#lenin library

[toneburst]

Moscow, reading room of the Lenin library 1953

Читальный зал библиотеки имени Ленина 1953

[bubervitch]

me and my big forehead against the world

[cult-of-the-girl-offensive]

Find someone who talks about you like Lenin talked about the New York Public Library:

"I have before me the report of the New York Public Library for 1911.

That year the Public Library in New York was moved from two old buildings to new premises erected by the city. The total number of books is now about two million. It so happened that the first book asked for when the reading-room opened its doors was in Russian. It was a work by N. Grot, The Moral Ideals of Our Times. The request for the book was handed in at eight minutes past nine in the morning. The book was delivered to the reader at nine fifteen.

In the course of the year the library was visited by 1,658,376 people. There were 246,950 readers using the reading-room and they took out 911,891 books.

This, however, is only a small part of the book circulation effected by the library. Only a few people can visit the library. The rational organisation of educational work is measured by the number of books issued to be read at home, by the conveniences available to the majority of the population.

In three boroughs of New York—Manhatten, Bronx and Richmond—the New York Public Library has forty-two branches and will soon have a forty-third (the total population of the three boroughs is almost three million). The aim that is constantly pursued is to have a branch of the Public Library within three-quarters of a verst, i.e., within ten minutes’ walk of the house of every inhabitant, the branch library being the centre of all kinds of institutions and establishments for public education.

Almost eight million (7,914,882 volumes) were issued to readers at home, 400,000 more than in 1910. To each hundred members of the population of all ages and both sexes, 267 books were issued for reading at home in the course of the year.

Each of the forty-two branch libraries not only provides for the use of reference books in the building and the issue of books to be read at home, it is also a place for evening lectures, for public meetings and for rational entertainment.

The New York Public Library contains about 15,000 books in oriental languages, about 20,000 in Yiddish and  about 16,000 in the Slav languages. In the main reading-room there are about 20,000 books standing on open shelves for general use.

The New York Public Library has opened a special, central, reading-room for children, and similar institutions are gradually being opened at all branches. The librarians do everything for the children’s convenience and answer their questions. The number of books children took out to read at home was 2,859,888, slightly under three million (more than a third of the total). The number of children visiting the reading-room was 1,120,915.

As far as losses are concerned—the New York Public Library assesses the number of books lost at 70–80–90 per 100,000 issued to be read at home.

Such is the way things are done in New York. And in Russia?"

- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, "What Can be Done for Public Education" (1913)

[gu6chan]

i fucking hate american """left-wingers""" man

[nando161mando]

again, marxists aren't antifascist or anarchist... if you are a marxist then read up some more on why your ideology is wrong and your beliefs are a never ending dead end of utter bullshit.

[sovietpostcards]

Reading Hall No. 3 of the Lenin State Library. Photo by Fred Grinberg (Moscow, 1980).

[apas-95]

if you had a dumb little brother who wanted to learn theory where would you recommend he start

I have a reading list here:

which has just three easy-to-read works on it. My advice for reading theory is this:

Read an introductory text, take as much from it as you can. Most likely, you won't feel you understand it fully.

Seek out a text on something you're interested in. See what Lenin or Marx had to say on some question you've been thinking about, like the origins of the family. Read through it while keeping in mind the lessons from the introductory text, thinking about how they relate.

Repeat, by rereading the original text with the new lessons in mind, and by reading a new introductory text with all your new lessons in mind.

When looking for topics that interest you, marxists.org has libraries for individual theorists to look through, and works like Quotations from Mao Zedong can act like a glossary for finding new texts to read.

[reddest-flower]

The momentous nature of the war made it imperative to revise Stalin’s Short Biography, published by the Institute of Marx, Engels and Lenin (IMEL) in 1939. There was also a great deal of interest in his biography internationally. The Stalin cult had gone global. Stalin was Time Man of the Year in both 1939 and 1942. During the war, Stalin was inundated with questions and requests for interviews from foreign journalists. [...]

The need for a biography of Lenin that would teach people Marxism-Leninism was Stalin’s first comment. As to his own biography, it was full of mistakes. ‘I have all kinds of teachings,’ said Stalin sarcastically – about the war, communism, industrialisation, collectivisation, etc. ‘What are people supposed to do after reading this biography? Get down on their knees and pray to me?’ The biography should instil in people a love of the party. It should feature other party cadres. The chapter on the Great Patriotic War wasn’t bad, although it, too, needed to mention other prominent personalities.

