Soviet Newspapers Take Heat From Kremlin, Publish Critical Letters

Two Soviet newspapers are taking criticism from the new Kremlin leadership to heart, publishing complaints that the official press tries to hide the truth.

One striking letter in the daily Sovietskaya Rossiya recently said, “They must have the courage to tell people about unexpected or negative events.”

The letters, also published by the government daily Izvestia, were the latest evidence of a debate on how much the tightly controlled media should report.

They reflect a campaign by the new leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for more openness from the country’s administrators and more frank reporting from the press.

Though strictly orthodox in his commitment to the one-party state, Gorbachev has made it clear that he thinks the public can be trusted with more information.

He has set the example by allowing himself to be seen facing questions from foreign reporters on sensitive topics and allowing President Reagan to set out his views in a New Year’s message on state television.

Different Aims Than West

Unlike news media in the West, the Soviet press and broadcasting system have the primary task of promoting support for the Communist Party and loyalty to the state.

To this end, “bad” news affecting the Soviet Union or its allies is rarely reported, leaving people to glean information from foreign radio broadcasts and a thriving rumor mill. The rule affects disasters such as fires and plane crashes.

One letter in Sovietskaya Rossiya compared the heavy publicity given by the state media to the recent Mexican earthquake and Colombian volcano disaster with their near-silence on a killer quake in Soviet Central Asia.

‘Lack of Faith’

“Such silence gives me the impression that it is based on nothing but lack of faith in readers and viewers--as if they might somehow misunderstand,” the letter writer said.

A letter in Izvestia complained that the newspaper had failed to report on a rash of deaths through poisoning by illicit alcohol in Moscow in November.

“They talk about openness as a sign of trust in the people, and in practice . . . they keep many things secret.”

Other letters pointed at attempts to hush up failings in the Soviet economy and to overpraise dubious achievements. “Things do not get better with loud reports and the beating of drums,” said one letter in Sovietskaya Rossiya, a party newspaper that has led the drive for more open reporting.

Late last year, it also led a campaign against the Moscow city administration, implicating the city party boss, Viktor V.Grishin, and its mayor, Vladimir Promyslov.

Both men lost their jobs. Though Grishin was widely seen as likely to be removed by the new leadership, it was highly unusual for a member of the Kremlin’s ruling Politburo to come under fire, even indirectly, in the press.

Acted as Policemen

The state media have for some time acted as policemen, exposing incompetence and dishonesty among the lower levels of officialdom.

Analysts in Western embassies say a question implied by the debate over the media is how far they can go in discussion, criticism and exposing failures without casting doubt on the wisdom of the party.

For example, it would be unthinkable for a newspaper to suggest criticism of the Soviet role in Afghanistan.

The drive for openness is not aimed at objectivity in the Western sense, but at giving more credibility to official views promoted by the press, read daily by about 150 million people, and television news, watched by 100 million.

The most authoritative newspaper, Pravda, set out the argument in an editorial in December accusing the rest of the press of boring and repetitive reporting that left readers skeptical and indifferent.

Stop Being Dull

Pravda said the media should stop being dull and inspire the people to greater heights.

Pravda and the rest of the state media showed the limits to openness by failing to report all but the least controversial sections of a speech on the same theme by poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Addressing an official writers’ congress in Moscow in December, Yevtushenko blasted newspaper editors and book publishers for lying, distorting the facts and complacency.

Echoing Gorbachev’s calls he said, “Articles rhetorically calling for openness are not the same as openness itself.”

Like other commentators on the theme, he said honest reporting is needed to defend the Soviet system against attack from its enemies who concoct anti-Soviet news “from things that we hide and hush up.”

A nation that allows itself to analyze its own mistakes and tragedies “bravely knocks the ideological weapon out of its enemies’ hands,” he said.

One official weekly reported the speech, with the most outspoken sections edited out.