Soviet military journals and newspapers play a well-defined r61e in furthering the missions of the armed forces in the U.S.S.R. While these organs may not furnish us much information of a technical nature, they do indicate how Soviet propaganda operates at home, and sometimes they give us an idea of aims and missions by the very topics they avoid.
The Russian Navy sponsors a professional review called Morskoy Zbornik, a monthly that has appeared with few interruptions since its founding in 1848. The Morskoy Zbornik bears an official character and is not too different in aims from our own United States Naval Institute Proceedings. A complete file of this review up to 1940 is available at the Library of Congress. Since that time it has become increasingly difficult to find more than an occasional copy of the Zbornik, although it has probably not suspended publication at any time. At present, the review is rather detailed in coverage of foreign navies; discussions of the Russian fleet are generally of an historical or inspirational nature.
On February 6, 1938, there appeared the first number of the central navy newspaper Krasnii Flot (Red Fleet), organ of the People’s Commissariat of the Navy of the U.S.S.R. This daily now bears the label Krasnii Flot, Newspaper of the Naval Forces (Organ of the Ministry of Armed Forces of the Union of S.S.R.). Like the other well- known dailies, Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star, the Army newspaper), Pravda (Truth, the party newspaper), Izvestia (News, organ of the Councils of Workers’ Deputies), the Krasnii Flot is a four-page sheet devoid of advertising but carrying an occasional halftone of officers or men to be emulated, plus the ever-present photographs of Stalin and Lenin. Copies of Krasnii Flot may be procured by subscription through agencies of Mejlidounarodnaya Kniga (International Book). Deriving our material from a complete set of back numbers for 1948, we shall give a brief sketch of recent tendencies in the Soviet military press.
Page One usually presents an editorial on some phase of navy morale or training. The word ‘navy’ is used in a broad sense here, and includes much of a so-called political nature. The style of the editorial is highly didactic and pounds incessantly on a number of basic themes: “On to new victories!”; “Keep studying your job!”; “Communism is getting closer to being a reality”; “Take care of government property”; “Strive for teamwork”; “Along the Leninist route under the leadership of Stalin.” The frequency of one of these themes, i.e., “Take care of government property,” seems to indicate that there is a serious problem confronting Soviet authorities in teaching the citizen of the communist state a proper appreciation of the value of machinery and other materiel. It is possible that reports of conditions aboard the Murmansk-Milwaukee were indicative of a general laxity aboard Soviet ships. It is hardly worthwhile translating many samples from these editorials. We give a few lines from “Greetings to the Fleet” of January 1, 1948:
“The mighty work of Marx-Engels-Lenin- Stalin lives and prevails. The forces of democracy and socialism grow and wax strong throughout the world; the forces of imperialism are weakening. The rout of German fascism weakened the world positions of capitalism, strengthened the anti-fascist movement, and brought about the withdrawal of a number of countries of Central and southeastern Europe from the imperialistic system. The peoples of these countries, having created democratic republics, are haying the solid foundation of transition on the path to socialistic development. At the same time, the forces of democracy are growing even in countries where the power of capital still reigns.
“Marxism-Leninism teaches that war is the all- around test of the material and spiritual forces of each people. Our people has passed this test with honor. Having shown its strength in war, the Soviet socialistic system is successfully coping with the difficult and complex task of post-war reconstruction and the development of the national economy. Not so in capitalistic countries. Many of them did not stand the test of war, and now they cannot cope with post-war problems.
“The past year (1947) brought the peoples of capitalistic countries new and difficult trials and deprivations. Everywhere in the countries of capitalism there is observed a lowering standard of living for workers, increase of unemployment, aggravation of the food crisis. Industrial production of capitalist countries of Europe has not yet attained pre-war levels, and in France and Italy has recently decreased. Currency is being devaluated as it is issued in unlimited quantities, disorganizing the entire economic life. The economic crisis is inexorably nearing the very citadel of capitalism—the land of the dollar. The new year promises nothing good to the capitalistic world.”
The tone of this editorial is familiar to those who have read Soviet periodicals; the message is one that has been repeated in season and out of season with a monotony palatable only to a fanatic or to one of narrowed views. One phrase might be considered the response to an unending litany of Soviet virtues: “But it is not thus in capitalistic countries.”
The second half of Page One is usually devoted to reports of industrial ‘norms’ fulfilled or ‘overfulfilled.’ 'These reports are often in the form of letters from secretaries of the local soviets to Tovarishch Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovitch, or congratulatory letters from party leaders to the glorious toilers of a given area.
Reading further in Krasnii Flot we find a number of articles criticizing materiel, or pointing out deficiencies in recreational activities at officers’ and enlisted men’s clubs. Inferior boats are being turned out at a certain yard. An officer complains that the club at N. is so poorly operated that no one cares to use it. Another letter describes the complete lack of ‘political’ work aboard the Murmansk, with consequent decline in morale aboard. This type of ‘complaint department’ has long been a feature of Soviet publications, and must not be taken as evidence of any possible difference of opinion from the established party discipline.
