Talk:Pravda

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Contents 1 Finding some sources 2 Question about date of origin 3 needs a mention of Iskra (spark) 4 Reading between the lines in Pravda 5 Lenin medals 6 Pravda wasn't a newspaper 7 Pravda in jokes

[edit] Finding some sources

If someone could track down ISBN 0820450081 or ISBN 0807611867 it could be useful. Matthewmayer 23:02, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Question about date of origin

This sentence is confusing (and ungrammatical): "Pravda was founded as a newspaper for workers in 1912, the Bolsheviks started legal publication of the newspaper in St. Petersburg on April 22, 1913."

Was Pravda started in 1912 or 1913? - Maybe what was meant was that it was unofficially published in 1912, then first officially published in 1913?—Mateo SA 05:27, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC) Talk

[edit] needs a mention of Iskra (spark)

The article needs a mention of the 1st Russian communist/socialist newspaper — Iskra (spark, Russian: Искра). It's a strange thing that the referenced article "The spark that lit the revolution" doesn't contain any references to Iskra as well. BACbKA 08:40, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reading between the lines in Pravda

Although Pravda's content was tightly controlled by its editors, it was not impossible to discern truth from the newspaper. Many readers became sophisticated in guessing at the truth. The phrasing of a news item was often an important clue when guessing about the real meaning. The most newsworthy items were usually mentioned briefly and placed in obscure sections of the paper; oftentimes, the back pages of the paper contained more real news than the front pages. Bad news that happened inside the Soviet Union was usually not mentioned directly; instead, the paper would fabricate a series of similiar disasters occurring in other nations.

Any specific examples of this? Ambi 03:12, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The most known one would be the ecology issue. Instead of talking about the Soviet cities contamination, Pravda would address the ecology in Tokio and New York, saying that the policemen in these cities must wear gas masks in order not to faint (I remember reading this myself, and I don't know to date how close to truth this report by Pravda was!) On subtler covert channel reading of Pravda news, a well-known St. Petersburg mathematician and dissident, late Revolt Pimenov, (prosecuted by the Soviet regime during the Brezhnev times; later (during Gorbachev times) became an elected into the people deputy counsil), suggested to his friends giving a special course as to how to determine the next swing in the course of the communist "party line" by interpreting the mere order of the Politbureau members as printed in the daily Pravda issue. (When falling out of favor, they were demoted down the list, and hence the ministries/ideas they were associated got lower priorities). BACbKA 08:25, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How is this different than say US reporting on ecology? Anyone who compares US corporate coverage of say global warming versus news coverage in the rest of the industrialized world, as well as polls showing that the US population believes what the US media is often reporting, which is different than coverage in the rest of the world, could say the same thing. Most people in the US do not know how much antipathy has built up in other industrialized countries against the US for not signing Kyoto, despite that being lightly covered. [1] Ruy Lopez 01:20, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry...I just don't see the relevance of the analogy. There's a big leap between what BACbKA reported and your average, Murdoch press, biased reporting, which appears to be what you're talking about. Ambi 02:34, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a big leap between what BACbKA claims and your average American corporate press. I have never seen anything as far-off as saying policemen in New York and Tokyo must wear gas masks in order not to faint. Actually, it would have been true to have said cities like Los Angeles were massively polluted decades ago (they even had smog forecasts during the evening news weather reports), but I can't imagine Pravda reporting that as news. If it did appear it was probably a joke in an editorial or something ("If they don't clear up pollution in LA soon they'll have to wear gas masks, haha").

