a great proliferation of book exhibitions in the Public Library in the 1920S and, unfortunately, the published information about them is rather sketchy. Some of the topics of later exhibitions were atheism, Party conferences, the First Five-Year Plan, I905, Nekrasov, Chernyshevskii, Dobro- liubov, Gorkii, Plekhanov, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Leningrad and the suburbs, the Red Army, and the smychka- inspired 'Two Centuries of the Russian Village'. Other, unrecorded exhibitions might have been more diverse in political orientation, but these certainly reflect conformity to Party ideology. If they are rep- resentative of the exhibitions overall, it would appear that the political

81 Golubeva, Marr, p. 136. 82 Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, p. I85. 83 Golubeva, Marr, p. 136. 84 On the exhibitions, see Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, p. i8o; Efimova,

'Chitateli', pp. 146-49.




atmosphere in the library did change significantly by the end of the 1920S.

The Rumiantsev Library and the Politics of Collaboration

However conciliatory they may have become later on, it is clear that, in the beginning of Soviet rule, the librarians at the Public Library assumed an openly hostile stance towards the new government. Like most of the staff at Moscow University and other teaching institutions, the staff of the library viewed the Bolshevik authorities as a threat to their autonomy and adhered to a policy of non-co-operation and resistance. The Rumiantsev Museum Library, in contrast, took a more conciliatory course, in the manner of the Academy of Sciences. Throughout the 1920S the Rumiantsev Library was well served, like the Academy, by the politics of collaboration.

Since I909 the director of the Rumiantsev Library had been the historian Iu. V. Got'e. It would be hard to imagine a more implacable foe of Bolshevik ideology and power than Got'e. In his diary, for the period July I9I 7 to July I922, he castigates and disparages Bolsheviks at every possiblejuncture.85 (He was, however, no more sympathetic to the tsarist government, and his harsh judgments seem motivated as much by misanthropy as by political philosophy.) As Got e wrote in a I 913 historical sketch of the library, since the move to Moscow in i 86i the library had been engaged in an endless struggle for minimal support.86 The primary means of augmenting the collection was through the mandatory deposit of one copy of every work published in Russia, which of course meant that few foreign publications were acquired. The Pashkov House in which the library was housed was ill-suited to this purpose, and as a result, it 'served more the destruction than the preservation of the book treasures' in its custody.87

In contrast to the Public Library's open denunciation of the Bol- shevik seizure of power, the Rumiantsev Library quickly announced a policy of neutrality.88 The library's executive council declared that learned institutions should remain above politics.89 This action allowed the government to seek accommodation with the library and establish a pattern of conciliation, rather than lapse into the cycle of

85 Got'e, Time of Troubles. This diary is currently being published in the original for the first time in Voprosy istorii. See 'Iu. V. Got'e i ego dnevnik', Voprosy istorii, I99i, 6, and following issues.

86 Piatidesiatilietie Rumiantsovskago muzeia, p. 8 i. 87 K. N. Derunov, 'Tipichnye cherty v evoliutsii russkikh tsentral'nykh gosudarstvennykh

knigokhranilishch', Bibliograficheskie izvestiia, I3, I925, 1-4, p. 24. 88 N. N. Iakovlev, '8o let Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR imeni V. I. Lenina' in

Vosem'desiat let na sluzhbe nauki i kul'tury nashei rodiny, ed. N. N. Iakovlev, Moscow, 1943 (hereafter Iakovlev, '8o let'), p. i8.

89 Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR, p. 58.



250 MARY STUART

defiance and reprisal which characterized relations between the Public Library and the government.

Beginning in I9I 8, a massive expropriation of books was conducted by the Soviet government.90 Millions of books were requisitioned from liquidated institutions and private collectors in the course of this campaign, inaugurated by a decree of Sovnarkom from 17 July. Initially all confiscated libraries were transferred to the State Book Fund in Petrograd for processing and distribution to state libraries. At the end of I9I8 a Moscow branch of the State Book Fund was created within the Moscow library division of Narkompros. Procedures for expropriation were elaborated in a 26 November I9I8 decree of Sovnarkom and in subsequent decrees and memoranda. Nationaliza- tion of libraries was essentially completed by the end of 1920, although the book funds continued to operate throughout the decade.

