Russians find more that’s fit to print

Press, 10 November 1986, Page 20

Russians find more that’s fit to print

From the “Economist,” London

Good for Mr Gorbachev that he told the Soviet people almost at once about the missile submarine Russia lost in.the Atlantic. The Russians could not have hoped that its sinking would pass unnoticed — the Americans knew it was in trouble even before Mr Gorbachev, mindful of his approaching rendezvous in Iceland, sent them word — but on similar occasions in the past Russia has simply said nothing. This time it came clean, or cleanish. Mr Gorbachev’s glasnost (openness) indeed opened Russia up a bit.' '

Within the past six weeks, the Soviet press has also reported the sinking of a cruise ship in the Black Sea and the attempted hijacking of an airliner at Ufa, east of Moscow. Before (f 4 glasnost, things like this, which make Russia look bad, would not have been reported at all, if they

involved no foreigners and occurred out of sight of foreign eyes. Mr Gorbachev has allowed Western newsmen a glimpse of the edge of a Soviet nuclear test site, and will let N.A.T.O. soldiers come to watch the Soviet Army on manoeuvres. He seems willing to recognise that, if arms-control agreements are to work, each side will have to be able to check that the other is not cheating — even if this means letting foreigners snoop on Soviet territory. Such oh-site inspection, if it goes far enough, could bring a small revolution within the secretive Soviet military establishment. ! i ' ■

So does glasnost really mean “openness”? Not really; not inside Russia. There is no such thing as an open press in the Soviet Union.

Newspapers and television are

controlled by the one and only party. The journalists are all party members or party trusties. News is a State secret until and unless it is cleared for publication.

When dealing with his own people, Mr Gorbachev’s new policy about news is strictly selective. He is letting Soviet journalists write critical things they could not have written before — but only if they attack targets he wants them to attack. Corruption, obstinate bureaucrats, idleness, drug abuse: about such things, now it can be told. But there is no right of reply, no independent check on what the party journalist slashingly denounces. Guess who decides what subjects to take a crack at next? There is no competition among papers or television programmes with different points of view. The purpose of glasnost is to make Russia more efficient, not more liberal. It is not a lamp in the

darkness, just a laser-beam in Mr Gorbachev’s hand.

The Soviet leader’s aim, reasonably enough, is to persuade his people to be less cynical, and so readier to work properly. For years the official trumpeting of economic triumphs in Russia has made a bitter contrast with the reality of shortages and queues. If Mr Gorbachev is to get his people to put a willing shoulder to the wheel, the nonsense of “the propaganda of success” had to end. In the same way, allowing an occasional mention of non-persons — Khrushchev,

Stalin, even Trotsky — ends the pretence that large chunks of Soviet history never happened. But, although the Soviet news is a little livelier these days, it is no freer than before.

The biggest test of glasnost so far was the Chernobyl explosion in April; and Mr Gorbachev halfflunked it. He took far too long to say anything at all.

Even now, five months after the event, ordinary Russians still know less about some sides of the disaster than western news-paper-readers do.

There are reports outside Russia that the Ufa. hijackers were not the "drug addicts’ of the official story. Real openness would mean letting independent reporters find out what happened. Without such checking, glasnost is merely a more sophisticated way of guiding the news. .

Still, sophistication is better than being hit on the head with a hammer. Here is a suggestion for seeing how far Mr ■ Gorbachev will let glasnost go. Like other Western newspapers, the "Economist” receives and/ quite~'often prints letters from Russians who disagree with us. Getting an equivalent right of reply in the Soviet press is formidably difficult.

Copyright — The Economist