As far as wacky American reporting, why limit it to media owned by Murdoch and the like? Let's look at an example from Time Magazine from two years ago.[2] The title -"Nepal: Return to Year Zero - Nepal's Maoist rebels are murdering, beating, bombing and looting—all in the name of 'protecting the people'". The first sentence of the article "Even with knives as sharp as razors, it takes time to skin a man." The last sentence - "As I climbed into my car, the man held onto my arm, eyes wide with fear, and hissed in my ear, 'Terror. Terror,' before running back to his house." The middle of the article is more of the same. Pravda almost always took a pro-USSR line (just as the US corporate media almost always takes a pro-US line), but I never saw the type of stuff you can read in Time like this or other "mainstream" US corporate media. I mean, this just looks like the kind of copy you'd find attached to US WWI propaganda ("Beat back the Hun"). With the point being that the idea that papers beyond Murdoch's being straight news is incorrect. And Pravda was always a lot more newsy and less propaganda than the type of thing I could have read in Time two years ago Ruy Lopez 16:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Reading between the lines in any newspaper is the job of whole sections in intelligence services all over the world. Pravda is not an exception. There was no intentional "hide and seek" or I Spy game here. Information could be recovered from occasional word slips, basing on a knack in Party phraseology and standard propaganda tricks, such as "Letters of workers to the editorial board". Mikkalai 03:04, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "There was no intentional "hide and seek" or I Spy game here.". I agree about what you say on the intelligence-type reading between the lines, but this probably alludes to the story about Pimenov that had I mentioned in the talk above. As for the article text you have cut away for some strange reason, it was mentioning one specific technique out of the Pravda's propaganda bag of tricks, along with my ecology example. When something nasty happened, people would sometimes hear the rumours seep through despite all the efforts to suppress the facts; to soften the blow to the socialist well-being image, they did try to report on similar problems in the "capitalist enemy's camp", and when they didn't have enough facts to support themselves, they blew existing facts out of proportion or fabricated news out of complete lies. BACbKA 16:35, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'll give you an example from the American media. Suppose one was of the mind that since the Cold War end, the US has wanted a permanent military base somewhere in the Middle East, like it has in say the Phillipines or Panama. With good candidates being places like Saudi Arabia or Iraq. And that it was decided pre-Iraq invasion that it might be less trouble to have that base in Iraq than Saudi Arabia (although perhaps the people might be reassessing that view now). Well, if one was of this mind, as I am, where in the news can I find such a statement? Well, you can't, nowhere in the American news does it say "America simply wants a military base in some centrally located large Persian Gulf country". It always says the US is defending freedom or something like that. In fact, I myself was unable to find a statement like this, but Noam Chomsky in Hegemony or Survival points to a paragraph in a Wolfowitz interview in Vanity Fair[3] where he says "There are a lot of things that are different now, and one that has gone by almost unnoticed--but it's huge--is that by complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia. Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al Qaeda. In fact if you look at bin Laden, one of his principle grievances was the presence of so-called crusader forces on the holy land, Mecca and Medina. I think just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door to other positive things." Well, that gives us some meat for our thesis, but you have to search high and low to find that paragraph at the end of one interview with one official, and then try to read between the lines to see what it means. I have to read between the lines all of the time - the Wall Street Journal is a pretty honest paper, one of the most honest, but they beat around the bush on certain issues, especially regarding consequences of actions they endore. Ruy Lopez 17:14, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is a good example of manipulative propaganda moves from some media, but it is a bit different direction, isn't it? We were talking about Pravda deliberately masking some particular piece of news, that it would like to go unnoticed or at least cloaked. When it came to justifying intervention elsewhere (Afghanistan and the Eastern Europe invasions earlier), there surely was brainwashing like you describe above... Funny thing, the motives were different a bit: in the U.S. people during voting have always been able to select candidates based on their platforms (OK, slogans all right and brainwashing too and you have to read between the lines to understand what they really might be meaning and never be sure until they're in the office for quite some time) – yet in the Soviet times the elections usually had only one candidate and whoever tried to vote against or, penguin forbid, write some anti-government slogan on the paper bulletin, he'd be in for KGB hot pursuit, whereas the electoral platform was all the same "advancing the cause of Lenin's/the Party teachings and the proletariat well-being etc..." I'm so happy I have forgotten the rest!BACbKA 19:11, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In reply to: As for the article text you have cut away for some strange reason,. The reason is simple: irrelevance to the subsection. Your "bad news" example is related to propaganda mechanisms, not to the way how to extract info "between the lines". How from the report about smog in Los Angeles you may guess a blow-out in Chelyabinsk? As for front pages vs. back pages, you seem no forget the layout of the paper (or have never seen them) Their content is absolutely incomparable in terms what information domain was covered. The mentioned phrases deserve a separate article, kind of Propaganda mechanisms in the Soviet Union, since they are not restricted to Pravda. (...This anecdote with the punch lines: "Pravda?" -- "Net, Vechernij Tbilisi!", remember? :-)(off-topic, but reflects the attitude) Mikkalai 21:54, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My "bad news" example was given as an answer to Ambi's question, as an example of news fabrication. The Politbureau members order one was about the reading between the lines. Ambi seemed to be satisfied with the examples. I didn't address the front vs. back issue at all, it was in the original text; now that I think about it, I agree with you on this point. I still think, nevertheless, that, at least until the propaganda mechanisms article you call for is written, something on the "similar bad news" fabrication technique should be present. BACbKA 10:49, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As long as a source is found, I agree with BACbKA. Ambi 11:00, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, but it still goes under the title "propaganda", rather than "reading between lines", be it an article or subsection. Mikkalai 02:31, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Lenin medals

