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16 December 2024

‘THE PAST WE INHERIT, the future we build’, is a well-known slogan from trade union banners. Workers learn from the struggles, campaigns and issues of the past in order to understand the present and to fight for a better future. That’s even true of the round of labour movement annual general meetings, commonly held early in each New Year, when “the past” is generally quite recent. A number of the contributions in this edition of CR take such a ‘looking back to look forward’ approach.

‘The Marxist Interpretation of the Public Library’, may at first seem a strange choice for a cover feature, given the many pressing issues today. But actually it’s very much part of the cultural struggle which needs to be waged if the working class is to establish its hegemony, as exemplified at the Communist Party of Britain (CPB)’s ‘Class & Culture’ conference held in Barnsley on 2 November. In this first part of their article, Joe Pateman and John Pateman show that public libraries were founded as instruments of class control, though later they became instruments of class exclusion – “promoted primarily by the middle classes for themselves.” In contrast, under socialism, the public library is community-led, with enhanced resources, and then becoming needs-based. The struggle for socialism requires a struggle to democratise and broaden the public library. “The more democratic the public library, the clearer will workers see that the root evil is capitalism, not a lack of education or culture.”

We follow that with Part 2 of Jerry Jones’ contribution on what drives, and what holds back, economic development. Using the concept of surplus labour, introduced in Part 1, Jerry examines both ‘Keynesian’ and then neoliberal policies adopted by governments since the Second World War. He shows how neoliberal policies have led to increased appropriation of surplus labour, and are “pushing the current capitalist/imperialist system towards an even bigger crisis than that of 2007-09”. What has been keeping the crisis at bay is credit, but the greater the amount of it, the more severe the crisis. And “the real crisis is that nobody seems to know what to do.” Part 3 will look to a more equitable future as the solution.

As pointed out in our last edition, the People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75^th birthday on 1 October 2024. To mark that, we included in CR114 a chapter from the book, People’s China at 75: The Flag Stays Red. To follow that up, we publish here two articles based on presentations at the September 28 celebratory conference organised by the Friends of Socialist China in association with the CPB. In the first of those articles, Jenny Clegg points out that the world is turning, with: a developing multipolarity and the rise of the Global South; China’s enormous economic advances; and the 4^th industrial revolution, driven by AI and renewable energy. In this situation, “amidst danger and competition, the BRICS are emerging as a platform for the launch of a more stable multipolarity.” In the following article, Francisco Dominguez hails the significance of the Chinese Revolution for socialist transformation in underdeveloped countries, and spells out the massive growth in trade between China and Latin America.

Two articles in this edition, by Belgian writers, deal with key contemporary international issues. Tragically, the Israeli massacre of the Palestinians in Gaza continues unabated, and Charles Ducal looks at why such a genocide is “less evil when committed by our friends”. It is, he says, because the dominant narrative is that “Israel … belong[s] to ‘us’, the Western world of democracy and enlightenment”. A false narrative, yet we must not despair. “[Y]ou see and hear how the Palestinians in Gaza survive and know that renouncing resistance is not an option.”

That’s the case even though Donald Trump will shortly be back in the US White House. Marc Vandepitte examines Trump’s speeches and actions against nine characteristics of historical fascism under Hitler and Mussolini, and then leaves it to the reader to decide whether Trump can be regarded as fascist. Whatever, the world is entering very dangerous times, and the maximum unity of labour and progressive movements around a programme of peace will be required.

Two young writers make significant short contributions to this edition of CR. First, we are very pleased to print the prize-winning essay in the first Young Writers Competition organised by the Young Communist League. Ismail Budak’s account of ‘Why I joined the YCL’ is truly inspiring. Then, in a contribution to the discussion on Progressive Federalism, launched in CR113, Vyshack Thalyil writes about the successes of the ‘People’s Plan’ initiative, with community participation at the heart, instituted by the Left Front government in the Indian state of Kerala.

In the Political Education column, Ruth Pitman asks “Is Marxism scientific?”, then proceeds to answer it in the affirmative, by measuring Marxism against what is meant by science and its methodology. She says that the question is important “because taking a consciously scientific approach enhances our ability as Communists to understand the world that we want to change.”

We have managed to find space for one book review in this issue. Roger McKenzie looks at Kevin Ochieng Okoth’s Red Africa: Reclaiming Revolutionary Black Politics, which “identifies a Red Africa that encompasses both Marxism and Black radicalism as part of the movement for Black freedom.”

