Soviet Presswatch/Mr. Personality

...But he's saying all the right things, in a way Gorbachev never has...

...to which Yeltsin gamely replied, "Oh, I've still got plenty of things to do...

...They agreed to tear up the reports if the homeowners signed the required political statements...

...It seems the All-Union Broadcasting Company is vetting candidates for the positions of TV channel directors, the litmus test being loyalty to Kravchenko's policies...

...I believe that even among Communists, there are plenty of intelligent people and people who do not share the position of conservative forces...

...It does," said Yeltsin, "and believe me, I find it unpleasant...

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...The very first caller inquired, "When are you going to croak...

...the two words finally attaining, in the Russian mind, the equality they deserve...

...It's for writers and researchers, not computer experts...

...The most ironic aspect of this affair is that, according to Starostin, Kravchenko may have found out about the planned ambush from Nezavisimaya Gazeta...

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...On March 14, Komsomolskaya Pravda published a "direct line" transcript of Yeltsin's call-in dialogue with people around the country, held on March 11 and advertised in the paper in advance...

...In the meantime, the battle of Russia vs...

...To make it even more confusing, the weekly Kommersant reported (March 25-April 1) that at a March 28 press conference at the Soviet Cinematographers' Union, a spokesman for the Russian Broadcasting Company, Vitaly Maksimov, said Russian TV would start broadcasting six hours a day on April 15...

...Whether that is the foremost concern on Soviet people's minds is a little doubtful...

...Referring to the Russian government's demand that Channel 2 be given to the republic—which is what Yeltsin claims Gorbachev had repeatedly promised him—Lazutkin alleged that several republics had threatened to stop broadcasting the channel if that were done...

...Starostin then asks Kravchenko to comment on the astonishing statement by Yuri Luchinsky of the Russian parliament's committee on the media that Central TV's Channel 1 (especially heavy on pro-Gorby, anti-Yeltsin propaganda) might be blacked out in the Russian republic...

...All because of paper clutter...

...Soviet leadership of the airwaves goes on...

...Paper clutter makes you inefficient, frustrated, and can really hurt your career...

...That's right...

...The Ivanoyevsky family from Perm, with their last lightbulb burnt out and no new ones available in the stores, wants to know where one can get some spills—the matchwood pre-revolutionary peasants burned to light their cabins...

...Clean up your desk and briefcase...

...He may not be too refined, he may still have the bearing of a provincial party boss, and he may at times exaggerate his good-guy record...

...As for us . . ." I bet a lot of American politicians are secretly nostalgic for the time when they could say such things...

...Call now...

...At the end, asked what he would do if the doorbell rang one evening and Mr...

...And what of the man of the hour himself...

...Last fall, teacher/writer Natalya Loginova asserted in Literaturnaya Gazeta, arguing for more sex education and birth control programs in Soviet schools, that such things were quite standard in the United States—with no objections from parents or the public...

...Finding violations [of fire safety rules, for example], they would write up reports and threaten to impose fines...

...Send No Money...

...One of those overzealousadmirers popped up next: "Is a people that tramples on its own reason and harasses intellectuals worthy of Yeltsin or of democracy...

...A 56-year-old teacher from Novorossiysk writes that he is forced to retire "because my torn boots have breathed their last...

...The March 8, 1991, issue of Kuranty ("Chimes"), the weekly newspaper of the Moscow City Council, reports that after Boris Yeltsin's TV speech calling for Gorbachev's resignation, the pro-Yeltsin telegrams received by Soviet Central TV weighed in at 20 kilos (44 lbs...

...He named only the Ukraine...

...Some think so...

...We allow various political opinions, but we are categorically against frank opposition to Gorbachev...

...Yeltsin, criticized by some liberals for not taking a stand against anti-Semitism, acquitted himself well, saying that he had never singled out any group and favored equal rights for all, and advising the caller to "try to judge people by other criteria than the nationality column in their passports...

...Now, in the March 23 Komsomolskaya Pravda, "sexologist" Sergei Agarkov sighs enviously that, in the blessed West, a woman is treated as "a decorative object, a pampered creature...