According to the new regulations, ordinary persons could maintain libraries of no more than 500 volumes, while scholars and others who required small libraries for their work were allowed to keep 2,000 books without special permission and up to 6,ooo with permission; special certificates were issued to persons exempted from expropriation. Injust two years some 6,ooo,ooo books were collected for the Moscow Book Fund by special emissaries employed by Narkompros, and some 500,000 volumes for the Petrograd Book Fund. The Rumiantsev Museum Library was one of the chief beneficiaries of this programme of nationalization, nearly doubling the size of its holdings between I9I8 and I920, from 1,508,000 volumes to 2,745,000 volumes.91

Without this 'great harvest', as it was described in one account,92 the Rumiantsev Library would have been a less credible candidate for national library in I924-25. By comparison, the Public Library received approximately 200,000 books, mostly collections of manu- scripts and rare or fine editions, from the Petrograd Book Fund over the period I9I8-30. 93To be sure, as a more mature collection, the Public Library would have had less use for the confiscated material than the Rumiantsev Library did. None the less, the fact that one-quarter of the volumes confiscated for the Moscow Book Fund in the first two years of the campaign went to the Rumiantsev Library clearly demonstrates that the government sought to build up that collection as rapidly and extensively as possible.

90 Abramov, 'Pervye meropriiatiia'; M. N. Kufaev, 'Materialy k istorii Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo knizhnogo fonda', Sovetskaia bibliografiia, 1935, 4, pp. 57-73; Abramov, Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR, pp. 152-56; Karklina, 'Pervye dekrety'; 'X let', pp. 6-8; Istoriia bibliotechnogo dela v SSSR; dokumenty i materialy, igi8-I920, pp. 96-141; Istoriia Gosudar- stvennoi biblioteki SSSR, pp. 58-6 I.

91 Ibid., p. 6o; Karklina, 'Pervye dekrety', p. I4; Iakovlev, '8o let', p. 20. 92 'X let', p. 8. 93 Kufaev, 'Materialy', p. 69. Unfortunately, exact figures for distribution of expropriated

books have not apparently been published.



CREATING A NATIONAL LIBRARY 25I

The Rival Capitals

Another critical factor in the Rumiantsev Library's metamorphosis was the transfer of the seat of government to Moscow in March I9I8.94

In late February, with the German Army positioned a mere two days' march from Petrograd and with mounting civil unrest in the city, the Bolshevik authorities began making preparations to evacuate the government to Moscow. Planned and carried out by Bonch-Bruevich, the transfer of Sovnarkom was accomplished in great secrecy on io-I I March, with other agencies transferred over the ensuing weeks. Although it was presented to the public as a temporary move designed to ensure the government's security and reduce the threat of attack against Petrograd, clearly the Bolsheviks were also seizing an opportunity to sever ties to the old imperial capital. The first public statement about the evacuation, signed by Trotskii, appeared in the i i March issue of Pravda, where it was described as temporary.95 On I5 March, however, the All-Russian Congress of Soviets approved the transfer of the capital from Petrograd to Moscow, without indicating that this was being done on a temporary basis.

The 'old problem of the two capitals'96 had dogged Russian rulers ever since the transfer of the seat of government to St Petersburg in I 7 I 2. In the nineteenth century the question framed the debate between the Slavophiles and Westernizers.97 The latter viewed Moscow as hopelessly backward and steeped in obscurantism. To the Slavophiles St Petersburg was associated with destructive European influences, alienated from the true Russian heritage. After the assas- sination of Alexander II on I March i88I, St Petersburg began to lose its cosmopolitan cachet even among the most ardent champions of Westernization. Now the 'Palmyra of the North' was associated with

94 On the transfer of the capital to Moscow, see Iu. P. Malinovskii, 'K pereezdu TsK RKP(b) i Sovetskogo pravitel'stva iz Petrograda v Moskvu (mart I9I8 g.)', Voprosy istorii KPSS, I968, II, pp. 99-I03; Rigby, Lenin's Government, pp. 55-58; Istoriia Moskvy, vi, Moscow, I957, pp' I33-37; McAuley, Bread andJustice, p. I42; Bonch-Bruevich, 'Pereezd sovetskogo pravitel'stva iz Petrograda v Moskvu'; Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution, New York, i 99 i (hereafter Pipes, The Russian Revolution), pp. 594-95. The Academy's Ocherki istorii Leningrada, iv, Moscow-Leningrad, I 964, makes only passing reference to this momentous change in the city's status (p. 142).

95 L. Trotskii, 'Ot Voenno-Revoliutsionnago Komissariata pri Petrogradsk. Sov. Rab., Sold., i Kazach. Deputatov', Pravda, I I March/26 February I9I8, p. i.