Image:Pravda-otsovruk-c.jpg is an image of Pravda from 1991 which does not have the Lenin medals next to the title. Image:KomsomolskayaPravdaRizospastis200509.jpg is an image of Komsomolskaya Pravda from 2005 which has the Lenin medals next to the title. They are not the same newspaper. The article claims that "The next editor-in-chief, Alexander Ilyin, handed Pravda's trademark — the Order of Lenin medals — and the new registration certificate over to the new owners". What is going on? I also remember reading a recent OSCE Magazine article showing Pravda with the Lenin medals. – Kaihsu 13:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The 1991 image had copyright problems. I reverted it to 1953 one (quite some time ago). ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pravda wasn't a newspaper

Pravda wasn't a newspaper, like the NYT or Le Figaro. It was a tool to control the society. It's a shame, that the article doesn't explain it. Some quotations of 1937 would be helpful. Xx236 14:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the article currently says that "Pravda became the conduit for announcing official policy and policy changes. It would remain so until 1991." What would you like to see added? Ahasuerus 14:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

There was a discussion about "reading between the lines" in 2004, no results. Maybe "Soviet propaganda" would be a better place for such informations, but it doesn't exist. Thank you for your comment - I don't understand what "conduit" exactly means regarding a newspaper.

Pravda, as any Soviet newspaper, was used to make cigarettes and as toilet paper (using Stalin's pictures was allegedly dangerous). Xx236 09:42, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Surely it was a newspaper, an official "organ of the CPSU". It served the ruling totalitarian regime and channeled its propaganda. You or I may dub it "toilet paper", but officially it was a newspaper. Please see WP:NOR ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 10:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

The distinction that Xx236 appears to be making is between a "newspaper" and a "gazette", i.e. an official publication printed by some organization or body, usually a government. Historically, social democratic (and later Communist) parties referred to their official newspapers as "organs", a term which doesn't have quite the same connotations in English. I am not sure what the best way of describing these shades of gray would be.

As far as the use of the term "conduit" goes, in this case it means "a means of transmitting or distributing [information]". If this is confusing, then we could change the wording to "Pravda became the [main] channel (?) for announcing official policy and policy changes." Do you think it would read better? Ahasuerus 13:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it is a step in the right direction. Is this better: "... one of the main channels announcing official policy changes and disseminating domestic Soviet propaganda." ←Humus sapiens ^ну? 04:22, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't claim that Pravda was only toilet paper. But the Wikipedia should inform, e.g. that the Soviet Union was a country without wrappings and toilet paper, as the result of the policy imposed by Pravda. And that there are many anecdotes, about people condemned, because they (mis)used Stalin's pictures. It would be interesting to know, if such anecdotes are based on facts, I bet there were many denunciacions of that kind. The reader should be informed what the Pravda was. It wasn't a newspaper like ones known to the readers. It was thin, boring, self-censored, didn't contain advertising. It didn't care about the reader. Do you know a newspaper printed for editor rather than for reasders? Do you call it a newspaper or rather a leaflet or bulletin? I'm not a native speaker to understand the difference. Letters to the editors of Pravda were probably faked, to pretend there existed public opinion in the SU. Such "newspapers" existed in any Communist country, but had local flavour, eg. Ceausescu's cult, different than the Stalin's one. The article should inform about such "newspapers", like Trybuna Ludu in Poland. Pravda was different under Stalin and under Breshnyev. The article should describe the differences. Pravda was obligatory for many Soviet institutions. Xx236 13:56, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

We don't invent terminology. It is called "newspaper". And it printed "news". Period. Different countries may have different styles of newspapers. Your argument "didn't contain advertising" makes me ROTFL. This joke is even better than about herring-wrapping. `'mikka (t) 17:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Pravda wasn't funny. Millions read Pravda and found terrible news there, even if "between the lines". Some of my comments are true for more Soviet "newspapers", so they should be in "Soviet press" or something like that. Generally newspapers contain advertising, economical informations, local informations. The majority of Sviet "newspapers" didn't contain such things. It's obvious for Soviet people, but not for an average reader of the English Wikipedia. Xx236 07:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

That's quite a few points. Let's see if we can discuss them one by one.

1. "Pravda was thin". If we could add the actual page count for different periods, that would be certainly useful.

2. "Pravda was boring". This one is tricky since "boring" is inherently POV. Perhaps an example of Pravda's editorial style and a few quotes from a couple of different periods could be given instead?

I mean, that the editors didn't care about the readers. Generally editors tend to catch the attention. The party totally controlled the society so it didn't need to interesting. Xx236 07:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, we already say that "Pravda became the conduit for announcing official policy and policy changes", which explains what kind of content was published in Pravda. Would you suggest expanding it further? Ahasuerus 23:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

3. "Pravda was self-censored". Is this an attempt to distinguish other, less important newspapers, which were subject to regular government censorship, from Pravda, which wasn't censored because its editors were high ranking Communist officials? If so, it is true that Pravda was a sui generis case, but on the other hand, its editors occasionally got into hot water with the higher ups, especially under Stalin. There are a few letters in that Stalin-Kaganovich volume that we could quote here.