Mochalov’s account tallies with that of Pravda editor P. N. Pospelov. ‘There is some idiocy in the biography draft,’ complained Stalin to Pospelov. ‘And it is Alexandrov who is responsible for this idiocy.’ Pospelov took particular note of Stalin’s demand that it should reference leading figures who had worked with him in Baku, name those who had also taken up Lenin’s banner after his death, and mention the members of his Supreme Command during the war. Something should also be added about the role of women, said Stalin. The tone of the biography was ‘SRish’ i.e. too focused on him as a hero. To prove that point, he quoted the line, ‘No one in the world ever led such broad masses.’ And nowhere did the biography state what Stalin had told Emil Ludwig in 1931 – that he considered himself merely a pupil of Lenin’s.

Briefed by Stalin and armed with the boss’s editorial corrections, Alexandrov’s team quickly revised their draft text. The new edition of the biography was published by Pravda in February 1947 and then as a book with an initial print run of a million copies. As was the case with the Short Course, Stalin toned down the adulation of himself. He inserted the names of many co-workers and made changes that emphasised his partnership with Lenin. He cut completely a section extolling his role as the leader of the international communist movement beloved by proletarians throughout the world. A substantial section was added on the role of women in the revolutionary movement and in building socialism. ‘Working women are the most oppressed of all the oppressed,’ Stalin is quoted as saying in one of his speeches.

Stalin's Library - A Dictator and his Books, Geoffrey Roberts (2022)

[hotvampireadjacent]

HOW ARE YOU GONNA CHARGE ME MONEY FOR A LENIN AUDIO BOOK GO TO HELL SPOTIFY

I tried to place a hold at my library they didn’t have it but only one place in network had it and it told me “well, we have a copy but you’re not authorized to read it” I’ll ask my local library wtf that means. Is it bc I have too many holds? I only have one hold and one checked out book

[ardl]

Unfortunately a certain piety towards Lenin’s writings still prevents Marxists from disengaging themselves intellectually from the influence of a marginal work which never had any scientific pretensions, and which was written rapidly, in the difficult conditions of exile, with no other documentation to hand but the Bern library. The author himself described it as a simple ‘attempt at popularization’; and far from being a general theory of imperialism, it was only an empirical analysis conditioned by a particular historical situation.

lol

[jarenka]

This is funny not only because it's an absolutely random collection of pics (dude, you didn't even put here Lenin's library in Moscow that genuinely looks evil because of its black marble columns or FSB headquarters and jail on Lubyanka), but also because even Stalin's era architecture usually isn't creepy (at least on photo, irl it can look very... suppressive). Not long ago there was a new film adaptation of "Master and Margarita" and to create "evil empire aesthetic" they had to straight up make a CGI Moscow using pre-WWII general plan of the city, including legendary Palace of Soviets, and also they filmed "evil soviet aesthetic" in one 1990s and one 1916 buildings.

[tenderperversion-moved]

absolute socialism at the library today sorting the communist partys university textbooks + holding a translated lenin book from 1963 in my hands ... she is a dusty girl.

[bigbrotherlouis]

top books of 2024!

i’ve been doing a lot more reading and i love talking about it so here are my faves. i tried to narrow it down to 5 and then went “well, i can’t leave THAT one off the list!” so ten fiction and five nonfiction recs for you:

fiction:

1. nettle and bone by t. kingfisher - i’m a sucker for a fairytale and this was a good one. felt very familiar and still very new all at the same time. t. kingfisher was a new to me author this year and her horror didn’t hit but all her fairytales did. this one was very good, and a princess nun on a witchy endeavor was a fun time.

2. burial rites by hannah kent - i read this in one sitting because i couldn’t put it down, and i’m still thinking about it almost a year later. the way kent changes your opinion on the characters is so skillfully done and i liked it a lot.

3. the library at mount char by scott hawkins - this is not a book for everyone but i do love a plot that makes me go “HOW did you even THINK of that?!” what WOULD you do if god went missing?? massive trigger warnings but oh so good.

4. the alice network by kate quinn - kate is my holiday read author of choice and i read this in poland in the summer and it was perfect. the rose code is still my favourite book of hers but this one ranked up there. love a good spy network.