Finally, Fran Lock’s Soul Food column mourns the recent closure of poetry publisher Smokestack books, pointing out that “this [is] at a time [when] we need fearless poets, and fearless poetry publishers, more than ever.” To exemplify such “fearless poets”, she includes a couple of cracking poems from Martin Hayes and Fred Voss.

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The Marxist Interpretation of the Public Library: Part One 

Joe Pateman & John Pateman

Introduction

The founding myth of public libraries is that they were a benevolent gift to the working class from the British ruling class and from philanthropists such as the Scottish-American steel baron Andrew Carnegie. As Marxist-Leninists we know that such ‘gifts’ either come with strings attached or with a hidden agenda. In fact the public library agenda was very overt. When Britain’s first public library was opened in Manchester in 1852, Charles Dickens made it clear that its purpose was to teach the working man that “capital and labour are not opposed, but are mutually dependent and supporting.”¹ The public library was characterised by the Earl of Shaftesbury as “an antidote to mischiefs that might otherwise arise … in these days of pursuit and excitement”.²  Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton was convinced that it was a “healthful stimulus [that] had replaced the old English excitement of the ale house and the gin palace.”³ This was a reference to the seditious literature that was spreading among the working class in the wake of the Chartist movement which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working class. Their demands were widely publicised through public meetings and pamphlets which were circulated in alehouses and gin palaces.

The overall aim of this two-part article is to outline the major Marxist views of public libraries and then to use those views as inspiration to propose a public library service for the working class. In order to achieve this aim, it is first important to understand the phenomenon being examined. For, although the Marxists studied here have approached the public library in various ways, they share the same core interpretation of what it is. In Part 1, we outline this shared interpretation, identifying the fundamental assumptions and concepts that inform the Marxist public library theories.  We then explain the Marxist view that the public library is a cultural category.  In Part 2, we shall explore the relationship between the public library, on the one hand, and democracy, equality and freedom, on the other; and finally we discuss the notion that the public librarian is a historical phenomenon.

The concept of the public library 

The foundation for the Marxist conception of the public library is contained in Lenin’s 1913 article What Can be Done for Public Education. This compared the Western countries, which had public libraries, to Tsarist Russia, which had none. The tone of the piece is sarcastic and satirical. Although Lenin appears to oppose the notion of public libraries, he is actually endorsing them. “There are quite a number of rotten prejudices current in the Western countries of which Holy Mother Russia is free”, he writes: 

“They assume there … that huge public libraries, containing hundreds of thousands and millions of volumes, should certainly not be reserved only for the handful of scholars or would-be scholars that use them. Over there they have set themselves the strange, incomprehensible and barbaric aim of making these gigantic, boundless libraries available, not to a guild of scholars, professors and other such specialists, but to the masses, to the crowd, to the mob!”⁴ 

This definition, although in an abstract form, that is not yet referring to the concrete points, expresses what the public library is in general. First, as a library , it is an information provider. It stores, organises, maintains and makes accessible informational material. Second, as a public service, its resources are not restricted to an exclusive minority. They extend “to the masses, to the crowd, to the mob”. A public library signifies, at least formally, that everyone, including the ‘hoi polloi’, has the right to use its services. This is the basic, most bare-bones meaning of the term. 

For the Marxist, however, things are not as simple as this. For although ‘by rights’ the public library is “open to all”, “to give a right is one thing, to provide the possibility to enjoy that right is another”⁵. It is important, in other words, to distinguish between the public library in theory and the public library in reality. The latter must be situated within the economic structure of society and its social relations. Only then can one understand the essence of the public library as it exists in real life and not on paper. Only then can one obtain a scientific understanding of this phenomenon. 

It is a fundamental Marxist thesis that all written history of society is the history of class struggle. From ancient times onwards, the ruling class established institutions and services to help maintain its rule. The state, the legal system, the army, the police – all these coercive organs arose in order to control the exploited and oppressed in more or less explicit ways. The public library was and is one of these institutions. It is an instrument of the ruling, property-owning class. It is a power organ whose main function is to perpetuate the prevailing system of social relations. In class societies, the public library will never be ‘neutral’ or ‘apolitical’. It will never serve everyone equally. As the Bolshevik library theorist F Dobler expressed it, 

“Is the big library, open to all, actually one for all the people? No, it is definitely dominated by one class of society, to be precise, the class on which the state system rests. … A library open to all … is definitely a class organisation.”⁵