4. "Letters to Pravda were probably faked". We should be able to find a Politburo decision making Pravda editors "responsible for organizing a popular campaign against/for XYZ".

5. "Pravda as a leaflet or bulletin". Unfortunately, the connotations would not be quite right.

6. "Pravda was different under Stalin and under Breshnyev. The article should describe the differences." This is certainly true, but it's not a trivial proposition.

7. "Pravda was obligatory for many Soviet institutions". That's a good point, we just need a source.

Probably more than 50% of the edition were "bought" by Soviet institutions, like trade, sovkhoses, banks. [Added by Xx236 ]

OK, I have found a source, adding it now. Ahasuerus 23:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

8. "the Soviet Union was a country without wrappings and toilet paper, as the result of the policy imposed by Pravda". If we try listing every single policy that Pravda promoted over a 70+ year period and what it arguably led to, we'll be encroaching on other articles' territory and make this one completely unmanageable.

9. "anecdotes, about people condemned, because they (mis)used Stalin's pictures". Sure, we can include it if we can find a source.

10. "didn't contain advertising". None of the leading Soviet newspapers published ads post-1930, so that's not really a distinguishing characteristic.

Where is this knowledge available in the Wikipedia, like several others allegedly obvious knowledge about the SU? If not - is it self-censure or censure (very active in many SU articles)? [by Xx236 ]

Don't get me wrong, please. Identifying gaps in Wikipedia coverage is a good thing and very much appreciated and encouraged, but there are tons of articles that are virtually begging to be written. To use a parallel example from Russian history, many leaders of the February Revolution (Bazarov, B.O. Bogdanov, Zenzinov, Steklov, Sukhanov, etc) do not have WP articles and some are not even mentioned. Other articles, e.g. Vladimir Lenin are content-free and POV-ridden to the point of being almost useless. Filling the gaps and correcting what's already there is just a question of time and resource allocation. Similarly, I don't think anybody is trying to conceal or censor anything re: Pravda, it's just a question of finding the best and most logical place for certain bits of information to live. Something that may not be a good fit in Pravda may find a loving home in another article. Ahasuerus 23:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

11. "Such "newspapers" existed in any Communist country, but had local flavour". If we can find sources that show that leading Communist newspapers in some/all Soviet satellite states were originally modeled after Pravda, that would be useful. Ahasuerus 17:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I have forgotten Soviet republics. Any republic had a local party gazette. I don't know the names of the papers, were they printed in Russian or local language, how many place offered they for Pravda reprints (or translations). Communist countries were under strong supervision 1948-1956 and had more authonomy befor and after. Rumania had very specific Ceausescu cult and relative independence. Communist newspapers reprinted translations of Pravda articles on the first page, sometimes. The problem of translating Pravda articles was important, any deviation was a crime. Generally newspapers don't offer the first page for reprints from Pravda, do they? Western Communist newspapers were partially Soviet, but had to challenge other newspapers. Yougoslavia and Albania had local Party newspapers, but anti-Soviet ones. Xx236 07:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is in dispute, but again it's a question of finding the best place for this type of information. Detailed information for each country can go into that country's article, while this article can be modified to say something like "After the establishment of Communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe after WWII, the newspapers of the local Communist parties were modelled after Pravda". We'll just need a source for this claim; I think I have something in the back of my library. Ahasuerus 23:56, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean Pravda, but eg. Soviet Union, NKVD (especially The NKVD and the Soviet economy), where much effort has been done to consor me rather than to write something.

An example of Pravda "clone" was Pravda (Slovakia). The statement "In the past, the newspaper was the Slovak equivalent of the Soviet/Russian newspaper Pravda" isn't however informative. The Polish one Trybuna Ludu doesn't have an article yet, there is Rudé právo. Xx236 13:40, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pravda in jokes

The nuspaper was a target of numerous jokes. One of them is already in "Russian joke"

• A Georgian comes to see proctologist complaining about constipation. The doctor looks into his ass and says: "There is a newspaper stuck in your ass, genatsvale!" - "Pravda!?" (translation: "Is that so!?") - "No, Morning Tbilisi!" (to the question of toilet paper raised above)
• A worker about to be joining CPSU is asked a tricky question at partkom (Party committee): What do you prefer: "Pravda newspaper or Radio Liberty?" - "Of course Pravda!" - The partkom secretary, happy with the political consciousness of the candidate, decides to probe a bit further: "Why so?" - "Why, that's clear to everyone: you cannt wrap a herring (comment: the second main snack for vodka, beaten only by pickled cucumber) in a radio!" `'mikka (t) 05:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
• Surprisingly, I don't remember any jokes about cigarettes wrapped (samokrutka) from Pravda. `'mikka (t) 05:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)