On the Road to Insurrection/The Freedom of the Press
On The Freedom of the Press
THE capitalists (and in their train, either through stupidity or crass ignorance, numerous Social-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks) define "freedom of the Press" as the suppression of the censor and the power for every party to publish newspapers as they please.
In reality that is not freedom of the Press, but freedom for the rich, for the bourgeoisie, to deceive the oppressed and exploited masses of the people.
There is no doubt about this. Take, for example, the newspapers of Petrograd or Moscow. You will see at the first glance that from their circulation the Ryetch, the Birjovka,[1] the Novoye Vremya,[2] the Russkoye Slovo,[3] and so on and so forth (for their name is legion) have an undoubted preponderance. On what is this preponderance based? One could not say that it was based on the will of the majority, for the elections show that in the two capitals the majority (and the vast majority) is on the side of the democracy, that is the Social-Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks. These three parties comprise from three-quarters to four-fifths of the total poll[4] while the number of copies of their newspapers equals only a quarter or even a fifth of those belonging to the whole bourgeois Press (which, as we know now and see now, defended Kornilov both directly and indirectly). This because the publication of a newspaper is a capitalist enterprise in which the rich invest millions and millions of roubles. "Freedom of the Press" in bourgeois society means the power given to the rich of systematic, unceasing, daily, million-sale perversion and deception of the poor, of the exploited and the oppressed masses.
This is the simple self-evident truth of which everybody is well aware, but of which hardly anybody dares whisper a word.
The question before us is: Is struggle against such an appalling state of affairs possible and, if so, how can it be carried out?
There exists a very simple method and a perfectly legitimate one which I indicated a long time ago in the Pravda, one which it is particularly opportune to remember on this memorable September 12.[5] The workers ought never to lose sight of this means because it is almost certain that they will be compelled to make use of it when they have the power.
This method is the State monopoly of newspaper advertisement.
Glance at the Russkoye Slovo, the Novoye Vremya, the Ryetch, &c., and you will see a large number of advertisements bringing in enormous returns, which represent the clearest source of profit of the capitalist publishers of these papers. This is how they enrich themselves while they poison the people. This applies to every bourgeois newspaper in the whole world.
In Europe there are newspapers of which copies are printed equal to a third of the inhabitants of the town where they appear (for example 12,000 for a population of 40,000); and which, though they are distributed free to every house, nevertheless give an excellent income to their publishers. These newspapers live on advertisements paid for by individuals, and free house-to-house delivery is the best way to assure the success of this form of publicity.
Why is it that a democracy, calling itself revolutionary, cannot carry through a measure like newspaper advertisement monopoly (for the profit of the State)? Why can it not forbid the printing of advertisements except in papers published by the Soviets in the provinces, or by the Central Soviet in Petrograd for all Russia? Why must the revolutionary democracy tolerate the fact that only the rich, the partisans of Kornilov, who scatter lies and calumny against the Soviets, should make themselves still richer by private advertisement?
This measure would be indisputably a just one. It would give enormous advantage to those who print the advertisements as well as to all the people, particularly to the most oppressed and the most ignorant portions of the peasant class, who would then be able to receive for a very small price, or even gratis, the Soviet newspapers with special supplements for the countryside.[6]
The day of the summoning of the Democratic Conference. Why not carry through this measure? Solely because the right of private ownership and inheritance is a holy thing to these capitalist gentlemen.
Strange that at the time of our second revolution men who recognise the sanctity of this right dare still to call themselves revolutionary democrats of the twentieth century!
All that is nonsense. This monopoly would restore and extend the freedom of the Press, the possibility of printing freely all the opinions of all the citizens. What do we see now? At present it is only wealthy men or the large political parties that prevent this monopoly. Whereas if big Soviet newspapers were published all advertisements could appear solely in them and it would be possible to guarantee expression of opinion for a much larger number of citizens, for example, for every group which had collected a certain number of signatures. Freedom of the Press, thanks to this transformation, would become much more democratic and incomparably more complete.
But where are the printing works or the paper coming from?
We shall see ! That has nothing to do with the "Freedom of the Press." It concerns the holy proprietorship of exploiters over the printing establishments and the stocks of paper which they have procured.
For what reason should we workers and peasants recognise this sacrosanct right? In what way is this "right" to publish false information better than the "right" to own serfs?
Why is it that during the war commandeering of all kinds—houses, apartments and vehicles as well as horses, cereals and metals—was allowed everywhere, while the commandeering of printing works and paper is not allowed?
No, you can deceive the workers for a time representing these measures as unjust or hard to accomplish, but in the long run truth will triumph.
- ↑ The Stock Exchange Gazette, journal of information without any precise political tendencies, but supported by finance.
- ↑ New Times, a thoroughly monarchist paper, nationalist, anti-Semitic, though it hides these tendencies at the moment.
- ↑ The Voice of Russia, the Moscow paper with a very wide provincial circulation.
- ↑ In the municipal elections of Petrograd on August 20, the Socialist parties altogether obtained 154 seats, against the Cadets' 142.
- ↑ The day of the summoning of the Democratic Conference.
- ↑ One of the first decrees of the Soviet Government of November 8, 1917, proclaims the insertion of advertisements to be the monopoly of the State carried out in the Izvestia of the Soviets.