sD PTL INL TRCEE C TRMWTIOD | RAT TY RT RM RTT ATTRA | RONEN TE a MEDIA / REVIEWS elebratin 75 years of Pravda MOSCOW — The Soviet Com- munist Party newspaper Pravda — one of the largest circulation dailies in the world — marked the 75th anniversary of the paper’s founding with a major interna- tional conference of Communist editors in Moscow May 3 and 4. More than 100 editors took part in the two day event, representing numerous Communist papers from around the world including the French daily L’Humanite, Bri- tain’s Morningstar, Akahata from Japan and the Indian daily New Age as well as several socialist and workers’ party journals such as The Irish People, journal of the Irish Workers Party, and Barric- ada, the Sandinista daily in Nica- ragua. Tom Morris, editor of the Can- adian Tribune and Pacific Tribune editor Sean Griffin attended the conference on behalf of their respective papers. Pravda followed the conference with the publication of a special facsimile copy of the first edition of the paper. Originally founded by Lenin, Pravda — Truth — first gorge on May 5, 1912 — April “22 by the old calendar then'in use. The conference was prompted by the new round of peace initia- tives launched by the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev and by the initiatives for re-organizing Soviet society, now known almost universally by their Russian terms “glasnost”(openness) and “pere- stroika”’(re-structuring). Opening the conference, Pravda editor-in-chief Viktor Afanasiev told participants that the role of the press “has never been so critical and the responsibility of journalists felt more.” Pravda faces two challenges in the new Soviet campaign, he said, the first to reflect the process of re-organization that is taking place and also to give leadership to initia- tives. “But we cannot reflect that which is not yet taking place,” he added, noting that the process of changes, while underway, “is not yet as fast as we had hoped.” Still, the coverage given to peres- troika and glasnost has pushed cir- culation for the paper up past the 11 million mark and over the past several months there have been 600,000 letters from readers, he said. “Those letters show that our people extensively support the changes. Most of them are impa- tient and want the pace of those changes to be faster and stress that we must not stop halfway,” he said. Afanasiev noted that the process of re-structuring had also affected Pravda itself which has streamlined some of its many departments and instructed its reporters to be more searching and critical in their mate- rial. “Too often our correspondents lagged behind and didn’t go after ali the facts,” he said. “We want them to be more Self-critical and dynamic.” _ The two-day conference also provided the venue for a major foreign policy address by Anatoly Dobrynin, a secretary of the cen- tral committee of the Communist Party and for some 20 years an ambassador to the United States. Focussing on the recent Soviet peace initiatives, he emphasized that the CPSU, in addition to re- organizing the economic and polit- ical life of the country, “is also doing its best to give impulse to a re-organization of international relations as well. “That is why,” he said, “things have begun to move in the interna- tional arena as well in the past two years and why the ... search for ways and means of invigorating political, economic, scientific, tech- nical and cultural co-operation have grown stronger.” 3 IPABIA EMEQHEBHAR PABONAR fF ASETA. PCAC Mbin MTS wanweamus no eosaanubo of oy *, LOAN OA 6 0 BoM; mHOCTH eT FOREN ancTa KO. OOmaaTeAMNO me om OrabaRMME HoMepe * crwxoraope- rs uabaw peypre 'u® apoonmin » Peaaxula wn netynaers. Laie 2 Peaanuiio crtayers npnan “) fipw rage MAPKY a ovary ) ptews es peaai Howioh renedonr teaser $40.02, a sanpocaxr wy rye Tena en ye heyy Anpeoe nonr, . MTOpL & pena: i 50m. 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In addition, he said, “states should understand that more arms means not more but less security” and ‘the security of any state is impossible without the equal secur- ity of all. “The prime and chief require- ment of the new thinking is to rec- ognize both the necessity and the practicability of a nuclear weap- ons-free world,” he emphasized. Scores of editors took part in discussions during the two days of meetings which included plenary sessions as well as three workshop sessions on peace, human rights and the scientific and technological revolution. Virtually all of them welcomed the changes taking place in the USSR although some, like the edi- _ tor of Unsere Zeit, journal of the West German Communist Party, cautioned that criticism of past ea 3Bb3 7 A“ H ceepwnros 0Ch YO KHINK. Gepe: hose Nocaé caowy Marapora a tae Orn pedakuin, ie 470 Maxapom, «AeHeAHHYD otcHL, yt Hyxno an whert ua AYMCKO| AOKA3bIBATR, GTO pycexomy MHMETDY a 06 6xoaKWa Bog Goautnye- | TOHOND Ye He na, 8 atxnuey ota f TeMHO vascatayes’ SHHOBHUXY no Stas Mia acer) Gowemy Heol ‘aa raseta? wot #f0 YRC s0KaIaH0. rors sonpoc, | ‘asaennil Ka obcymaemie ay «Betssne, TOP: The first edition of Pravda, May 5, 1912 (April 22 on the old” calendar); below, Pravda editor-in-chief Viktor Afanasiev addresses Participants in the editors’ forum. mistakes in Soviet economic and social policy “should not be allowed to blacken what is posi- Live. Even the editor of L’Unita, the daily newspaper of the Italian Communist Party which has been stridently Eurocommunist and has sought to distance itself from exis ing socialism, acknowledged that his paper was “‘very interested 1? the changes taking place in the Soviet Union.” — Sean Griffin Times, by William L. Shirer. THE NIGHTMARE YEARS 1930- 1940, Volume Il of Twentieth Century Journey: A Memoir of a Life and the lic.” the co-guarantor of judgments. Here are a few: government.” forces ... William Shirer became well-known and respected for his Berlin Diary and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. In. his memoirs, he adds some important new @ In 1935, “I was rather puzzled that our American businessmen and our rich tended to sympathize with fascist coun- tries. I wondered if it was because the right-wing dictatorships claimed to be anti-communist . . . (this) ploy is still work- ing in America in the 1980's, not only with our well-heeled men of affairs but with our @ In Spain, “‘a victory for the Franco would also be a blow to the Soviet Union, which alone among foreign nations had come to the aid of the Repub- In 1938, “no one inquired why Russia, integrity in case of German attack, was left out ...” (of the Munich Conference). @ In 1939, “Stalin .. and France) of encouraging Nazi Ger- many to expand eastward in order ‘to embroil it in war with the Soviet Union.” Shirer adds: “since Munich I was sure this was Chamberlain’s aim.” Shirer talks about Soviet foreign minis- ter Maxim Litvinov’s work for peace: “It Czechoslovakia’s . accused (Britain approved’.” was Litvinov’s last bid to the West to join Russia in stopping Hitler. Churchill urged British acceptance in a stirring speech in the commons. Later, in his memoirs, he speculated that if Mr. Chamberlain on receipt of the Russian offer had replied: “Yes. Let us three band together and break - .Hitler’s neck,’ Parliament would have In 1945, Shirer notes that at the Nuremberg trials “even Rudolf Hess had been brought back from Great Britain, to which he had flown in the midst of the war to try to convince the British to give in so Hitler could turn on Russia.” Shirer memoirs shed new light on history Shirer growing years.” Shirer saw fascism spread until Adolf Hitler believed he had the economic and military towns, taken in, don” by a 1935 speech by Adolf Hitler. But the Times continued to encourage appeasement and for this, Shirer felt “a Union, and (with Japan) dominate the world. Hitler was wrong, but he was proven wrong at the cost of millions of © lives and terrible destruction of cities and The lesson here is that in spite of our differences we must work together to stop war. William Shirer has helped us toward that understanding. admits that he was “terribly as much as the Times of Lon- contempt over the ensuing power to destroy the Soviet — BR. — 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 13, 1987