"Pravda" Celebrating 50th Birthday

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29848, 14 June 1962, Page 19

"Pravda " Celebrating 50th Birthday

(By ROBERT ELPHJCKI

MOSCOW,

“Pravda,’’ the newspaper “voice” of the Soviet Communist Party, makes no official claim to be the biggest paper in the world, but its publishers say that they could easily sell 10 million copies a day if it were not for the newsprint shortage.

The newspaper, which celebrated its 50th birthday on May 5. never takes a holiday, appears seven days a week including Sundays and sells 6 300.000 copies a day. Mr pave! Satyukov, the present editor, however, complained at the recent Communist Party Congress that the development of the paper was being held up because of backwardness in the news, print industry. Every newspaper and magazine in the Soviet Union has to rely on supplies from Soviet factories and those are srictly rationed by the Government. For all its illustrations tradition and its position as the carrier of the party's word to the remotest parts of the country and abroad. •’Pravda" has to take ;ts turn with the rest. It has come a long way s nee it first began publishing as a "workers” paper in 1912 under the Tsarist censor, and with a first print of about 50000 copies. It was founded because of the split of the old Social Democrat Party into the Bolshevik 'majority! and the Menshevik (minority) factions.

As the party newspaper “Iskra." which although was founded by Lenin himself, was in the hands of the Mensheviks, the St. Petersburg workers, with the approval of Lenin, decided to print a newspaper of their own Lenin wrote 130 articles for the newsnaper in its first two years and with other revolutionaries. like Stalin and Molotov, prominent on its editorial board, the censors kept a strict eye on its activities. Forced To Close Eight times in its first two years it was forced to close on their orders each time appearing again under a different name. Finally, on the eve of World War I. in 1914, it was forced to close down altogether. But after the February 1917 Revolution it opened again with Lenin again among its most prolific contributors. However, it fell into disfavour with the Provisional Government and was

closed down once more, its presses were confiscated and the editorial board arrested Again and again, it was closed down as it appeared under other names, until finally the Bolsheviks seized power during the October Revolution. Today the newspaper is produced in a modern glass and concrete building on the outskirits of Moscow, erected in 1934 by a Soviet architect whose design was heavily influenced by the French architect. Corbusier. The same plant also prints three other major daily newspapers and about 20 periodicals. Every night, the presses turn out 2.500.000 copies of “Pravda” for Moscow and its surroundings. Matrices are sent by rail and air to 21 other major centres so that it can be printed and distributed on the spot. Important changes in its pattern of distribution will take place when teletvne setting machines are fully installed in the newspaper's head office and provinces. This is now being done on an experimental basis and the first cities to be connected when it does work will be Kiev and Leningrad. To the foreigner’s eyes the usual four page issue looks somewhat dull. The articles are printed in heavy slabs of type, unrelieved by bright crossheads or eye-catching headlines. Sometimes, however. perhaps when a man goes up into space, the front page is enlivened with a headline in red ink. No Apology For Appearance But the editors make no anology for the appearance of the paper. They say that its purpose is mainly to educate their readers in the way of communism. As such “Pravda” is the bearer of the word of the Communist Party everywhere. It will publish every word of official speeches by the Prime Minister Mr Khrushchev, so that the speeches may be studied by the faithful. At the same time, it will often ignore what a foreign correspondent would regard as news. For instance, it did not print a word about the

recent series of Russian nuclear tests. It carries selected news from abroad sent in by its dozen correspondents abroad, and also subscribes to the official news agency, Tass. The editors do not think it worthwhile, with the limited space at their disposal, to subscribe to any of the big western news agencies but they have hinted that this might come if more newsprint becomes available. If there is nothing in the way of “hot” news in the paper, the editors explain that the newspaper is not intended to be sensational. They add that Russia always had a national press -even before the Revolution in 1917. This means that the new’s has to be written in such a way that it can be read with interest by. perhaps, a man in Vladivostok many days after the date of publication. The advent of swifter means of communications does not seem to have impressed "Pravda.”

Even with its present huge circulation, “Pravda” gets many letters every day from would-be , readers, who complain that there are never enough copies on sale. One man -wrote from Leningrad shortly before the Party Congress last October to say that too many people have to wait in very long queues for a chance to buy the paper. The editors estimate the present readership at about 25 million on the basis of an average of four readers an issue. But they believe that the actual readership, judging from letters like the one from Leningrad, is much more.

Until the Soviet newsprint industry begins to produce more paper, however, they know- that they will not be able to fulfill their attainable potential of a circula. tion of at least 10 million—the- number of members in the Soviet Communist Party. Apart from increasing circulation. they would like to see their newspaper increase in size.

A jury consists of 12 persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.— Robert Frost.