96 The phrase is Wortman's. See Richard Wortman, 'Moscow and Petersburg: The Problem of Political Center in Tsarist Russia, I 88 I-I 9 I 4' in Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual, and Politics Since the Middle Ages, ed. Sean Wilentz, Philadelphia, I 985 (hereafter Wortman, 'Moscow and Petersburg'), pp. 244-7I.

97 The competing traditions are discussed by Wortman, 'Moscow and Petersburg'; Sidney Monas, 'St. Petersburg and Moscow as Cultural Symbols' in Art and Culture in Nineteenth- Century Russia, ed. Theofanis George Stavrou, Bloomington, Indiana, I983, pp. 26-39; William L. Blackwell, 'Modernization and Urbanization in Russia' in The City in Russian History, ed. Michael F. Hamm, Lexington, Kentucky, I976, pp. 302, 305; N. P. Antsiferov, Dusha Peterburga, St Petersburg, I922 (hereafter Antsiferov, Dusha Peterburga).



252 MARY STUART

violence and tragedy rather than royal splendour, and both Alexan- der III and Nicholas II sought to distance themselves from the imperial capital, with Nicholas taking refuge in the trappings of seventeenth- century Muscovy. After 1917 Petrograd's imperial taint only exacerbated its reputation as 'sick' and corrupted.98

Even at its most intellectual the debate between the champions of the two capitals was highly charged, and this rivalry was often more visceral than substantive. Inhabiting one city or the other became a feature ofan individual's social identity. As one historian recently observed, the Petersburg intelligentsia not only posited a set oftraits acquired through residence in that city, but also, by widely disseminating this perception, succeeded in shaping social reality.99 Petrograd workers and intellectuals differed fundamentally from Moscow workers and intellectuals first and foremost because they believed they did. Even though Petro- grad and Moscow research libraries held in common certain aspects of their social identity, such as occupational status and educational back- ground, their identification with Moscow or Petrograd was sometimes a more powerful factor in their professional lives.

Thus in transferring the seat of government back to Moscow in I9I8 the Bolsheviks were completing a process begun in the nineteenth century,100 as well as magnifying the long-standing rivalry between the two capitals. The repudiation of Petrograd as the locus of political power was followed by a decline in its standing as a centre of culture and scholarship. 101 By the early I 920s Moscow had become the locus of 'mainstream culture', although Leningrad retained pre-eminence in the natural sciences. In the sphere of libraries, as in other parts of the cultural realm, rivalry between the Moscow and Petrograd camps was intensified by the politically charged atmosphere. Government com- missions conceived as national bodies quickly assumed the mantle of the dominant municipal faction. The creation of the Moscow library division within Narkompros in July I9I8, following the establishment of the Petrograd division the previous February, produced new rivalries inimical to the government's goal of centralization.102 The Public Library staff begrudged the Rumiantsev Library each new prerogative accorded it, and even sought to institutionalize their own supremacy by proposing, when the Rumiantsev Library was officially separated from the museum in 1921, that the latter be renamed the 'Second Russian Public Library'.103

98 See, for example, ibid. 99 McAuley, Bread andJustice, pp. I 9-22.

100 This should not be taken as a reclaiming of the 'old Muscovite tradition' by the Bolsheviks, as Pipes has suggested. See Pipes, The Russian Revolution, p. 595. 101 Clark, 'Quiet Revolution', pp. 218-I9, p. 228 n. 17, p. 229 n. I9. 102 Abramov, 'Pervoe gosudarstvennoe soveshchanie', p. 59. 103 'X let, pp. 14-15.




As soon as Bolshevik officials settled into new offices in the Kremlin, the Rumiantsev Library began serving the agencies of government as the Public Library had done in St Petersburg and Petrograd for nearly 125 years. In his diary Got'e recorded several instances of rendering assistance to government officials. On 3 April I9I8 he approved a request from Lenin to borrow some reference books from the library. (Apparently the head of the Moscow University Library had earlier refused a similar request on the grounds that reference books were non-circulating.) 104 Later that month an official of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs sought the library's help in locating copies of certain treaties.105 In October I9I8 the head of the Investigatory Section of the Cheka asked for pre-revolutionary regulations on gendarmes, which he planned to adapt for contemporary use.106 In February I 9 I 9 an officer from the General Staff came to the library for help in resolving a geopolitical question.107

