CCORDING to a book on
Soviet publishing which ap-
peared recently, the total circu-
lation of newspapers in the USSR
had reached the figure of 37.5
million daily just before the war.
There were nearly six and a half
thousand different newspapers in
the Russian language and some
2,300 in other languages of the:
Soviet Union. In 1913 only 775
newspapers were published in
Russian, 84 in other languages.
The popularity, influence and
variety of provincial newspapers
in the Soviet Union is in strik-
ing contrast to the way provin-
cial newspapers have dwindled
in circulation and importance
elsewhere, notably in the United

States and Britain.

What constitutes news in the

Soviet Union? The answer to

this question, which illuminates
- @ good deal of the Soviet. scene,

is to be found just as easily in
the central press, published in
Moscow, as in the less important
hewspapers. Perhaps the best
-Way of conveying it to people
’ who are accustomed to a press
based on altogether different
principles of what is news, is
to give a detailed description of
the contents of the four news-
papers that lay on my desk on
a typical day. :
_ @
' Pravda, the paper of largest
' circulation and biggest influ-
ence, with a Moscow. edition of
about two million, is the organ
of the central committee of the
Communist party of the Soviet
Union. Izvestia is the organ of
the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
As one might expect, Pravda car-
ries more strictly party material
than Izvestia, which makes a
point of examining the work of
local government organs, and has
an abiding interest in the edu-
cational system.

Trud is the newspaper of the
huge trade union movement, and
in its columns you will find stress
laid on the achievements as well
as on the day-to-day problems of
organized labor. The fourth news-
paper is Komsomolskaya Prav-
da, which may be considered as
Pravda’s younger sister, since it
is the organ of the Young Com-
munist League (the Komsomol).
Its readers are principally the
under-thirties, and it. reflects
their tastes by it audaciousness
and unconventionality.

' On the day in question all four
papers carried two items of cap-

ital importance on their front
pages and thus,
had more material in common
than is usual, (It is a newspaper
convention in the Soviet Union
to place foreign news on the last
page of the customary four-page
newspaper.)

‘The arrival of a governmental
delegation from the People’s Re-
public of Korea, with photo-

graphs of the welcome it got at~

the railway station, ranks the
front pages. The other event is
the statement by the central com-
mittee of the Communist party on
the impending occasion of In-
ternational Women’s- Day, which
all papers print in place of the
usual editorial article.

This day, furthermore provides
editors with the slogans with
which their front pages are
headed, Pravda has chosen a
sentence stating that in the So-
viet Union the socialist regime
has provided women with politi-
cal and economic equality, and
with opportunities which extend
to the women of all nations in
the Union. Izvestia’s slogan re-:
fers to the swift moral and politi-

exceptionally, -

What makes news

the US

Soviet workers discussing the news.
\

By RALPH PARKER

cal growth of women, an example
to women all over the world.

In contrast to this glimpse of
the industrial scene, there is a-
message from the Kuban de-
scribing the efforts made by a
tree-planting brigade to plant
more shrubs and trees. In Mos-
cow, one learns, a four-day con-
ference has finished which was
‘devoted to timber-rafting.

Then there is a description of
the way the steel workers of
Dniepropetrovsk have been on ex-
cursions to sister plants at Zap-
arozhye and elsewhere, to ex-
change experience. Finally, a
message from war-away Sakhalin
tells how young workers there
and in the Kuriles are contrib-
uting to the state economy drive
by saving raw material.

e : *

Now let us have a look at the
inside pages of our four news-
papers. Pravda devotes almost
half of page two to an article
adressed to Communist propagan-
dists on—cost-accounting.

_ Trud: ranges wide for reactions

\

‘

to the government’s popular price
reduction decree. Characteristic-
ally, it reports several instances

where workers have greeted the
cuts with new production pledges.
The “Red October” metal’ works
in Stalingrad, a complete wreck
when I visited it six years ago,
promises more high-grade steel,
the ‘Red Rose” mills more cloth.

