Pravda or Consequences

“Why,” asked Vladimir Lenin, “should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? Ideas are more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?”

Why indeed? By the time Soviet Union’s first leader posed these questions in 1920, the Communist Party was well on its way to suppressing all political opposition, and those who held power intuitively understood the necessity for proscribing press freedom. Control what people are permitted to know and you control a lot of what they might think.

Only recently, as Mikhail S. Gorbachev tries in fits and starts to steer the Soviet Union toward the 21st Century, is the idea starting to break down that state interests demand a rigidly controlled press. There are some in the Soviet hierarchy who think this change is coming too fast. Gorbachev himself sometimes sounds like one of them.

A week ago, Gorbachev castigated the country’s leading journalists for being too free in their reporting and in their commentary, even calling on Vladislav A. Starkov, editor of the Soviet Union’s top-selling newspaper Argumenty I Facty, to resign. Starkov, strongly supported by the staff of the 26-million circulation weekly, has so far refused. Defiance or no, Gorbachev’s criticisms nonetheless have been seen as sending a chill through proponents of a freer press.

One editor who presumably felt no need to button up his ideological overcoat was Viktor G. Afanasyev, the conservative and comfortably entrenched editor of Pravda, the party’s official paper. Entrenched, that is, until two days ago, when he was suddenly relieved of his job and replaced by a close Gorbachev crony. Berate the radicals, but move against the conservatives: If nothing else, Gorbachev knows how to keep people guessing.

There’s good reason to think that Gorbachev in fact is genuinely upset over some of the criticism that has appeared in the more liberated press; his complaints, in this view, were not just a smoke screen for getting control of Pravda. There’s also good reason to think that Gorbachev’s timing had everything to do with next week’s scheduled debate in the Supreme Soviet on a new law covering press freedom.

The Soviet Union isn’t likely to soon see its own version of the First Amendment, though it could see an effort to explicitly guarantee a freer--which is not the same thing as a free--press. That would be an important advance, but one not without some risks. Right now, liberals in the press may constantly test the boundaries of what is allowable. Codifying those boundaries could provide certain legal protections, but the act of definition also imposes limits. The scheduled debate promises to be an interesting test of political strength in the Supreme Soviet, and no doubt a test of political prudence as well.