News from Moscow: Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform

Description

News from Moscow is a social and cultural history of Soviet journalism after World War II. Focusing on the youth newspaper Komsomol'skaia Pravda, the study draws on transcripts of behind-the-scenes editorial meetings to chart the changing professional ethos of the Soviet journalist. Simon Huxtable shows how journalists viewed themselves both as propagandists bringing the Party's ideas to the wider public, but also as reformers who tried to implement new ideas that would help usher the country towards Communism. The volume focuses on both aspects of the journalists' role, from propaganda editorials in praise of Comrade Stalin and articles lauding young heroes' exploits in the Virgin Lands, to revolutionary new initiatives, such as the country's first ever polling institute and clubs promoting the virtues of unfettered public debate. Soviet journalism, argues Huxtable, was riven with an unresolvable tension between innovation and conservativism: the more journalists tried to promote new innovations to perfect Soviet society, the more officials grew anxious about the disruptive consequences of reform. By demonstrating the day-to-day conflicts that characterised the press's activity, and by showing that the production of Soviet propaganda involved much more than redrafting orders from above, News from Moscow offers a new perspective on Soviet propaganda that expands our understanding of the possibilities and limits of reform in a period of rapid change. Cover News from Moscow: Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform Copyright Contents Acknowledgements List of Figures Note on Abbreviations and References References to Komsomol’skaia pravda Editorial Meetings and Articles Introduction: Reformers and Propagandists: The Paradoxes of Post-war Soviet Journalism Overcoming the Past Journalism and Thaw Media Book Structure SECTION 1: 1945–1957: Ritual Socialism 1: Rituals, Routines and Ideology in the Late Stalinist Press Editorial Routines Public Rituals: Supreme Soviet Elections Campaign Messages The View from Backstage An Individual Approach Epilogue: The Stalinist Roots of Thaw Journalism 2: Satire, Sensations, and Slander: Criticism and Self-Criticism from Stalin to the Secret Speech Criticism and Self-Criticismin the Late Stalin Period The Good and the Better Self-Criticismafter the Twentieth Party Congress Criticism and the Courts Student Unrest and the Hungary Effect Satire and Sensationalism How Criticism was Extinguished Epilogue: Criticism and Self-Criticismafter 1956 SECTION 2: 1956–1964: Romantic Socialism 3: Far from Moscow: Heroic Autobiographies and the Paradoxes of Thaw Modernity The Virgin Lands Campaign The Revolutionary Baton Edited Subjects Is It Easy to Be Modern? Conclusion: Romantics ‘In’ and ‘Out’ of the Soviet System 4: From Word to Deed: The Communard Method and Thaw Citizenship Formalism and the Problem of Boredom Youth and Labour Education The Frunze Commune The Importance of Discussion Raising the Scarlet Sail The Communards and the End of the Thaw SECTION 3: 1960–1970: Reforming Socialism 5: The Institute of Public Opinion and the Birth of Soviet Polling How Sociology Became Soviet (Again) Sociology as Plebiscite Disciplining Public Opinion Decline and Fall Conclusion: Polling and the Thaw Public 6: From Technocracy to Stagnation: When Did the Thaw Freeze Over? ‘Don’t Whistle!’ ‘More realistic, more sober, more dialectical’: Economic Reform and the Expert Public The Kosygin Reforms and Reader Sociology A Post-HeroicAge? The Death of Brezhnev’s Thaw Epilogue: Thaw Journalism after the Thaw Journalistic Ethics after Communism Bibliography Archives and Collections Online Archives and Sources Newspapers and Journals Document Collections, Memoirs and Interview Collections Published Sources Unpublished Sources Index