Izvestia devotes its entire page
to the organization of spring sow-
ing in the Ukraine, a page in-
fused with a sense of energy, ‘de-
termination and hope. Details are
provided of the’ way some lead-
ing farms are tackling the prob- |
lem of providing summer-feed to ~
herds in areas where pasture is
thin and scanty. f

As is often the case, the live-
liest story of the day is to be
found on the inside pages of
Komsomolskaya Pravda. I wish
I had. space to tell this. story
in full, in the racy. vernacular
of its author, Vladimir Tserkov-
ni, who is the secretary of the,
Komsomol Committee on a col-
lective farm in the Odessa re-

three

gion. It would, I think, reveal

the life of Soviet youth in a
warmer, more credible, more hu-

man light than reports of Soviet Set
life at second hand generally do. ~

Vladimir reveals himself as 4
very conscientious but rather sol-
emn young man, not a very good.
mixer and a rotten actor, he
admits, It was his own fault, he
writes, that he misjudged the
value of Vladimir Polishchuk to
the Komsomol, for Polishchuk
was always laughing, too light-
hearted for serious political work, ‘
probably. He had driven a tank.
to Berlin and, they said, had

‘even written his name on the

scorched walls of the Hoiehe eee

I remember Polishchuk, OF
rather a few hundred like him,
standing to be photographed om
the steps of the Reichstag a week —
or two after the fall of Berlin,
tanned, thrilled with a sense of
the hard-won vittory. I heard
his voice as he sang to the
accordion in a hut in Vyasma in ~
1943, and I learned about him
from the Czechs in Prague upon
whom the arrival of the grimy,
weary, gay-hearted tankists on

the eve of victory made an un-

forgettable impression.

And here he was again this
morning, in the pages of Kom-
somolskaya Pravda, worrying
Tserkovni until he learned bet-
ter, and discovering that he was
just the man to organize the
farm’s club, with its orchestra of
guitars, two harmonicas
and a fiddle. The Polishchuk
learned that the next village had
a wind-orchestra, whipped up 2
collection and was off to Odessa
to buy instruments. Now the
farm band has ten waltzes and
four marches and- “innumerable
songs” in its repertory, and even
Tserkovni has been persuaded to
play a part in Natalka-Poltavka,
the operetta in rehearsal for the
spring concert.

This is Soviet political life “on
the ground floor.” Very often. the 7
Soviet press provides. such news | is
of the lives and problems of av-—
erage people in factory and vil-
lage. It is, because the press re-
flects the lives of such people
that they feel it to be their own
press, one which is with them,
sometimes ahead of them, some-
times keeping pace with them
on their way to what a worker
in Alma-Ata in remote Kazakh-
stan described yeptenday. as “the
richer life.”

_ MOSCOW

HE two greatest means of
the propagation of ideas —
the press and radio— have thei»
special days here. Press Day
marks the date when Pravda
the Communist party. news-
paper, came out for the first
time 36 years ago. Radio. Day
commemorates the date when
the first wireless signal was
transmitted by the inventor of
radio, A. S: Popov, 53 years ago.
I don’t have to tell you that
many so-called obsetvers abroad
consider the Soviet press and
radio are exceptionally dull and
unentertaining (besides, of

it is true, there are many things
you won’t find in our press or
hear on our redio, bs
For instance, those highly in-
triguing “authoritative sources”
and “persons close to” certain
“informed quarters” don’t get
much of an airing. We have to
swallow the matter-of-fact state-

organs which have names and
addresses, Sort of dull, don’t
you think? :
Another thing: we are depriv-
ed of the pleasure of watching

course,‘ “not being free”). And,.

ments of persons, agencies and -

that outdoor sport of journal- —

istic billiards where a man tells

us that he hag learned in Sverd-
lovsk that
heard that

such-and-such a

thing was happening in Wash-

ington, Now, really, how can one
keep up-to-date without that
sort of coverage! :

