V. I. Lenin

Insertion for N. K. Krupskaya’s Article “On the Question of the Policy of the Ministry of Public Education”

There are hardly any illiterates in the civilised countries. An effort is made
to get the people into the schools. Every thing is done to set up
libraries. Over here, the Ministry of Public, what you might call,
“Education” resorts to the most desperate efforts, to the most
ignominious police measures to hamper the cause of education and to
prevent the people from acquiring knowledge! Over here, the Ministry
has destroyed school libraries!! No civilised country in the world
still has any special rules against libraries, or such a foul
institution as the censorship . But over here, apart from the
persecution of the press in general, apart from the wild measures
against libraries in general, rules which are a hundred times more
restrictive are being issued against the public libraries! This is an outrageous policy of
benighting the people, an outrageous policy of the landowners, who
want the country to become barbaric . Some rich men, like
Pavlenkov, have donated money for public libraries. Now, the wild
landowners’ government has destroyed the libraries. Isn’t it about time for
those who want to help education in Russia to understand that the
money should be donated not for the libraries which are under the Ministry
and are due to be destroyed, but for the struggle for political freedom,
without which Russia is suffocating in barbarism.

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