The modern class war
From
MARK FRANKLAND
in Moscow
It was an ordinary Soviet slogan with white letters printed on a long band of red cloth. “Long live the Leninist foreign policy of the Soviet Union,” it declared. Someone had hung it above the front door of a Soviet organisation that helps look after the foreign community in Moscow. Since the slogan was in Russian one must assume it was meant for Soviet employees rather than for foreign visitors, although the latter might be thought in greater need of it.
What effect did it have on those who saw it and bothered to read it? Not very much, to judge by criticism of the effectiveness of propaganda that often appears in Soviet speeches and press articles. ■ The inertia of this country’s vast propaganda machine is such that routine slogans, the words of which have been repeated countless times before, are still produced and hung up over doors. They seem generally ignored and do not in any obvious way contribute to the efficiency, let alone gaiety, of Soviet life.
What should a really modern Soviet propagandist be like? He should have “not only a fundamental knowledge of Marx-ism-Leninism but also of applied sociology, psychology, pedagogics, and the ability to apply this knowledge practically. The secretary of a district party committee oversee-
ing ideology must be marked, apart from his erudition, by sociability, attractiveness, and charm because he has constantly to deal with the delicate cords of human relationships.” He must also find time to read works of literature and science, to go to the cinema and theatre. At present, though, party secretaries dealing with ideology say that they can spend ony five per cent of their time on such things. This is “impermissibly little.” That, at any rate, is the opinion of Mikhail Nenashev, editor of “Sovietskaya Rossiya,” a central committee newspaper which was particularly enthusiastic about the changes introduced by the late President Andropov. It probably reflects opinion at the most sophisticated levels of the party. Mr Andropov tried to encourage new approaches to old problems. Old-fashioned propaganda, including slogans no-one notices any more and routine speeches read out to bored audiences, was found to be not just ineffective but potentially damaging. Young Soviet people, it was pointed out, are better educated than their parents, and their bet-
ter-trained minds can get up to more mischief if allowed to go astray. Technology has increased the damage that an unmotivated worker can do. A careless driver of a big expensive bulldozer can be more productive than a man with a spade but he can also be immeasurably more wasteful. The Nenashevs of the Soviet Union recognise that deeds count for more than words. There is an effort now to make local authorities more accountable to citizens by “Open Letter Days,” meetings that gather together a factory’s workers to put questions to officials. Judging by Soviet press and TV accounts these occasions can produce tough talk. A great deal of thought is being given to ways of letting workers have more say about problems in their immediate work surroundings. Elected deputies of Soviets (local councils) are being- encouraged to take up local issues such as housing and the environment, though without questioning any party prerogatives. In these areas propaganda is slowly giving way to shrewd politics. Even so, old-style propagandists are not likely to disappear soon. One reason is that one of the most
dearly-held Soviet beliefs — that the world is divided into good and bad, proletarian and bourgeois — does not make for subtlety. For example, the heads of the regional party organisation in Brest, on the Soviet-Polish border, have just criticised young people for their lack of class feeling. “They don’t always clearly understand,” a spokesman says, “that our present ideological enemy is the same class enemy (that used to exist in the Soviet Union) but is now only to be found outside the borders of our system.” In this spirit, the Komsomol in Brest-Litovsk has conducted a raid on the town’s streets. Any young man or woman wearing “imported clothing with designs on it” was stopped and asked what the design meant. One boy, he said, was in a T-shirt with a picture of Lieutenant Calley, the American officer accused of killing civilians in Vietnam. A girl said she had not realised that the design on her blouse was “Zionist stars.” Nobody anywhere will want to give a prize to wearers of Lieutenant Calley T-shirts, but one wonders how many young kids in Brest-Litovsk think the man who thought up this raid was attractive or charming, let alone understood “the delicate cords of human relationships.” Copyright — London Observer Service.
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Press, 11 April 1984, Page 17
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779The modern class war Press, 11 April 1984, Page 17
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