The Emergence of a New National Library

Overall the Rumiantsev Library prospered in the early years of the revolution, in spite of the disruption and deprivations associated with civil war. By formally recognizing the Soviet government and co- operating, however passively, with its agencies and representatives, the library administration successfully promoted the library's interests. The prospect of a Bolshevik commissar in the Rumiantsev Library was one of Got'e's worst fears, but in fact none was ever assigned. In spite of his belief that the library should remain apolitical, Got'e understood that they were dependent on the government for money and for protection from radical critics and unruly mobs. In I91g the staff was increased from less than one hundred to nearly 300.108 When the proposal was first made by Narkompros to grant the library such a huge increase in personnel, Got'e considered it 'phantasmagorical' and 'fantastic', but by mid-1920 he characterized the new employees as '200

hungry intelligentsia idlers'.109 (The fact that the proposal to increase the staff originated not in the library, but in Narkompros, raises the possibility that government authorities were trying to alter the political coloration of the staff by packing it with pro-Bolshevik cadres.)

Even before the influx of new staff the library had embarked on the first of a long series of personnel conflicts, which illustrate the changing social relations of the immediate post-revolutionary era. In July i9i9

104 Got'e, Time of Troubles, p. 126. 105 Ibid., p. 138. 106 Ibid., p. 202. 107 Ibid., pp. 239-40. 108 40 let, p. 34. 109 Got'e, Time of Troubles, p. 381.



254 MARY STUART

the bursar of the Rumiantsev Library was arrested as a Socialist Revolutionary and discovered to have taken over 300,000 roubles from the library's coffers.1"0 In I929 the library was briefly shut down by Narkompros and searched by the Cheka for evidence of counter- revolutionary activity."' In I92I an attendant filed a complaint with Narkompros that the administration was a 'bourgeois society ... conserving some kind of tsarist things', as Got'e expressed it, in part because they were not shovelling snow with their subordinates.112 (Later it was discovered that the attendant was disgruntled because he had not received the room assignment he wanted.)1"3 In I92I a group of insurgent librarians tried to organize a 'super-administration' and mobilize support among the employees.1"4 In the final entries of the diary Got'e expresses a sense of futility about his administration: 'I could be patient', he wrote, 'as long as I thought I was protecting the library for a better time.'115

Thus shortly after the transfer of the seat of government to Moscow, the Rumiantsev Library and Narkompros settled into a modus vivendi, in spite of Got'e's philosophical reservations and personal aversion to the Bolsheviks. The library's transformation was advanced further in December I 921, when it was granted a second deposit copy, separated administratively from the Museum and renamed the State Rumiantsev Library. Lunacharskii's decision in I924 to rename the library the V. I. Lenin Russian Public Library formalized the new arrangement without giving it the force of law. In his letter to the library's staff informing them of Narkompros's action, Lunacharskii stated that 'already it is clear that this library will not only play the role of the All-Russian library centre within the confines of the RSFSR, but will be the All-Union library centre ... under the aegis of [Lenin's] name [you] will stand by the masses and become a bulwark of cultural construction of the world's first socialist republic."'16

To the library staff, receiving the memorial designation seemed to strengthen their bargaining position with Narkompros. Their reply to Lunacharskii's letter not only expressed their gratitude for the honour, but also demanded improvement of working conditions and timely payment of wages: 'The improvement of material circumstances of [library] employees is the first requirement dictated by the tasks before us. The improvement in working conditions ... is the second urgent

110 Ibid., pp. 283-84. 1 Ibid., pp. 372-74. 112 Ibid., pp. 399-401. 113 Ibid., p. 407. 114 Ibid., p. 404. 115 Ibid., p. 459. 116 'K pereimenovaniiu biblioteki Rumiantsevskogo muzeia v Vserossiiskuiu biblioteku

imeni V. I. Lenina', Narodnoe prosveshchenie, I924, 2, p. 99.




demand.' Noting that twenty-six per cent of the staff were afflicted with tuberculosis, the librarians called for improvements in sanitary conditions, lighting and heating and sufficient rations to sustain them. Only if these minimum standards were met could the staff rise to the 'colossal task' of becoming a national cultural centre and living up to the honour conferred on it by Narkompros, of serving higher government agencies as well as the masses.117

The library administration was reorganized on 5 February I 925, one day before the promulgation of the decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee proclaiming the library the 'V. I. Lenin Public Library of the USSR'."8 Got'e was replaced by the old Bol- shevik V. I. Nevskii, who served as director until his arrest in I935.119 Got'e also left his post at Moscow University in 1925. Thereafter he was affiliated with RANION until his arrest in 1930 for alleged complicity in the 'Platonov affair'.120 After a period of exile he joined the Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature and History in 1934 and returned to Moscow University to teach in I939. Got'e died in Moscow in December I943.

