In Defence of October

Study the lessons of the Russian Revolution

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The Tasks Of The Public Library In Petrograd

Written by Lenin in November, 1917, on the need to improve public education in Petrograd.

It takes knowledge to participate in the revolution with intelligence, purpose and success.

Because tsarism had played havoc with public education over a period of many years, the library service in Petrograd is in a very bad state.

The following changes, based on principles long practised in the free countries of the West, especially Switzerland and the United States, must be made immediately and unconditionally:

(1) The public library (the former Imperial Library) must immediately start an exchange of books with all public and state libraries in Petrograd and the provinces and with foreign libraries (in Finland, Sweden, etc.).

(2) The forwarding of books from one library to another must be made post-free by law.

(3) The library’s reading-room must be open, as is the practice with private libraries and reading-rooms for the rich in civilised countries,

from 8.00 a.m. to 11.00 p.m. daily, not excluding Sundays and holidays.

(4) The required personnel must be immediately transferred to the Public Library from the various offices of the Ministry of Education (with more women, in view of the military demand for men), where nine-tenths of the staff are engaged not merely in useless, but in downright harmful work.

 

Source: Marxist Internet Archive.

Read More

23.02.1917
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Strikes and protests erupt on women's day in Petrograd and develop into a mass movement involving hundreds of thousands of workers; within 5 days the workers win over the army and bring down the hated and seemingly omnipotent Tsarist Monarchy.
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Lenin returns to Russia and presents his ‘April Theses’ denouncing the Bourgeois Provisional Government and calling for “All Power to the Soviets!”
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Spontaneous, armed demonstrations against the Provisional Government erupt in Petrograd. The workers and soldiers are suppressed by force, introducing a period of reaction and making the peaceful development of the revolution impossible.
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Following the July days, the Bolsheviks were driven underground and the forces of reaction were emboldened. This process culminated in the reactionary forces coalescing around General Kornilov, who attempt to march on Petrograd and crush the revolutionary movement in its entirety.
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The Provisional Government is overthrown. State power passes to the Soviets on the morningm of 26th October, after the Bolsheviks’ Military Revolutionary Committee seize the city and the cabinet surrenders.
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