A Marxist historical overview of the phenomenon can make this evident. The first public libraries emerged in the ancient civilisations of Greece, Egypt and Rome. During this epoch, public services were uncommon. Since books were prized commodities, libraries were usually acquired through war or else purchased at great expense. This meant that public libraries were established mainly by the ruling class, which consisted of kings, military leaders, high-ranking statesmen and religious hierarchs. Although these libraries were nominally open to the public, the ancient understanding of the ‘public’ was very exclusive. It excluded women, who were limited to the private sphere, as well as the army of slaves whose labour ensured the maintenance of the ancient economy. To add to this, the supposedly ‘free’ toiling masses were illiterate and too downtrodden to use the libraries.⁶ In practice, therefore, ancient public libraries served a tiny propertied male ruling class, which composed a minuscule portion of the population. They were propaganda instruments, containing mostly political documents and the official statements of this class.⁷ Since they were often some of the largest, grandest buildings in the area, usually situated within central government districts, their imposing physical presence reminded the masses of who ruled, and the masses themselves could never make effective use of the public libraries themselves. In short, they embodied the power, privilege and wealth of the ruling class. 

With the rise of feudalism, public libraries grew in size and number. Like their ancient counterparts, these libraries catered to the ruling minority, which consisted of feudal lords, vassals, priests and the nobility. They excluded the exploited serfs and peasants, who remained illiterate and too oppressed to use them anyway. Little surprise then that the masses of ancient and feudal times did not view the public libraries as a means of enlightening themselves. 

With the rise of capitalism, two main classes emerged: the proletariat and the ruling bourgeoisie. The former became an increasingly dangerous force to the latter. Unlike their predecessors in ancient times, a greater portion of the workers were literate and reading subversive literature disseminated by socialist and communist radicals. In response to this growing threat, bourgeois reformers promoted public libraries with the aim of safeguarding their class power, just like the ancient kings and feudal lords did before them. The need for these libraries became so great that the capitalist state intervened in the matter and became the leading force in establishing public libraries. These, in turn, became state institutions. The traditional capitalist public library was born. 

One of the earliest examinations of traditional libraries can be found in Engels’ 1844 work, The Condition of the Working-Class in England. Here, Engels examined the bourgeoisie’s mechanics’ institutes, which were forerunners to the nation’s state-run public libraries. These provided adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to workers. Industrialists funded them on the grounds that they would benefit economically from having more knowledgeable and skilled employees. Another function was to provide the workers with an alternative pastime to gambling and drinking in pubs. The mechanics’ institutes were designed to quell radical ideas spreading amongst the workers and to keep them docile and obedient: 

“Here the natural sciences are now taught, which may draw the working men away from the opposition to the bourgeoisie, and perhaps place in their hands the means of making inventions which bring in money for the bourgeoisie; while for the working-man the acquaintance with the natural sciences is utterly useless now when it too often happens that he never gets the slightest glimpse of Nature in his large town with his long working-hours. Here Political Economy is preached, whose idol is free competition, and whose sum and substance for the working man is this, that he cannot do anything more rational than resign himself to starvation. Here all education is tame, flabby, subservient to the ruling politics and religion, so that for the working man it is merely a constant sermon upon quiet obedience, passivity, and resignation to his fate.”⁸

Engels noted that the mechanics’ institutes prohibited socialist publications and housed only those reading materials that engendered servility amongst the workers: 

      “[T]hat he [the industrialist] tolerates in the reading-room such prints only as represent the interests of the bourgeoisie, that he dismisses his employees if they read Chartist or Socialist papers or books, this is all concealed from you. You see an easy, patriarchal relation, you see the life of the overlookers, you see what the bourgeoisie promises the workers if they become its slaves, mentally and morally.”⁹

The traditional libraries served the same function as the mechanics’ institutes. On one hand, they were institutions of class control. Bourgeois reformers saw them as a way of controlling and pacifying the working masses. By stopping the workers from turning to drink, irrational recreation and intellectual idleness, they would help prevent the spread of radical ideas. The bourgeoisie hoped that the sober literature provided in the public libraries would draw the workers away from the subversive socialist literature, which was revolutionary and harmful to their class dominance.¹⁰ 

Carnegie Libraries

Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist, funded over 2000 public libraries across Europe, North America, Africa and Oceania between 1883 and 1929. In her study of The Political Economy of Andrew Carnegie’s Library Philanthropy (in Library & Information History, Vol 26 No 4, December 2010, pp 237-257), Siobhan Stevenson suggests that the services and collections in Carnegie libraries were “constructed as an effective antidote for labour strikes and social disturbances.” She gives examples of librarians and trustees of Carnegie libraries who identified situations in which a local strike was averted because the workers had been brought to the library. In one case, the minds of “sewing girls” were diverted from the topic of a strike by “having their attention directed to good literature, of which they were ignorant”. It is important to give this background to public libraries because it reveals the class motivations of philanthropists’ so-called ‘benevolent capitalism’ and reframes the provision of free libraries and literature as tools of oppression and a means of suppressing organised labour.

