TELEGRAM TO THE PETROGRAD LIBRARY
DEPARTMENT OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT OF EDUCATION *.
[Late June 1919]
Representatives of the following libraries are hereby summoned to Moscow for a meeting on the centralization of library affairs¹ and the implementation of the Swiss–American system in Russia, to be held on Monday, July 1, at five o’clock in the afternoon, at the premises of the People’s Commissariat of Education, Ostozhenka 53: the Public Library, the Academy Library, the University Library, the Polytechnic Institute Library, the Railway Library, the Technological Institute Library, the Theological Academy Library, the former State Council Library, the former State Duma Library, as well as the Book Chamber.
[Failure to comply with this directive will entail severe revolutionary penalties.] ** [527]
Chairman of the Sovnarkom, Lenin.
Deputy People’s Commissar of Education, Pokrovsky.

The Decree of the SNK “On the Centralization of Library Affairs in the RSFSR” was published in Izvestia of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
No. 249, dated November 6, 1920.
*
The telegram was drafted by M. N. Pokrovsky. Additions to the telegram and the signature were written in Lenin’s own hand. Ed.
** Written and crossed out by Lenin. Ed.

LEPPNSKY COLLECTION