ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output A Compass in the Sea of Life: Soviet Journalism, the Public, and the Limits of Reform After Stalin, 1953- 1968 https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40022/ Version: Full Version Citation: Huxtable, Simon (2013) A Compass in the Sea of Life: Soviet Journalism, the Public, and the Limits of Reform After Stalin, 1953-1968. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email A Compass in the Sea of Life Soviet Journalism, the Public, and the Limits of Reform After Stalin, 1953-1968 Simon Huxtable Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of London 2012 2 I confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own, and the work of other persons is appropriately acknowledged. Simon Huxtable The copyright of this thesis rests with the author, who asserts his right to be known as such according to the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. No dealing with the thesis contrary to the copyright or moral rights of the author is permitted. 3 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the development of Soviet journalism between 1953 and 1968 through a case study of the youth newspaper Komsomol’skaia pravda. Stalin’s death removed the climate of fear and caution that had hitherto characterised Soviet journalism, and allowed for many values to be debated and renegotiated. This study examines these debates within their wider professional, social, and political contexts, and thus illuminates the possibilities and limits of reform in the post-Stalin era. In a period of rising educational levels, a widely-perceived crisis of youth values, and growing mass media saturation both from within the Soviet Union and from outside, Komsomol’skaia pravda journalists’ understanding of themselves as protectors and educators of the public came into conflict with the belief that the press should be entertaining and informative. Moreover, there were continued tensions between the requirement for the press to be a beacon of social change, which journalists enthusiastically embraced, and the need for it to ensure social stability. This led to the collapse of the Stalinist ‘propaganda state’ model. The thesis comprises five short thematic histories, each discussing different facets of the newspaper’s work. It arrays a wide range of sources, from memoirs to Agit-Prop documents, but its main sources are the newspapers themselves and the transcripts of editorial discussions and Party meetings, which together explain not only what was published, but why. By examining the press from the point of view of its producers, this study challenges previous interpretations of Soviet propaganda. It shows that Soviet journalists were not wholly subservient to Party dictates, but were not dissidents either. Instead, the thesis suggests that the professionalization of journalism and relaxation of political controls allowed journalists to develop shared norms and establish priorities that borrowed from, but differed from those of the Party, leading to frequent conflict and confusion. 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..........................................................................................7 A NOTE ON ARCHIVAL REFERENCES .....................................................................9 INTRODUCTION | Party Assistants or Professionals? Rethinking Soviet Journalism after Stalin ..........................................................................................11 1 From Lenin to Khrushchev .............................................................................16 2 Journalists as Professionals............................................................................25 3 The Death of the Propaganda State? ..............................................................33 4.1 The Press and the Party...............................................................................47 4.2 Structure of the Komsomol’skaia pravda redaktsiia....................................50 5 Overview .........................................................................................................51 CHAPTER 1 | Shortcomings: The Limits of Press Criticism Before and After Stalin ......................................................................................................................56 1 The Press under Late Stalinism......................................................................58 2 1956 and the Creation of a New Model ..........................................................61 3 “Criticise, but Don’t Make A Fuss!” Criticism under Brezhnev ......................84 CHAPTER 2 | Making News Soviet: Changing Attitudes to Information after Stalin’s Death .........................................................................................................99 1 Facts and Factlets: The Epistemology of Soviet Information ...................... 100 2.1 “The Bread of the Paper”: Debates about Information under Khrushchev ......................................................................................................................... 109 2.2 Adzhubei’s Dialectics: Den’ mira ............................................................... 118 3.1 Trespassers welcome? .............................................................................. 124 3.2 Tashkent 1966 ........................................................................................... 133 5 CHAPTER 3 | Edited Subjects: “Letters, Diaries and Notebooks of Our Contemporaries” and the Rise and Fall of ‘Romantika’ ...................................... 143 1 The Emergence of Romantika ...................................................................... 145 2 Edited Subjects ............................................................................................. 152 3 Spaces and Things ........................................................................................ 164 4 Epilogue: The End of Romantika .................................................................. 180 CHAPTER 4 | “This number says a lot”: The Institute of Public Opinion and the Rebirth of Polling in the Soviet Union (1960-68) ............................................... 189 1 Beginnings: 1917-1960 ................................................................................ 191 2 1960-1963: The Early Surveys ..................................................................... 197 3 What is Public Opinion For? ......................................................................... 207 4 1964-1968: Endgame ................................................................................... 216 5 Doublethink? ................................................................................................ 230 CHAPTER 5 | “The reader is not an icon”: from the Reader-citizen to the Reader- consumer ............................................................................................................. 234 1 The Audience Before the Twentieth Party Congress ................................... 235 2.1 After Stalin ................................................................................................. 240 2.2 The Young Communards’ Club and the Scarlet Sail .................................. 243 2.3 “The Club is Open – Come In!” ................................................................... 250 2.4 “All women are offended by your thoughtlessness!” ................................ 254 3.1 The Decline of the Reader-citizen ............................................................. 261 3.2 Selling Komsomolka .................................................................................. 265 3.3 Sociology and the ‘Mass Reader’ ............................................................... 269 CONCLUSION | A Compass in the Sea of Life: Journalists and their Public Before and After the Prague Spring ................................................................................ 280 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................... 288 6 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Komsomol’skaia pravda Editorial Structure, 1957 55 FIGURE 2: Column Space Devoted to Different Geographical Locations, 1951 187 FIGURE 3: Column Space Devoted to Different Geographical Locations, 1961 188 FIGURE 4: List of Surveys Undertaken by the IOM 233 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has benefited from the generous support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Funding for research at the Hoover Institution was provided by the Royal Historical Society, who also, along with the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, awarded funds to attend the ASEEES conference in Washington DC in 2011. The process of completing this PhD has been made incomparably easier by a number of people who went out of their way to offer assistance. Anna Pilkington and Ol’ga Makarova were kind enough to allow me to audit their Russian language courses at Queen Mary, University of London at the start of my studies, without which none of what followed would have been possible. My thanks also to the administrative and library staff at Birkbeck College, who have provided help throughout help throughout my MA and PhD. Galina Mikhailovna Tokareva in the Komsomol archive provided no end of helpful advice and assistance,