The Public Library Downgraded

The Rumiantsev Library's gain was in fact the Public Library's loss, for, although there was no decree stripping it of its former designation as the national library, it was painfully evident to all that it had been summarily dislodged from a place of honour held since its opening to the public in I8I4. There was no precedent for a country having two national libraries, which would, in any case, have undermined the government's effort to erect a distinctively Soviet cultural institution. With its elevation, the Lenin Library was immediately granted increases in staff and wages (and utilities were now provided free of charge), which can only have exacerbated low morale at the Public Library. To the librarians of the Public Library, the designation of the Rumiantsev Library as the national library in 1925 was only the final blow in a process of erosion of their own status that had begun seven years earlier.

Published sources are conspicuously silent on this momentous change in the Public Library's status. The sole reference to it in the library's sesquicentennial jubilee history is the statemrent that new statutes were needed in view of the fact that, on 6 February I925, by

117 Ibid., pp. I0oooi. 118 The decree was published in Izvestiia, 1925, 34, p. 5. 119 It was recently revealed that Nevskii was executed on order of the Supreme Soviet on 29

October 1937. See D. G. Iurasov, 'O nikh vspominaiu vsegda i vezde', Sovetskaia bibliograflia, 1 988, T,b 66. 120 Got e, TmofTobe,p.2-23; 'I u. V. Got'e i ego dnevnik', p. I 5 .



256 MARY STUART

resolution of the Central Executive Committee, the functions of the 'first national library of the country' were transferred to a reorganized Rumiantsev Library.121 A I986 biography of N. Ia. Marr, director of the Public Library from I924 to 1930, contains the fullest account of the library's response to the establishment of the Rumiantsev Library as the national library.122 Even this account, which is based on archival materials, stops short of analysing why the transfer of status occurred, noting only that it was 'historicallyjustified'.123

The administration of the Public Library undoubtedly recognized what was happening at least by December I92I, when the Rumiantsev Library was granted a second deposit copy. In I924 the Public Library embarked on a campaign to retain the perquisites it had traditionally enjoyed and to obtain the coveted designation 'All-Union'. Memo- randa from the Public Library to Narkompros argued that the two libraries should receive equal treatment and bear equivalent titles on the grounds that the Public Library's collections were stronger than those of the Rumiantsev Library.124 The library convinced the Central Committee of the Communist International to intercede with Sov- narkom on its behalf, but this did not produce the desired results. Two months later Sovnarkom did approve a request from Glavnauka in part, granting the Public Library free postal services. Meanwhile, the Collegium of Narkompros submitted the question of the Public Library's status to a vote of the narkomprosy of the union republics, who defeated the library's request to be designated an all-union agency. Subsequently, the administration of the Public Library petitioned the Leningrad Gubispolkom to take up their cause. In September I925 the education section of the Leningrad soviet endorsed the Public Library's claim, but in January 1926 the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee rejected it. Yet another appeal to renew the petition to Sovnarkom was made in I927 to the Leningrad soviet by that body's education section, but this time the matter was apparently dropped.125

The power struggle within the Politburo in I924 and 1925 can hardly have strengthened the Public Library's bargaining position.126 Begin- ning in I924 the Moscow-centred Politburo Right, consisting of Stalin, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomskii, launched a series of attacks on the supporters of the Leningrad-based Zinov'ev opposition. Unable to break Zinov'ev's hold on the Leningrad Party organization through 121 Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi publichnoi biblioteki, p. I89. 122 Golubeva, Marr, pp. 20-27.

123 Ibid., p. I 31. 124 Ibid., pp. 2 1-22. 125 Ibid., pp. 23-24. 126 This conflict is described in Robert V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia, Cambridge, Massachusetts, I965, chapter ii, 'The Zinoviev Opposition', pp. 253-72, and also in Stephen F. Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, i888-1938, Oxford, I 980, chapter 7.




indirect means, in 1925 Stalin publicly accused the Leningraders of doctrinal errors and factionalism. Finally, at the Fourteenth Party Congress in December I925 the Zinov'ev opposition was defeated and Zinov'ev was removed as chief of the Leningrad Party committee. In early January Muscovites were dispatched to Leningrad to fill Party and government posts. Although ideological differences fuelled the conflict, it was principally a personal struggle for power between two camps with strong regional ties. The defeat of the Leningraders may have had repercussions throughout the bureaucracy and further weak- ened the ability of the library to make its case to the organs of government.