The chauvinistic program of the Soviet press, which seeks to prove that all inventions of any importance have been anticipated by Russians, had not reached full intensity in 1948. Nevertheless, there are in these issues feature articles which prove to Soviet seamen that mines (torpedoes) and anti-mine devices (blisters) were invented by Gulyev, parabolic projectors (searchlights) by Chikolev. Krilov took the first steps toward compartmentation in ships, and Popov invented the radio. It is well-known that inventions are usually based on the work of hundreds of predecessors to the man who actually receives credit for exploiting a given device, but the Soviet party-inspired campaign is conducted in a spirit of reproach to western peoples who have, it is claimed, falsified history in order to rob Russian genius of its share of glory.
Complaints about the lack of books in navy libraries both at sea and in shore establishments are frequently printed in the newspaper. Reviews of new books or of editions of old books are, however, comparatively rare and quite brief. The only long review of a Russian book was that of M. Stavitzer’s Russians on Spitzbergen, 1948. Several reviews of foreign books translated into Russian are printed. Such reviews are either completely damning or highly laudatory. A particularly scathing attack is made by Captain of the 1st Rank (Commodore) Chorohvatov on Captain Harley F. Cope’s book Command at Sea.
“'The entire book is infused with a spirit of lying propaganda, hypocritical preaching of bourgeois morality and bigotry. Let us add that H. Cope’s book contains no useful information or important practical advice to the seaman.”
And so on for several columns. Captain Cope may find some consolation in the fact that the Russian editor, Commander G. Shoumeiko, shares the blame because lie did not in his preface warn the reader of these ‘insidious lies.’ But the translation was obviously done in the era of ‘good feeling’ before V-E and V-J days marked the end of Soviet cooperation with the west. On the other hand, Howard Fast’s Last Frontier merits the highest praise for showing up the West’s treatment of the red Indian. A projected companion volume by Fast on the negro is mentioned by the reviewer with pleasurable anticipation.
Paul W. Martin’s article in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings, “The Russian Navy, Past, Present, Future,” receives a vituperative report such as only a Russian could write without using profanity.
“Throughout the entire article P. Martin hands out idle fiction for ‘scientific knowledge.’ He serves the readers fantastic inventions about the composition and character of the Soviet Fleet, slanders our Russian sailors, our Russian people. No matter what question he discusses in his article, P. Martin distorts the truth, falsifies facts, conceals the realities from his readers.”
We believe that any article by an American on this topic would get the same treatment in Krasnii Flot.
A new tendency, or at least one we had not noticed before, is the practice of differentiating between foreign workers friendly to the Communist Party and those hostile to it. The latter are now called ‘laborisiti’ (laborists) as contrasted with the general term ‘rabochi’ (workers) commonly used to designate all members of the working class. It would appear that the party has abandoned the pretense that all workers are potential supporters of international communism.
The problem pf unification of the armed forces is not discussed by the Soviet press, but we can detect that some struggle has been taking place either on the political or strategic level. The Russian Navy has been definitely the junior branch of the service under the Bolsheviks, although there was some attempt to raise its prestige during the war by the creation of two Admirals of the Fleet, a rank which except for command purposes is the equivalent of Marshal and which had not been in use since Tsarist days. As we know, the first such Admiral of the Fleet, Kouznetsov, People’s Commissar of the Navy at the age of 38, passed out of the picture with the new set-up of the Ministry of the Armed Forces. It is worth noting that during 1948 all pronouncements of importance were made in Krasnii Flot by Minister of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R., Marshal of the Soviet Union, N. A. Bulganin. In contrast to these two-page orders- of-the-day by Bulganin we find an occasional brief ‘chat’ with Admiral Youmashev, Commander-in-Chief of the Naval Forces of the U.S.S.R. The contents of these articles by Youmashev are so stereotyped that the reader feels they were written for the Navy by some political Commissar.
Accounts of United Nations’ activities are covered rather fully, at least when the Soviet representative speaks. In the autumn issues of the journal, as much as two full pages are given over to daily coverage of Vishinsky on the A-bomb, Indonesia, etc. Full-page articles are likewise devoted to the utterances of Marshall Sokolovsky in the control council with emphasis on alleged violations of the Potsdam agreements. The American disclosures of Soviet-German relations in 1939- 40 were answered by a series of articles running up to three pages in length.
It must not be supposed, however, that Soviet journalism has to invent attacks on the American way of life. Re-working our own muck-raking press gives plenty of material, such as the evaluation of the American judiciary in the Woman’s Home Companion, which stated that “90 per cent of American judges are incompetent.” The Russian editor begins his article with a quotation: “New Yorkers say, ‘Our courts have the best judges that money can buy.’” If the Russian reader has a sense of humor, the Soviet press makes no allowance for it.
In our final evaluation of the Soviet military press, we cannot help feeling that the value of Krasnii Flot and Morskoy Zbornik is diminished by the extreme paucity of technical information for the officer or enlisted man. Foreign navies are covered quite well, but comments on the Soviet Navy are confined to articles of inspirational and propagandists nature. The editorial theme in its broadest sense is limited to the two sides of a single phonograph record: (a) the glorification of Soviet society; (b) the vilification of American capitalistic society. The implications of such a press, representing as it does the official voice of a one-party state, is a matter which may safely be left to the thoughtful reader.