When Karpinsky’s article appeared, the release of Academician Sakharov from exile was still being discussed: Sakharov had been for many years the actual leader and symbol of the dissident movement. Political prisoners were returning home one after another. Activists of the socialist youth groups remained in the camps, as before, but their release in the near future was also expected. True, Karpinsky was dissembling a little when he wrote that the dissidents adhered to the ideals of the left-wing movement. Most of the well-known dissidents of the seventies were either indifferent to the question of social organization, being concerned exclusively with the provision of guaranteed civil rights, or else were supporters of free enterprise. But the Moskovskie Novosti article had to provide an ideological basis for the liberal decisions of the reforming leadership, to show that in freeing Sakharov and other dissidents the country’s leaders were acting not only wisely but in accordance with principle.
The real problem, however, lay elsewhere. For the representatives of the Left opposition, there could be no question of whether or not to participate in the changes. Every one of them who was at liberty was already doing all they could, without Karpinsky’s advice. The problem was, how to participate. If Karpinsky’s logic meant simply that one should support the liberal initiatives from above, there could be no particular significance in such support. The trouble with the liberal intelligentsia was that it showed itself quite incapable of any constructive initiative of its own, preferring just to applaud Gorbachev’s decisions. The louder the applause, the more energetic the support. However, an acute need for new ideas, a new culture, had arisen in society; what was wanted was criticism not so much of the past as of the present, not so much of others as of ourselves, and a rejection of liberal dogmas no less resolute than our rejection of any others. The events which have taken place in our country are important not only for us. The wave of conservatism which swept over the world in the early eighties is beginning to subside. The need for radical reforms is beginning to be realized by ever wider circles in countries of every type. Socialist ideas may once more become attractive to public opinion in the West. How well the progressive forces in the USSR cope with their new role will determine more than their own future. The present state of things is not as wonderful as one might have wished, and events are developing less smoothly than some journalists make out. Yet there are no grounds for pessimism. We shall hope for the best.
2
Glasnost', the Soviet Press and Red Greens1
One of the most dramatic consequences so far of perestroika [reconstruction] in the Soviet Union is the rapid growth of interest in newspapers and magazines. In the final years of the Brezhnev era the circulation of many publications fell steadily; newspapers and magazines lost subscribers and often contributors. As for samizdat, it too was in a crisis — all the most interesting unofficial journals had ceased to exist, either under pressure from the authorities or because editors no longer saw any particular sense in continuing. Moreover, samizdat was not able to compete with Russian-language publications based abroad (tamizdat), and surreptitiously brought into the country in ever-increasing quantities. Many people complained that tamizdat had gobbled up samizdat, but without itself becoming a force in the internal literary life of the country. Thus there was no one and nothing to fill the cultural vacuum created by the crisis in the official press under Brezhnev.
Perestroika has changed the situation radically. The circulations of newspapers and magazines have started to rise despite the paper shortage. Since interesting material can now be found everywhere, subscribers have started forming consumers’ cooperatives, through which a number of families divide the cost of subscriptions and then share the periodicals. Otherwise the attempt to ‘keep pace with glasnost'’ would be a very heavy drain on the average Russian family’s budget.
A.N. Yakovlev, who in 1985 was head of the propaganda section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made energetic efforts to enliven public life. The editors of many magazines and newspapers were replaced, censorship was relaxed. As commercial success began to be valued at least as much as ideological steadfastness, relatively sharp competiton broke out among publications which strove to attract readers’ attention with sensational material. Some newspapers and magazines which had previously eked out a pretty miserable existence suddenly achieved mass popularity. The most famous of these is Moskovskie Novosti [Moscow News]. This weekly newspaper, published in five languages, was for several years a symbol of inefficient propaganda. Its readers were predominantly students who aimed to extend their vocabulary from English, French or Spanish newspapers, but were not allowed to study real Western publications for that purpose. Very few people even knew that a Russian-language edition of the paper existed.
Within a few months of Yegor Yakovlev’s editorship, the paper became the flagship of glasnost'. The circulation of the Russian edition is still limited, in part because of the paper shortage and various bureaucratic obstacles, and perhaps in part because of political considerations. Nevertheless, long queues form in front of the state newspaper kiosk on the day the paper comes out, and by nine o’clock in the morning no copy of the paper can be bought anywhere in Moscow. Readers pass round some issues as they once did samizdat.
Yegor Yakovlev’s paper is far from being the only one to experience a heady upsurge in vitality. After Vitaly Korotich was made editor-in-chief of the illustrated weekly magazine Ogonyok [Light], what had once been the mouthpiece of extreme Stalinists rapidly became popular among an intellectual readership when it published a series of pieces devoted to the victims of Stalinist terror. The literary sections of the magazine also improved noticeably. The bulletin of the Soviet committee for the defence of peace, Vek XX i mir [The Twentieth Century and Peace], which had never managed to achieve the slightest popularity among readers, suddenly became fashionable. A significant role in this change of fortunes was played by Gleb Pavlovsky, who had once been among the founders of the left-wing samizdat journal Poiski [Searches], and who had returned to Moscow from internal exile. Thanks to Pavlovsky, Vek XX i mir, which, like Moscow News, appears in several languages, has become an important source of information on the activities of left-wing ‘unofficial groups’. The magazine has also run interviews with the independent Marxists, Pinsky and Gefter, who until recently were considered dissidents. The readers’ letters section has become especially interesting, since it is an indication of how people react to the new political opportunities, and evidence that they are gradually becoming used to sharp political discussion. Moskovskii Komsomolets [Moscow Young Communist] publishes reports on concerts by popular rock groups. Izvestiya organizes discussions which consider the shortcomings of economic policy, not only in the past but also in the present, with startling frankness. Sometimes provincial newspapers publish material which has seemed too daring to Muscovite editorial boards. As new facts and new ideas are aired in the press, they naturally attract the interest not only of the intelligentsia but also of wider social strata. Readers are becoming better informed, and more demanding towards the press in general.