1989 Volume 35 Issue 4 Pages 176-183
On March 13 1984, the Soviet Library Law was promulgated by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which is of great significance, together with the “Law of the Centralization of Library System in the Republic of Russia” promulgated by Lenin in 1920, in the history of the enactment of library laws in the USSR.
In term of the centralized library system itself, the scheme and concept of the 1984 Library Law is very similar to those of the 1920 Library Law, notwithstanding the fact that the social structure has been expanded, modernized and diversified to a great degree. The crucial difference between the two laws is, however, that the 1984 Library Law is dominated by the dogma of Stalinism, of which we can see in articles concerning the objectives and functions of library stipulated in the Law, while such a dogmatism was never seen in the 1920 Law.
In the history of the enactment of Soviet library laws, Stalinism appeared first in the Communist Party Discision “Book Service to Mass Readers” in 1928, in which the concept of “readers” turned into a tool to achieve socialism (Stalinism) and setting up of a censorship system was proposed. That ideology has been inherited faithfuly and was crystalized in the Communist Party Decision “The Role of Library in the Education of Communism and the Advancement of S & T” in 1974, and the 1984 Library Law as weel.
We can recognize in the history of the enactment of Soviet library laws one significant feature: relationship between the concept of a unified centralized library system and the concept of the readers who has always been the object of education of communism by the dominant Communist Party, both of which are product of historically evolving society that should go back not only to the establishment of socialism in 1917 but to Russia in 19 and 18 centuries.
The concept of readers in library laws, who has been under the control of Communist Party since the end of 1920's, simbolizes the past history of the Soviet society, and thus is now subjected to the criticism amid the rising movements of perestoroika (reconstruction of society).