Traditional public libraries were some of the ‘ameliorative measures’ taken to relieve pressure off the capitalist system when tensions mounted and there was concern about civil disobedience. It is no coincidence, for example, that the main roads leading to many municipal parks and public squares led straight to the local barracks so that troops could be dispatched quickly to quell civil disorder.¹⁰ Traditional public libraries played the dual function of corralling and controlling working-class people during their idle time and steering them away from other less desirable pursuits.¹¹

In 1851, a year after England passed the 1850 Public Libraries Act, Engels wrote to Marx discussing the bourgeoisie’s plan to build a free library in Salford.¹² Engels saw right through the bourgeoisie’s attempt to “buy the proletariat” with its traditional public libraries. Although “all the meetings and assemblies held for these objects resound with the praises of the workers”, the bourgeoisie’s aim, he correctly noted, was to mould an army of “worthy, modest, useful” wage slaves, who could help improve profits.  He was confident that the workers would not be fooled by this act of benevolence. Engels was “looking forward to the [bourgeoisie’s] outburst of indignation at the ingratitude of the workers”, which would inevitably “break loose”. As indeed it did. The working class rejected these traditional libraries, which they rightly recognised as being opposed to their interests.¹¹

The traditional libraries of rising capitalism not only functioned as institutions of class control. As in ancient and feudal times, they also functioned primarily as institutions of class exclusion. In England (and, to a lesser degree, in Scotland and Wales) as in America, they were promoted primarily by the middle classes for themselves. They hoped that the libraries would function as research centres for the educated. For instance, they could enable manufacturers to improve their products and help teachers stay up to date with recent developments. “Public libraries played a part in strengthening the class formation and consciousness of a middle class seeking liberal change in the realms of production and politics.”¹³ They provided a public space in which to challenge the authority of the landed aristocracy. The middle class hoped to exclude the working class from the public libraries, which they wanted solely for themselves. This was reflected in the disproportionally high numbers of middle-class users. As Dobler observed in his 1921 article,

“[I]t is … difficult for the worker and the poor in the broad sense of the word to master books in a public library in the same manner as they are used by the intellectuals and the bourgeoisie. As a result, the library is dominated not by those who need books the most, who are to a lesser degree armed with knowledge and education and are therefore weaker in the struggle of life, but by those who since childhood have been used to books and accustomed to us[ing] them at every step. For the worker and the little-educated worker the library open to all is an alien institution. Everything in that library bears and cannot fail to bear the imprint of the bourgeois reader who dominates it. It is according to his tastes that the books are selected, it is according to his conception that everything is arranged. The worker, unless he is highly qualified or developed, feels himself a stranger in that library.”¹⁴

The exclusive character of traditional bourgeois libraries was interrupted during the interwar years when the economic depression of the 1930s forced the public library to be welcoming to desperate working-class communities who found the free services particularly useful. In other words, just as public libraries were created in the mid-nineteenth century to take pressure out of the capitalist system, they were able to perform this function again during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. After the Second World War, “the public library had in a sense reverted to type. It had assumed an unmistakable middle-class status in keeping with its historic image as an institution of highbrow culture and social refinement.”¹⁵ In other words, the traditional library had abandoned all pretence of being an alternative source of education and literacy for the working class – as envisioned by Carnegie and Dewey – and became in effect a taxpayer-subsidised bourgeois reading club. Public library collections were now dominated by hardback fiction as the middle-class patrons clamoured for the latest novels. Ironically, one of the objections to the early public libraries was that they should not provide “fiction on the rates”.¹⁵

Under capitalism then, the traditional public library does not enlighten and empower the working class. Instead, it excludes and pacifies the masses. In this respect, it performs the same function as the ancient and feudal public libraries. There are two ways in which the traditional library can be transformed into the community-led library that exists under socialism: the first is to fight to change the function of the public library as part of the class struggle; the second is to carry out the socialist revolution which terminates this false public library that, although appearing in the form of a public service, actually means an exclusive service. The socialist transformation ensures the real rule of the oppressed masses and their extensive participation in the life and organisation of the public library. The traditional library of capitalism is destroyed and replaced with the community-led library of socialism. This is what happened in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.¹⁶ What is more, this service becomes enshrined as a permanent, inviolable, irrevocable state policy for the first time in history. The socialist state devotes an unprecedented number of resources to their growth and improvement. Cutbacks to public library services, which occur periodically in capitalist countries, are abolished for good. The community-led library becomes a leading force in developing the cultural, political, economic and political powers of the ruling working masses. 

