The Russian Press
[In accordance with our policy of printing " the other side " —a plan initiated by the late Mr. St. Loe Strachey—we are publishing this survey of the Russian Press by Mr. John Strachey, who is a member of the Labour Party.—En. Spectator.] AFEATURE of present-day Russian conditions which has received little attention in this country is the Press. It is vaguely known that the Russian Press is organized upon a system entirely different from that of any- other country, and that the individual pro- prietor, the Lord Beaverbrook or Lord Rothermere, is unknown in present-day Russia. But very little attention seems to have been paid to the question of the actual ownership, control and conduct of the Russian. news- papers.
This is, perhaps, a serious omission, as the Russian Press to-day plays an extremely powerful and important part in the life of the country. There is no privately owned Press in Russia to-day ; but it would be a mistake to regard the Press as wholly Government-owned. Let us take, for example, the ownership of the chief Moscow newspapers. Izvestia (News) is the organ of the Soviet Government and represents a typically Governmental attitude. The only newspaper outside Russia with which it can at all be compared is the Paris Temps. Pravda, on the other hand, is the organ of the Communist Party. Here the outlook is distinctly different. It devotes considerably greater space to foreign news and in outlook attempts to be international, as representing the Communist Parties in the various countries. Pravda is a large newspaper with something like a' million and a half circulation. This, to an English observer, is certainly remarkable because its contents are extraordinarily " high-brow " as judged by English standards. The great bulk of its space is devoted to political and economic news, often of a very technical character. But one must remember that the nine hundred thousand members of the Russian Communist Party practically must read Pravda, if they are to keep abreast with their Party work at all ; so that it has a solid basis of circulation such as any newspaper in the world might envy.
Another important newspaper is Trud (Labour). It is the organ of the All-Russian Congress of Trade Unions. This paper represents what in this country we should call the T.U.C. point of view. It is, of course, a vexed question as to whether the Russian Trade Unions have in fact a separate point of 'view of their own,- as representing the direct interests of industrial workers, or whether they are Mere governmental organs in disguise. It is said by competent observers that this year during the negotiation of the annual collective agreements by which wage-rates in Russia are universally settled, the Trade Unions for the first time- showed a good deal of independence of outlook and forced many modifications in the agreements. Certainly Trud appears to have a somewhat, though not markedly, different outlook from the other papers.
Another important Moscow paper is the Rabochki Gazetta (the Workers' Gazette), which is the organ of the Moscow Soviet—very much as if the L.C.C. pub- lished a daily newspaper ! Curiously enough, too, this is the most " popular " newspaper in Moscow, that is to say, it attempts to be light and snappy, and carries many pictures. But I fear that the Northcliffe House sub-editor would find himself in tears over the weight and seriousness of most of the actual matter carried.
Another interesting feature of the Russian Press is a whole batch of weekly periodicals. These are mostly comic and satiric. Two amusing coloured illustrated weeklies are Krokodile and Begamot. These two papers keep up an unceasing and often very witty campaign against bureaucracy, officialdom, rudeness and incompet- ence in government And co-operative institutions, &c. For example Krokodik has recently been running a campaign against rudeness by co-operative store shop assistants. One picture I noticed in a recent number was a drawing of a lion tamer standing inside a cage full of ferocious lions, having subdued them all with his whip. Below is a picture of the same man entering a co-operative store and being put to headlong flight by the rudeness and barbarity of the shop assistants. I noticed another picture in the same campaign. It appears that instructions have recently been issued to co-operative store assistants that if their customers are humble and poorly dressed then this is, only an additional reason for being polite to them. Krokodila printed an illustration of a neatly dressed working-girl going into a co-operative store, and an unshaven and unpleasing shop assistant saying to another : " Thank Heaven ! Here is someone nicely dressed. Now we can be rude to her !." These papers are apparently licensed by the authorities to conduct these campaigns in order to try to improve the efficiency of the Russian institutions.
Another interesting institution of the Russian Press is that of the worker correspondents. Pravda has now a panel of many thousands of " registered readers," who consist of rank and file, factory and village workers all over Russia. These correspondents write to Pravda or to their local papers (which have established similar departments) on actual conditions in their own factory, village soviet, co-operative store, &c. They complain if there is bad management, bureaucratic red tape, lack of sympathy with the workers or, worst of all of course, speculation. These letters go to a special department of Pravda, where they are sifted. Some are published, usually those which merely make general charges of inefficiency, &c. Others are found to be baseless on preliminary investigation. Others which make serious charges, which do not seem to be baseless, are passed over to the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection, which is a special department for investigating abuses in the public services. Many letters are published even, when the newspaper has no proof that the charges are well founded, because it is thought exceedingly important that the workers should have an opportunity for expressing their views in public. These worker corresPondents are privileged persons and the heaviest penalties 'are imposed if any of them are victimized or attacked by the management for anything they may have written in the Press. For striking a worker correspondent the penalty is said to be immediate exile to Siberia.
This article makes no pretence of giving a compre- hensive view of the Russian Press. There are many important technical and 'economic papers which it is impossible to mention. Again, every town in Russia has its local Press, most local Communist parties issuing their own Pravda. But the Russian Press is certainly worthy of study by a competent investigator. The effect of the Press, with its many millions of readers all over this vast country, must be very great. For one must remem- ber that it is something wholly new in Russian history. The pre-War newspapers, even pro-Government papers, were confined to small circulations, and all opposition papers were underground, secret organs. The present Press is probably amateurish ani. defective in many ways, and it is very likely considerably above the heads of many of its readers, but it is probably the most important single educative factor in Russia to-day.
JOHN STRACIIEY,
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