PURGE OF THE PRESS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20668, 5 March 1937, Page 7

PURGE OF THE PRESS

NEW SOVIET TACTICS A PERSONAL CHECK A sweeping reorganisation of Soviet newspapers and publishing houses followed the conspiracy trial which resulted in the execution of sixteen prominent Communists for alleged attempts to assassinate Government leaders, says the Moscow correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor.’’ Hundreds of editors and reporters have been discharged and many have been arrested and exiled. The names of men and women familiar to the Soviet public for years have disappeared from the newspapers. Those thus disgraced included Karl Radek, generally recognised as the most talented Soviet journalist. The official Press reported that an unusual number of "class enemies” had found employment on the newspapers of the Ukraine, White Russia and Tadjikistan. These are regions in which nationalist movements have been particularly obstinate, and presumably some of the local journalists had failed to distinguish between “national chauvinism” and the Communist conception: “National in form, socialist in content.”

Communist Party committees have been instructed hereafter to investigate personally every person employed by newspapers or magazines. The Communist newspaper “Pravda” declared: “It is not enough to select editors. Every writer, every reporter, even proofreaders and those who work in printshops, must be investigated. A proofreader can cause a lot of damage if he is hostile. Meaning of Guarantees The new Soviet Constitution reiterates guarantees for freedom of the Press. What do Russia’s ruling Communists mean by this phrase? The answer is provided by “Pravda”: “We can tolerate as workers on our newspapers and periodicals only those who are sincerely devoted to the last drop of their blood, to the cause of socialism. Only a Bolshevik, party or nonparty, has the right to carry the high title* of Soviet journalist.” In other words, freedom of the Press is reserved for those who support the existing regime whole-heartedly and without qualification. For several years after the revolution .Soviet journalists were permitted more freedom than they have to-day. As late as 1927, considerable latitude was tolerated even in discussions of political questions. Some monthly and quarterly periodicals even published critiques of some phases of Marxist theory. But since the first Five-Year Plan was launched, Soviet journalism, from the viewpoint of “bourgeois liberalism,” has steadily deteriorated. Today the mildest and most tentative criticism of any policy adopted by the Communist Party would mean imme-

diate arrest and exile for all persons responsible. The recent newspaper “purge” showed that the Communists will no longer permit journalists to work at their profession who have had connections with Communist leaders now discredited. A “Monolithic Unity” There is little doubt that the "monolithic unity” of thought required of Soviet journalists has powerful results. The facts support “Pravda’s” claim that “the Bolshevik Press, in its power of influencing the masses, has no rival.” None of the newer European dictatorships controls so thoroughly the ideas expressed by the printed word. No other Party political monopoly so systematically roots out journalists who show the faintest indication of disloyalty to the ruling group. While the Communists have rigidly controlled the principal newspapers and magazines for years, they have not supervised so closely the thousands of local newspapers established during the past five years in large factories, State farms and offices. It is now announced that such carelessness has been a serious mistake. Local Party committees are instructed to select with great care every reporter, every headline writer on these little newspapers, to keep in close touch with them and make certain that “no persons be allowed to work for any of our newspapers or periodicals who have not been carefully investigated,” and that all journalists are drawn from “the unlimited reserves of honest and sincere supporters of socialism.”