Not Seeing Red: American Librarianship and the Soviet Union, 1917-1960 (review)

In an age when former Soviet republics are joining NATO, the adversarial rhetoric and ideological rifts of the Cold War should be safely behind us. Not so for Stephen Karetzky, who received a Ph.D. from Columbia University's School of Library Service and currently serves as library director and associate professor at Felician College. Author of Reading Research and Librarianship: A History and Analysis (Greenwood Press, 1982), he has also written works critical of the American media's portrayal of Israel.

In his latest work Karetzky proposes to "examine the reaction of American librarians to Soviet librarianship and to the Soviet Union as a whole." He scrutinizes the actions and writings of librarians, library educators, and library historians during 1917-1960 with an "overview" extending to 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power (p. [1]). Using strong conservative, anti-Communist rhetoric, Karetzky proclaims a longstanding liberal bias among American library leaders. He concludes that they "failed to comprehend and oppose Communism and support their country's democratic ideals," (p. 405) a theme that runs throughout the book.

To borrow from Karetzky, one is tempted to say that he sees "anti-anti-Communists" (a term he uses frequently) under every bed. (p. 293) He criticizes as naïve librarians who were impressed by the early Soviet government's support of libraries (in contrast to the American tradition of local support) and who envied the importance that such official recognition accorded libraries. Karetzky faults them for being unaware or insufficiently critical of the downside of that totalitarian state and of the propaganda role Soviet libraries performed, even though at the time many leading intellectuals from other fields (like American philosopher and educator John Dewey) were similarly enthusiastic about some aspects of the Soviet approach to culture and education.

Karetzky is also exercised about the commitment of library leaders to intellectual freedom (which he dubs a "movement") during the McCarthy era. During a time of great tension between the world's two superpowers, librarians' concerns about balanced collections (in domestic public libraries and overseas government libraries) and ALA's freedom-to-read efforts were misplaced, according to Karetzky, because librarians were more alarmed about the abridgement of liberties at home than in Communist countries. In a chapter on the "complicity" of library historians he chides scholars who have written about these librarians for, among other things, not taking issue with the positions of their subjects.

A centerpiece of his work is a listing of the psychological, moral, and cognitive "pathologies" he attributes to liberal librarians, including infantilism, utopianism, alienation from society, and a thanatosis or death wish. This line of thought is expanded with two more lists reflecting a Manichean worldview pitting traditional liberal and conservative positions against each other in the context of librarianship. (p. 292-294) These categorizations animate his discussion. For instance, Karetzky ascribes library leaders' Wilsonian desire for international understanding and their failure to acknowledge and condemn the dangers of Communism to their "alienation, paralysis of the survival instinct, and even a drive for self-extinction." Post-World War II American librarians who dreamed that international bibliographic cooperation might lead to international, intercultural understanding were guilty of aiming for "the eventual demise of their country." (p. 296)

Karetzky's work is more an indictment of his subjects' liberalism than a balanced examination of American librarians' reactions to Communism. His tone is shrill and angry, and readers might find his unrelenting hostility tiresome. But perhaps Not Seeing Red will inspire someone to write a less polemical work showing the importance and relevance of conservative thought to librarianship and thereby create a foundation for the scholarship that Karetzky claims is currently lacking.