THE BOOKS IN MR. ROTHSTEIN’S CUPBOARD
By Donald Veall
1957The NewsletterDonald Veall Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
D. DEsMoND comments that the library at Marx House has a crypt for forbidden books. The same practice prevails at the Society for Cultural Relations library. where a ‘poison’ cupboard of ‘unsuitable’ books is kept hidden from members’ sight.
Perhaps this coincidence is explained in that Andrew Rothsicin is both chairman of the Marx House library and the King Street appointed fraction leader for the SCR.
When appearing al Marx House Mr. Rothstein disguises himself as a Marxist. At the SCR he turns up dressed as a ‘non-political’.
Marx's favourite motio was ‘doubt everything’—Rothstein’s is obviously ‘trust Moscow. doubt everyone else’.
As Stalinist thinking flies from truth, objectivity and scholarship the books on the shelves of libraries under Stalinist contro] will no doubt diminish while the crypts and poison cupboards overflow.
Facts must be jettisoned As the facts do not fit the theories. clearly the facts must be jettisoned.
And should not the works of Stalinists be banned also in the interests of Stalinism?
What is niore likely to undermine faith in Stalinism than the re-reading now in the light_of events of the writings of Dutt. Kiugmann, Rothstein and Co.?
When one dav the tombs are opened and these libraries reorganized and brought into line with their declared objectives, should not Rothstein be honoured by placing his works in their rightful place on the shelves marked ‘fairy stories”?
Esher (Surrey)
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