This process, however, does not take place by simply extending public library services to people debarred from them earlier. The community-led libraries of the socialist revolution also break the opposition of the exploiting classes who are in the way of the socialist transformation. These classes may attempt to make use of the opportunities provided by the new public libraries in the interest of their opposition. These manipulations are facilitated by the fact that, on one hand, these elements have traditionally developed a great influence and, on the other, that in the course of the socialist transformation, several temporary difficulties arise. For example, among the working people, some wavering may appear. Making use of this, the exploiting classes might use the public libraries to influence the population very effectively, and this might endanger the construction of socialism. This is why from the capitalist traditional library – which is inevitably narrow and stealthily pushes aside the poor and is therefore hypocritical and false through and through – forward development does not proceed simply, directly and smoothly towards progressively more public libraries. No. Simultaneously with this immense expansion, which creates a service for the poor, the people, the socialist community-led library imposes a series of restrictions on the services and resources that promote bourgeois ideas and undermine socialism. 

It is only under communism that truly public libraries can exist. It is only in a communist society, where the resistance of the exploiting class has been completely crushed, when the middle class has disappeared, when there are no classes, that a truly needs-based public library can become possible and realised: a public library without any exceptions, restrictions or contradictions whatsoever, a public library that serves the diverse needs of every person who uses it. And only then will the class character of public libraries wither, owing to the simple fact that, freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to seeing each other as equals. They will become accustomed to organising the public libraries without discrimination, without exclusion, without petty restrictions, without the special apparatus for class rule called the state. 

Public libraries and the laws of dialectical materialism

Public libraries develop in accordance with the three laws of dialectical materialism. One of these is the law of the unity and conflict of opposites. This law appears in the conflict between the libraries’ purpose, which is to serve the public, the working masses and the library’s class essence, which causes it to discriminate against some groups. The overcoming of this contradiction drives the public library’s development from a narrow, exclusive traditional library into an inclusive needs-based library. 

The second law of dialectical materialism is the transition of quantitative into qualitative change. This law appears in the public library’s policies, which begin with small, incremental changes but which culminate in radical ruptures. For example, under the influence of class struggle the traditional library can be forced to make piecemeal reforms, but only carrying them through to completion can transform it into a community-led library. 

The third law of dialectical materialism is the negation of the negation. This law expresses the idea that each form of public library contains the seeds of the succeeding form within itself. The traditional library contains the seeds of the community-led library, which, in turn, contains the seeds of the needs-based library. Each successive form also retains the progressive aspects of the old library whilst discarding the old, conservative aspects. For example, the community-led library retains the book stocks and technologies of the traditional library whilst discarding its middle-class values. 

As becomes clear from this Marxist definition of the public library, in Marxism there is no ‘pure’ public library, one independent of classes or definite social patterns. One cannot speak of the public library in general. It is only realistic to speak of the public library if one always describes the public library of what society, of what class and of what type; namely, there are ancient, feudal, bourgeois (traditional), socialist (community-led) and communist (needs-based) public libraries. However, through the class struggle it is possible to develop the community-led and needs-based library under capitalism. 

The public library as a cultural category 

Marxism considers the public library to be a cultural category. Lenin “judged the level of culture in a country by the way in which its libraries were run; he regarded the state of the libraries as an indication of the general level of culture”.¹⁷ Likewise, Enver Hoxha, leader of the People’s Socialist society of Albania, said that “the development of the activity of libraries indicates the rise of the cultural level of the people”.¹⁸

According to the Marxist Dictionary of Philosophy,¹⁹ culture, in its most general sense, denotes “all the material and spiritual values created or being created by society in the course of history and characterising the historical stage attained by society in its development”. It is customary to distinguish between material and spiritual culture. Material culture refers to the physical embodiments of the material wealth of a society. These include human creations like buildings and machines, as well as goods and instruments, broadly understood. Spiritual culture encompasses the behaviours and norms found in societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs and habits of the people in these societies. People acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialisation, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across and within societies. Culture always “assumes a class character both as to its ideological content and its practical aims”.²⁰ There is the culture of the ruling class, and there is the culture of the subjugated.²¹

Every class uses culture in its struggle to advance its interests and create a society that empowers it. It is often the public library that mediates, fixes and expresses in an institutional form the cultural relations between classes. It provides a good opportunity for the classes’ cultural relationships to express themselves overtly, as it recognises, at least formally, the right of any social group to use its services and information resources. The public library, as a cultural category, also reflects the various classes’ cultural levels. On the one hand, it is a physical structure and therefore a form of material culture for a definite class. On the other hand, it is also an education provider and therefore a developer of spiritual culture for a definite class. The public library thereby indicates which classes have developed their culture – or at least certain aspects of it – and which classes have not. 