In fact the Public Library's claim that its collection was bigger, stronger and more heavily used than that of the Lenin Library was entirely correct. At the time of the revolution the Public Library's holdings were twice the size of those of the Rumiantsev Library. In I9I6 406,569 books were circulated in the Public Library, while 236,499 were circulated in the Rumiantsev Library.127 Although use of both libraries dropped off during the civil war, by I92I use had increased substantially. In 1924 452,582 visits by 31,400 permit holders were recorded for the Public Library, with a total circulation of I,264,006 books, compared to 269,233 visits by 2I,868 permit holders requesting 795,829 books in the Rumiantsev Library. By that time, as a ,result of the massive campaign to nationalize the country's book collections, the Rumiantsev Library was approaching the Public Library in size of holdings.

Conclusion

In the years following the October revolution the Academy of Sciences and the Rumiantsev Library were headed by individuals willing to turn the Bolsheviks' policy of expedient accommodation to their best advan- tage. As Got'e recorded in his diary on 2 I January I 920, 'We had to set up an exhibition in honour of Herzen (or be branded saboteurs).'128 To Got'e it seemed that his library had become the 'fetish' of the Bol- sheviks: ... they are always sitting, conferring, fussing, and devising projects ...'.129 Six months later he was still complaining that the Bolslheviks had 'taken after the libraries, following the interest shown in them on the part of comrade Lenin - constant circulars, exactly as earlier when august personages took an interest in something'.130 At the same time as he recorded these complaints, however, Got'e was

127 Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi publichnoi bibliotekz, p. 43I; Gosudarstvennyi Rumiantsovskii muzei, Putevoditel', i, p. 77. 128 Translated in Got'e, Time of Troubles, p. 330. 129 Ibid., pp. I89-go. 130 I bid., p. 240.



258 MARY STUART

implementing far-reaching reforms in library operations and organization mandated by a government commission, and, moreover, publicly commending Narkompros for providing the impulse for change.13' For all his animosity toward the Bolsheviks Got'e operated without a script, by improvising and utilizing whatever opportunities arose, thus matching his approach to that of the government.

For their part the Soviet authorities were willing to accept much less than wholesale conversion from the bourgeois specialists. As Lunacharskii wrote in 1925, 'Just what could we demand of the Academy? That it suddenly, all in a big crowd, transform itself into a Communist gathering, that it suddenly cross itself in Marxist fashion, put its hand on Capital, swearing that it is a genuine Bolshevik?'132 The new government was dependent on the old intelligentsia to run the research institutes, the learned societies, the libraries and museums, and the institutions of higher education. New teachers could be trained and even new schools established, but the highly specialized skills of the academy personnel could not be so easily replaced. Creating a new national library would normally have been out of reach, but the peculiar circumstances of the Rumiantsev Library afforded the Bol- sheviks an unusual opportunity to circumvent the old national library and forge a new institution more receptive to their needs. In this case, as in their relations with the bourgeois intelligentsia overall, the Bolsheviks were improvising rather than applying ideology. Without a conscious programme, by responding to events and circumstances, in the first seven years of the revolution the Bolsheviks succeeded in fabricating a national library. Through a series of ad hoc decisions, some directed at the Rumiantsev Library, such as the decision to grant it a second deposit copy, some affecting it incidentally, such as the decision to move the seat of government or to confiscate private libraries, the Bolsheviks in effect accumulated the materials of a new national library. The relationship between the two entities was a combination of the overriding need of each for the co-operation of the other and their mutual willingness to collaborate in pursuit of their own interests. Neither partner was motivated by idealism, nor did they function as equals, but the relationship that resulted was generally satisfactory to both. The ultimate issue was a prestigious research library and an effective agency for political education of the masses.

131 Got'e, 'Neskol'ko slov'; Istoriia Gosudarstvennoi biblioteki SSSR, pp. 67-73; Iakovlev, '80 let', p. I9. 132 Quoted in Graham, Soviet Academy, p. 3 I, n. 46.



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Creating a National Library for the Workers' State: The Public Library in Petrograd and the...

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