5. beartown by fredrick backman - i loved this one but i think i would’ve loved it more if i had not read the other two. good, but after three books of that length it does drag. masterful control of perspective and of plot weaving, plus some great ruminations on hockey.

6. the six deaths of the saint by alix e. harrow - i am overjoyed that harrow is (allegedly) making this into a longer novel because i LOVED IT. the visceralness of it. the cyclical nature. the horror when you realise what’s happening. perfect.

7. when among crows by veronica roth - i’m a slut for slavic folklore and this has such a sense of both history and place that really draws you in. i cannot stop thinking about the spine sword. i wish it had been longer just to stay in the world more.

8. the english understand wool by helen dewitt- i know it’s three novellas in a row but they were GOOD!! this one was an amazing length and just a fascinating almost oceans eleven-esque unraveling of a story. i gasped.

9. normal people by sally rooney - i know I KNOW. but i went to school on the emerald isle and it just resonated in lots of ways. i fell in love with the characters and honestly? might reread this winter bc i loved the atmosphere.

10. penance by eliza clark - god. this book. brutal in the worst ways and such an insightful commentary on, well, a lot of things. true crime culture, online communities, parasocial relationships, the weirdness of girl friendships as teens. also a potential reread!

nonfiction:

1. red valkyries by kristen ghodsee - probably my favourite book i’ve read this year, just because i learned SO much!! i read it in one sitting because i was just so fascinated by these amazing women, and i walked away with a more nuanced, more positive view of lenin than before.

2. the quiet damage by jesselyn cook - possibly the best nonfiction book i have ever read? i couldn’t put it down. heartbreaking and tough to read but i think very necessary in these days.

3. war is a force that gives us meaning by chris hedges - this is very good with a disclaimer. i agreed with a lot of his overarching philosophies but i didn’t agree with his examples. it has some pitfalls, but! parts of it are essential reading for peacebuilders. if anyone wants to chat abt this one please text

4. in the dream house by carmen maria machado - this was a very good memoir and very innovative in form. i liked that part a lot but i couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this was not written for me. that’s okay! i could still see how it might be impactful and, again, i liked the playing with tropes, but didn’t hit me the way i expected after seeing other people’s reactions.

5. the sunflower by simon wiesenthal - i tell everyone to read this book if they are interested in peacebuilding at all. it’s a good commentary on forgiveness. not much else to say except it’s fascinating.

and that’s all for now! i read 62 books and am trying to read 100 in the upcoming year (about 8 a month). my personal goal is at least one nonfiction a month, but my secret goal is two with one being more memoir and one being more informative. it was fun rediscovering how to read again and i’m hoping to continue that in 2025 :)

also for the record the worst book i read this year is the idea of you which is the one that anne hathaway starred in an adaptation of. absolutely terrible.

[chicago-geniza]

Saving as much money as possible so that when I go to Kraków for my friend's wedding this summer I can bring home an extra suitcase of books. Gotta start strategizing now. I need part 2 of Jelonka's correspondence, obviously. I have a PDF of the proceedings from that art history conference from 1986 now. The 50s anthology with Stef's Brzozowski essay would be good. Look through every antykwariat in the city for magazines and gov't pamphlets from the interwar period. Look for any books by Stef's contemporaries. Look for that one poet's private library, although I think it mostly got dispersed around Warsaw and through Allegro (such a shame) like an ad hoc piecemeal digital estate sale. RIP that signed first edition of Korzenie. Look for PEDAGOGY JOURNALS from 1921-1935. Oh and fucking. That one book on Lenin and Krupskaya in Austrian Galicia. OH. See about a day trip to Warsaw so you can scan Wiek XX at the Biblioteka Narodowa. That's a top priority.

[nando161mando]

"Historically, Marxism was unable to make inroads into China until after the Russian Revolution of 1917 when Lenin’s followers, bankrolled by the Bolshevik government, began their attacks on Anarchists in Russia and neighboring countries.

This book describes some of the early history of Chinese Anarchism up to the period after the Bolshevik counter-revolution when Russia began to send Marxist-Leninist missionaries like Chou En-lai to try to try to infiltrate and take over the student movements in Europe.

It includes some of the ideological debates which ensued between Chinese Anarchists and their Marxist-Leninist adversaries."

[sovietpostcards]

In a reading hall at the Lenin State Library of the USSR. Photo by Fred Grinberg (Moscow, 1980).