In class societies, the public library is an expression of the factual inequality of the social classes and strata. First, it expresses that a given class is ruling, which subordinates all the other social groups to its own interests. The public library also expresses that the ruling class has the dominant culture, which it utilises in its own interest. The ruling class not only debars other classes from using the library to develop their own cultures. It also uses the library for imposing cultural restrictions on other classes and practising its class dictatorship over them. That is why the public library contributes to the domination of one portion of the population over the other. The public library does not and cannot change social inequality by acknowledging, on the cultural plane, the formal equality of people. 

And yet the fact that in a capitalist society, no less than in an ancient slave-owning state, the traditional public library remains a tool for the oppression of one class by another by no means signifies that the form of library makes no difference to the exploited. In comparison to the ancient and feudal libraries, the capitalist traditional library is a freer, more open, more inclusive form of library, one that can assist the workers in their struggle for cultural development. 

But by acknowledging the right of the broad masses to develop their cultural levels and acquire knowledge, the public library is advantageous not only for the working masses. It is also an advantageous cultural form for the ruling class as well, particularly in exploiting societies. Indeed, the public library there provides an advantageous condition for maintaining the whole system of inequality in an undisturbed way. By recognising partial, formal, primarily legal-cultural equality, it conceals the social inequalities characteristic of the system. It arouses illusions about the system. Moreover, it also offers certain cultural forms of compensation for the most active elements of the lower classes. Its provision of books, information and learning resources has created cultural privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office employees and workers, corresponding to their economic privileges and sops. 

Since, according to historical materialism, culture is a part of the superstructure, the public library, as a cultural institution, functions in order to stabilise the economic base and, by extension, the rule of the property-owning class. The Dictionary of Philosophy makes this clear when it says that Marxism views the “production of material goods as the basis and source” of culture.²¹ Nevertheless, it is also a key historical materialist thesis that the superstructure has a relative autonomy from the economic base, and this means that culture has some room to manoeuvre. “It does not automatically follow changes in its material basis, being characterised by relative independence (continuity of development, reciprocal influence by the cultures of various peoples etc).”²¹ This means that the public library, as a part of this superstructure, need not always serve the dominant economic forces. Just like the whole of cultural life, the public library possesses relative autonomy. 

Engels highlighted this point whilst examining the mid-nineteenth-century bourgeois mechanics institutes. At the same time highlighting their capitalist, traditional essence, he also pointed out that the workers repudiated these institutions. Rather than abandon libraries altogether, however, they established their own “proletarian reading-rooms”.⁸ Although these were established under capitalism, they did not serve the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, the working class established these libraries for themselves. They were, in other words, community-led and, to an extent, needs-based libraries: 

“These different sections of working-men, often united, often separated, Trades Unionists, Chartists, and Socialists, have founded on their own hook numbers of … reading-rooms for the advancement of education … and, in the reading-rooms, proletarian journals and books alone, or almost alone, are to be found. … That … the working men appreciate solid education when they can get it unmixed with the interested cant of the bourgeoisie, the frequent lectures upon scientific, aesthetic, and economic subjects prove which are delivered especially in the Socialist institutes, and very well attended ….”⁸

Engels noted that the proletarian libraries (which we would regard as community-led and needs-based libraries) were “very dangerous for the bourgeoisie, which … succeeded in withdrawing several such institutes … from proletarian influences, and making them organs for the dissemination of the sciences useful to the bourgeoisie.”⁸ Indeed, despite their achievements in serving the working class, these libraries never became dominant. Since they lacked the financial backing of the capitalist state and bourgeoisie, they were less numerous and less prominent than traditional libraries. 

The resurgence of what we would regard as community-led and needs-based public libraries during the late twentieth century provides a more recent example of their relative autonomy. In the 1970s, class-conscious librarians became increasingly aware of the fact that traditional public libraries catered primarily to the middle classes, and in response, they sought to promote them for the masses instead. The new ethos was that the public library should serve the masses, not the privileged minorities. It entailed a focusing of resources on the vulnerable and needy. Librarians were expected to conduct community work and not just organise books on the shelves. Progressive librarians took things a step further and sought to make libraries prioritise the marginalised groups in society.²²

The attempt to broaden and transform traditional public libraries met with stiff opposition by the bourgeoisie and the capitalist state. The community-led and needs-based movement declined during the 1980s with the rise of neoliberalism, which began an ideological offensive against all vaguely leftist ideas and practices. Within this climate, traditional librarians increased in power and took up leading positions within the service. Although community-led and needs-based public libraries still exist today the traditional model remains dominant in the capitalist countries. 

