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Soviet Union [USSR] Newspapers
In 1988 the regime published more than 8,000 daily newspapers
in approximately sixty languages, with a combined circulation of
about 170 million. Every all-union newspaper was circulated in its
Russian-language version. Nearly 3,000 newspapers, however, reached
the population in non-Russian languages. Minority-language
newspapers constituted roughly 25 percent of the total circulation,
although non-Russians made up almost 50 percent of the population
(see Soviet Union USSR - Nationalities of the Soviet Union
, ch. 4).
All newspaper reporters and editors belonged to the
party-controlled Union of Journalists, composed of nearly 74,000
members. In 1988 some 80 percent of the union's reporters and
editors were party members. Inevitably, assignments of editors had
to be approved by the party. In the late 1980s, all the central
editors in chief of major all-union newspapers belonged to the CPSU
Central Committee. The party also sought to control journalists by
combining higher education and higher party schools with schools of
journalism
(see Soviet Union USSR - Training
, ch. 7). Reporters and editors thus were
trained under the aegis of the professional party elite. For
newspaper journalists and television and radio reporters, newspaper
photographers, and literary editors, Moscow University's School of
Journalism provided a main conduit to party positions concerned
with the media. In the 1980s, some 2,500 graduate, undergraduate,
evening school, and correspondence students annually graduated from
the School of Journalism. Students were taught party strictures
within the following eight departments: theory and practice of the
party-Soviet press, history of the party-Soviet press, television
and radio broadcasting, movie-making and editorial-publishing work,
foreign press and literature, Russian journalism and literature,
stylistics of the Russian language, and techniques of newspaper
work and information media. By the late 1980s, Moscow University's
School of Journalism had graduated approximately 100,000
journalists.
Party members supposedly read the all-union newspapers
differently from their nonparty counterparts. Trained to scan
certain sections of the paper, party members read with an eye
toward instruction and guidance. In contrast to nonparty members,
the loyal party elite apparently first read any article or
editorial related to ideology, the
Party Rules (see Glossary), or instructions. By
contrast, most nonparty members
reportedly read the international news first, followed by sports,
science and culture, and economic events before they turned to
political or ideological articles, if they read articles on these
subjects at all.
In the late 1980s, newspapers gradually developed new formats
and new issues. Under Andropov, Pravda began to print short
reports of weekly Politburo meetings. Eventually, other major
newspapers published accounts of these meetings as well.
Under Gorbachev, Politburo reports expanded to provide more
details on the leadership's thinking about domestic and foreign
affairs. Before Gorbachev's assumption of power, Western sources
had identified a partial list of proscribed topics, which included
crime, drugs, accidents, natural disasters, occupational injuries,
official organs of censorship, security, intelligence, schedules of
travel for the political leadership, arms sales abroad, crime or
morale problems in the armed forces, hostile actions against Soviet
citizens abroad, and special payments and education for athletes.
After 1985 Gorbachev's policy of openness gave editors a freer hand
to publish information on many of these subjects.
In the 1980s, regional newspapers differed in several ways from
all-union newspapers. The distribution of regional newspapers
varied from circulation at the republic level to circulation in a
province, city, or district. The party allowed many regional
newspapers to print most of their issues in the region's native
language, which reflected the Stalinist policy of "national in
form, socialist in content." Local newspaper circulation remained
restricted to a region. These publications often focused on such
issues as local heroes who contributed to the good of the community
or significant problems (as expressed in letters to the editor)
relating to crime or natural disasters. By contrast, after
Gorbachev came to power, most all-union newspapers began to report
on societal shortcomings. However, in the late 1980s regional
papers continued to contain more personal advertisements and local
merchant notices than the all-union newspapers, if the latter
carried any at all.
Originally, Lenin argued that criticism should be channeled
through letters to the editor and would assist in cleansing society
of its problems. He believed that public discussion would
facilitate the elimination of shortcomings and that open expression
of problems would create a significant feedback mechanism for the
leadership and for the country as a whole. Lenin's ideas in this
regard were not carried out by Stalin and Khrushchev, who
apparently believed the party needed no assistance from the people
in identifying problems. But in 1981, Brezhnev created the Central
Committee Letters Department, and later Andropov called for more
letters to editors to expose corruption and mismanagement.
Chernenko advocated that greater "media efficacy" be instituted so
that newspapers, for example, would carry more in-depth and current
analyses on pressing issues. Gorbachev expanded the flexibility
allowed by giving newspapers leeway in publishing letters critical
of society and even critical of the government.
Newspaper letters departments usually employed large staffs and
handled extremely high volumes of letters daily. Not all letters
were published because they often dealt with censored subjects or
their numbers simply posed too great a burden for any one newspaper
to handle. The letters departments, however, reportedly took their
work very seriously and in the late 1980s were used by the press to
encourage the population to improve society.
Letters to editors on a great number of previously forbidden
topics also elicited responses from the population that could be
manipulated by the Soviet newspapers to influence public opinion in
the desired direction. Because party members made up the majority
of active newspaper readers, according to polls conducted in the
Soviet Union, they wrote most of the letters to the editor. Thus,
their perspectives probably colored the newspapers' letters
sections.
Of all the newspapers, Pravda (Truth), an organ of the
CPSU Central Committee, was the most authoritative and, therefore,
the most important. Frequently, it was the bellwether for important
events, and readers often followed its news leads to detect changes
in policies. With about 12 million copies circulated every day to
over 20 million citizens, Pravda focused on party events and
domestic and foreign news.
Other newspapers, however, also commanded wide circulation.
Izvestiia (News), the second most authoritative paper,
emanated from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and in the late
1980s circulated to between 8 and 10 million people daily.
Izvestiia also contained official government information and
general news and an expanded Sunday section composed of news
analysis, feature stories, poetry, and cartoons. Trud
(Labor), issued by the Soviet labor unions, circulated six days a
week, reaching 8 to 9 million people. It emphasized labor and
economic analyses and included other official decrees.
Komsomol'skaia pravda (Komsomol Truth), published by the
Komsomol (see Glossary), was distributed to between 9 and 10
million people. Krasnaia zvezda (Red Star), published by the
Ministry of Defense, covered most daily military news and events
and published military human interest stories and exposes. The
literary bimonthly Literaturnaia gazeta (Literary Gazette)
disseminated the views of the Union of Writers and contained
authoritative statements and perspectives concerning literature,
plays, cinema, and literary issues of popular interest. A
publication of the Central Committee, Sovetskaia Rossiia
(Soviet Russia), was the Russian Republic's most widely distributed
newspaper, with a circulation of nearly 12 million. A weekly
regional newspaper, Moskovskie novosti (Moscow News),
appeared in both Russian and English editions and reported on
domestic and international events. It became very popular during
the late 1980s, both in the Soviet Union and abroad. The weekly
newspaper Za rubezhom (Abroad) devoted its pages exclusively
to international affairs and foreign events. Finally,
Sotsialisticheskaia industriia (Socialist Industry), a daily
newspaper, concentrated on industrial and economic events,
statistics, and human interest stories.
Data as of May 1989
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