Our daily fare of information
is never peppered up by head-
lines proclaiming that myster-

‘ious teapots are flying over
Kazakhstan in a northerly dir-
ection and that it is “presumed”
that “a certain country to the
south” is testing secret weapons
to be used against us...
o ;
Our kiddies, poor things, have
to go to bed without lurid crime
stories. And we, the adults, have
to go on living without lurid
erie reporting. All we find out
is that a criminal, if any, has
eae ‘apprehended,
and sentenced. We learn in brief
what for, and only if the case

in itself is capable of forming

an object lesson for somebody.

For instance, we learn of a
chauffeur running over a man
and speeding away, but we will
hardly hear of somebody butch-

ering his grandmother. The first |

case can do a lot of chauffeurs

Copenhagen has —

convicted, |

a lot of good. The latter can
only titillate jaded nerves.

It may be said that a detailed
description of the murder of the
young and beautiful diva of the
demi-monde is entertaining. The
silk pyjamas (black) slit by the

-knife, and the embroidered
sheets (which have seen so
many interesting things) smear-
ed with blood... Ah!... And
look at the photomontage show- ;
ing the exact path of the mur-
derer, with the cross at the spot —
where he stood leering over the
monumental triple-bed with the
Rest-in-Peace mattress!

In the matter of crime report-
ing, we are limited to basic
facts. The lurid claptrap is out.
This is one of the drawbacks of
socialist journalism. Always
that search for the socially use-
ful and the shunning of the so-
cially harmful. Our papers have
a tough publisher. That publish-
er is called The People. They
simply don’t want to be fooled
or doped. eis

As far as sex in general is

_ concerned, we have the impres-
sion that we are adult enough
not to need smutty pictures, be
they photo or word pictures.
From those of us who are not,

The Soviet press is different

the press withholds the tempta-
tion,

Our press confines itself to le-
gal notices on impending divor-
ces, but fails to tell us the spicy ©

_ reasons why Ivan Petrov wishes

to divorce his wife, or what the
latter wore or did not wear 15
minutes before Boris Ivanov
was seen leaving her room via
the window in the wee hours of
the morning. What is more, the
dramatis personae themselves
do not often provide such spec-’
tacles. Such a scene is not typi-

cal for us.
- portant.

We have to take our news and

entertainment straight. Wheth-
er it is a dispatch from Pales-
tine or a dispatch frorh Lake

Success, or a symphony, or a

sketch, we don’t get it salted |
and peppered by the announce-
ment that the New Listerine
will cure anything from halito+

‘sis to eczema, with contracep- _

tion thrown in.

In brief, we have no advertis-
ing to speak of. Lots of “posi-
tions open” ads, but no “posi-
tions wanted” announcements.
Theaters and movie repertories,
but no stock market tables.

Leading restaurants, all own-
ed by the people, will crowd

\

themselves into one common ad.

Take your choice, fiiends, One
is as good as another. No bally-
hoo. Only good food and drinks,
el the address.

oan the foregoing does not
in the least mean that humor
and the human element have
been banned from the Soviet

_ press and radio. But our humor
has to be wholesome, clean and

useful — socially useful, The
same can be said of the human
element. We don’t laugh at
things that are lofty and im-
We don’t expiate on
things that are Paene! and in-
timate,

It is good to know that pyro-
maniacs of. various types and

breeds, warmongers and sundry |

sensationalists, cannot get to
first base in our ways of social
communications.

We are happy that at least
here U.S. Supreme Court Justice —

Oliver Wendell Holmes’ famous
words, “Freedom does not _in-
clude the right to shout ‘Fire’
in a crowded theater,” are being
put into practice,

_ We are satisfied with the one
freedom our press enjoys: the ~

freedom (and duty) to tell the
people the truth.

1

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 23, 1919 — PAGE 4

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