The significance of these historical examples is this: the public library is not a passive reflection of the economic base, one lacking in cultural autonomy or affectivity. Similarly to the other cultural phenomena, it does react, in a relatively independent way, to the economic sphere of society. There are different class forces involved in the organisation of public libraries, and these forces participate in a constant struggle over libraries’ organisation and purpose. This, in turn, gives libraries more opportunities to manœuvre. In strained situations, for example, in a revolution or counter-revolution, these opportunities grow further and become more effective, or even perhaps dominating. 

The public library may and does occasionally counterbalance the situational disadvantages of certain classes and social strata. It may and does modify such economic and other social circumstances that would otherwise remain unchanged. The public library may and does react back to the economy – depending on given laws and within the determined limits. This explains, for example, the fact that at the same economic development level, the various classes make efforts to realise different forms of public library, and the results of their activity lead to different utilisation of the libraries. Under capitalism, for instance, community-led and needs-based libraries have existed alongside the dominant traditional libraries. In Canada, the community-led library was adopted across the country as part of the Working Together Project.

The public library, as a cultural phenomenon, may be one of the ways and means of achieving a certain economic result by non-economic, cultural means. The public library may ensure a freer assertion of various interests and a freer struggle for them. It does not abolish class cultural oppression, but it does make the cultural struggle more direct, open and pronounced, which is what the exploited need. 

The public library may help the exploited – who are in an economically subordinate position in the exploiting societies – in promoting the realisation of their interests through cultural means. The public library need not necessarily serve the ruling class and the dominant property relations. If this institution is established and controlled by the oppressed or its supporters, then it can serve the interests of these subjugated strata. 

In exploiting societies, the public library and the struggle to broaden it not only constitute a field and means of striving to achieve better conditions, but – under definite circumstances – they may also be a means of surpassing the given conditions. The results of the struggle to broaden the public library gradually – as part of the wider class struggle – leads to the formulation, in workers’ minds, of the necessity of realising socialism. As such, the more democratic the public library, the clearer will the workers see that the root evil is capitalism, not a lack of education or culture. 

The struggle to broaden the public library forces open the frameworks of the existing system, it points beyond them, and in the case that this programme is realised, it even surpasses them. Under capitalism, for instance, all public library services without exception are conditional, restricted, formal, narrow and difficult of full realisation. Yet no self-respecting Marxist will consider anyone opposing these rights a genuine socialist. Without the proclamation of these services, without a struggle to introduce them now, immediately, in an effort to develop the masses’ cultural level, socialism will be impossible. 

The struggle to broaden the public library under capitalism must be waged in a revolutionary and not a reformist manner. Struggles must go beyond the bounds of bourgeois legality, breaking them down, going beyond rants on internet blogs and verbal protests and drawing both the librarians and masses into decisive actions, extending and intensifying the struggle for every fundamental library demand up to a direct proletarian onslaught on the bourgeoisie, that is up to the socialist revolution that expropriates the bourgeoisie. Of course, this cultural struggle in itself does not realise the complete liberation of the proletariat, but it may and does create better conditions for the liberation struggle. A proletariat that has failed to raise its cultural level and knowledge, via the public libraries and other means, is incapable of performing an economic revolution. Capitalism cannot be vanquished without taking over the banks and repealing private ownership of the means of production. These revolutionary measures, however, cannot be implemented without the entire population raising their cultural level and class consciousness through public libraries, trade union education, Morning Star readership, online discussions, and workers themselves engaging in public activity.  Likewise, victorious socialism will be unable to consolidate its victory and bring humanity to communism without fully broadening the public libraries and bringing culture to the entire people. 

By involving the working masses, the public library in socialist societies makes it possible to accelerate the realisation of a new type of life, one that is in the interest of the majority. The involvement of the broad masses of workers in the life of the public library – which increases their cultural level, their class consciousness and activity – is both an achievement of and a precondition for the progress of socialism and communism. This was the case in Cuba, for example,  where culture generally, and public libraries in particular, were developed by the Communist Party as pillars of the revolution, alongside free healthcare and education for all.²³

As it turns out, from the preceding, the broadening of the public library is not an end in itself but a means to achieve an end surpassing it. The public library would be useless to the workers if they could not use it immediately to develop their cultural level, educate themselves and fulfil their needs. Likewise, under socialism, the public library is part of this important objective, and it also promotes its realisation. But it does not by itself fulfil this objective. 

