Soviet Ideology Chief Calls for Less Western ‘Mass Culture’

Yegor K. Ligachev, the No. 2 man in the Kremlin, has called for more “socialist realism” and less Western “mass culture” in Soviet art and literature.

In a speech reported Tuesday, Ligachev seemed to be taking a more conservative approach to the arts than that found in Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness.

He cautioned against “democratic excesses” in the cultural field and in the mass media during a visit to the editorial offices of Soviet Culture, a daily newspaper that has been airing long-taboo topics in its columns.

The 66-year-old Ligachev, who is in charge of ideology in the Politburo, indicated his concern that focusing excessive attention on abuses of the Stalin Era might overshadow the Soviet Union’s accomplishments as its 70th anniversary approaches.

In this respect, he lined up with conservative figures in the Communist Party who have expressed fear that Gorbachev has gone too far in public airing of criticism and in rehabilitating writers and others who once were in disfavor.

He urged artistic unions and the Soviet press to “take a clear ideological position and assert party and socialist principles,” according to an account in Soviet Culture.

Ligachev has supported Gorbachev’s policies for economic and social reform but apparently prefers a more moderate pace of change.

In his latest reported speech, he supported the positions of senior officials of the writers’ union who complained about “negative tendencies” in recent books and articles.

“In some works you do not even find the word Communist, and literary critics avoid the very concept of socialist realism and the positive hero . . . as though these were no longer in fashion,” Ligachev complained.