Consequently, the public library as a means (even under socialism) is always subordinated to the purpose, the objective, namely the effective construction of socialism and communism. It is in this context that Marxism evaluates the public library and the development of its services. 

The public library is not only a cultural phenomenon; it is also a resource that the working class can use to win the class struggle. The proletariat must go beyond the cultural sphere and extend its revolutionary activity of transformation to all fields of society. In other words, cultural emancipation means only the partial liberation of the people. Formally, it declares people to be conscious beings. The task is to realise this conscious community. Social, cultural and economic emancipation are dialectically connected. 

Indeed, the public library by itself cannot cure social ills. The poor cannot win a victory, cannot accomplish their struggle against the rich, for the complete elimination of social inequality, via the public library alone, that is the cultural field. 

The public library is of enormous importance to the working class in its struggle against the capitalists for its emancipation. But the public library is by no means a boundary not to be overstepped. It is only one of the means of struggling to overcome capitalism and build communism. The public library is an important element of mass culture. The significance of the proletariat’s struggle for mass culture becomes clearer if it is interpreted as meaning the end of class cultural distinctions. But as soon as all members of society assume control over the state, the economy and the other spheres of society, humanity will be confronted with the question of advancing further, from mass power in culture to mass power in political, economic and social life. 

From the fact that the public library is a cultural category, it also follows that the widely spread views, actually illusions, which consider the public library to be a kind of remedy capable of solving every problem, are unjustified. The public library by itself does not create any new material value. It does not lead to an abundance of products nor to welfare, and it does not make the people free and happy. The public library may, by raising the masses’ cultural level, promote better decisions in the fields of the economy and politics and in the various areas of intellectual life; it may help in involving more and more people in the execution of the previously mentioned decisions; it may influence people to lead a more rational and effective life by making use of the opportunities offered by socialism. Consequently, it may promote a faster advance of society. 

The public library is a cultural means, and understood as such, it has advantages and deficiencies. The working masses and librarians must be aware of this and take it into account when they estimate or realise the possibilities it provides or when they evaluate the results achieved by a public library service. In doing so, they must take care not to underestimate either the public library or the illusions that have developed in connection with it. 

Part 2 of this article will consider the public library’s relation to democracy, freedom and equality, and the public librarian as a historical phenomenon.

■ Based on Ch 2 of the authors’ book, Public Libraries and Marxism, Routledge, Abingdon/New York, 2021.

Notes and References 

1. Dickens, in WR Credland, The Manchester Public Free Libraries; a history and description, and guide to their contents and use, 1899, pp 11-12; online at https://archive.org/stream/manchesterpublic00mancrich/manchesterpublic00mancrich_djvu.txt. 
2. Shaftesbury, in The Times, 3 September 1852, reproduced at https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/60131637. 
3. Lytton, in Credland, op cit, p 4.

4. VI Lenin, Lenin and Library Organisation, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1983, p 29.
5. F Dobler, ‘The Modern Library System’, in ibid, p 63. 
6. Y Too, The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World, Oxford University Press, 2010, p 222. 
7. G Woolf, ‘Introduction: Approaching the Ancient Library’, in J Konig, K Oikonomopoulou and G Woolf, eds, Ancient Libraries, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp 6, 20 
8. Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, in K Marx & F Engels Collected Works (MECW), Vol 4, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1975, pp 527-8. 
9. Ibid, p 477. 
10. A Black, ‘Skeleton in the Cupboard: Social Class and the Public Library in Britain Through 150 Years’, in Library History, 16/1, 2000, p 5.
11. P Corrigan and V Gillespie, Class Struggle, Social Literacy, and Idle Time: The Provision of public libraries in England, Noyce, Brighton, 1978, p 3.
12. Engels to Marx, 5 February 1851, in MECW, Vol 38, p 281. 
13. Black, op cit, p 6.
14. Dobler, op cit, pp 63-4.  
15. Black, op cit, p 7.
16. R Gordon-Nesbitt, To Defend the Revolution is to Defend Culture, PM, Oakland, 2015, p 51.
17. N Krupskaya, On Education, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1957, p 78.
18. E Hoxha, Selected Works, Vol 2, 8 Nentori Publishing House, Tirana, 1975, p 46. 
19. I Frolov, ed, Dictionary of Philosophy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1984. 
20. Lenin, Critical Remarks on the National Question, in Collected Works, Vol 20, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1964, p 20.
21. Frolov, op cit, p 94.
22. A Black and D Muddiman, Understanding Community Librarianship: the public library in post-modern Britain, Avebury, Aldershot, 1997.
23. Gordon-Nesbitt, op cit, p 159.

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