...The question of how women are treated in the West and in the Soviet Union brings me back for a moment to the "direct line" Yeltsin interview...

...The nicest part of the tale is that, according to DU-Inform, the insults hurled at the anarchists included "Fascists...

...and Mrs...

...It's a classic carrot-and-stick method, but the CPSU's stick is wearing thin: from firing squad to fire inspection...

...Gorbachev stood in the doorway, Yeltsin replied, "First of all, I'd invite them in...

...This is technically possible, via satellite...

...I must confess I'm beginning to like the man...

...A woman from Saratov asked caustically, "When you see your patriots at rallies and people applaud your every appearance, does that remind you of anything...

...DU-Inform reports (April 2) that on April Fools' Day, a group of young anarchists wanted to Writers, Researchers...

...Of the thirty-five calls, seven were clearly hostile, thirteen supportive, and the rest neutral or unclear...

...Yeltsin: "I'm not persecuting anyone...

...When I called Starostin in Moscow on April 11 to inquire about Kravchenko's fate, he said that the broadcasting chief simply did not show up at the meeting...

...This is not to say the Yeltsinites are models of tolerance...

...Tatiana from Sverdlovsk writes: "You know, never once in my life have I eaten my fill of oranges, not even of apples...

...forward, with everyone else, into our radiant future—forward to Communism...

...Early in March, Vladimir Pozner told me that, as of March 13, the Russian Federation was going to get six hours of airtime a day on Central TV's Channel 2 (see "Updating the Pozner File," TAS, May 1991...

...My Moscow friend Dmitry Starostin was present at Kravchenko's March 21 meeting with deputies of legislatures at the Ostankino TV tower (where, he notes, police were posted at the doors of on-air studio sets), and then obtained an exclusive interview which appeared in Nezavisimaya Ga- -zeta ("The Independent Gazette") on March 23...

...If after 30 days of use you want to keep it, send us just $99, (a savings of $100 from our list price of $199...

...A lady doctor so agitated that she finally hung up in mid-sentence berated Yeltsin for embracing "forces whose slogans are, `Down with the Soviet socialist system,' and 'the Red scum have ruined Russia,' " and asked, "Why do you now persecute others for their convictions...

...I can't get new ones, and to stand before my students in bedroom slippers is too embarrassing...

...and anti Yeltsin ones at 300 grams (10.5 oz...

...Worst of all, you lose some of your best ideas, just when they would do the most good for your career...

...Yeltsin replied, unwittingly echoing Brecht, that the government does not elect the people but vice versa, and added some nice things about the Russian people's great potential...

...This program saved my neck when faced with teaching two new courses and only two months to prepare...

...Next caller: "Why are you so partial to the Jews...

...One may only express regrets that we have come to this . . ." In its following issue, Nezavisimaya Gazeta (which comes out three times a week) reported that the Moscow section of the Journalists' Union was set to expel "the executioner of glasnost" from its ranks at its March 27 meeting...

...Is he a Gorby 11...

...Meanwhile, a March 13 dispatch by the recently founded Moscow-based News and Information Agency (ANI) says that local Communist party committees have mounted a campaign of letters and petitions condemning Yeltsin, using very creative methods: Police and fire squads have been coming to some villages and inspecting the villagers' homes...

...the order, however, was countermanded...

...Preserve those precious ideas...

...Well, the women will go to the kitchen and talk about women's things...

...Of Torn Boots and Fried Chicken Kravchenko likes to assert that he's cutting down on all that political stuff because the public wants more entertainment on TV...

...Kravchenko also speaks of a "secret order" to block the signals of Soviet radio's Channel 1 using Russian civil defense systems, and put the proYeltsin Radio Russia on its frequencies...

...Yeltsin's reply: the best way to help ethnic Russians in such areas was not by tanks but by agreements between the governments of the republics, and he was already working on such agreements with Baltic leaders...

...Added Kravchenko, "We have no censorship...

...Sometimes in my dreams, I see a fried chicken...

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...Gloria Steinem, Phone Home Not surprisingly, most people in the Soviet Union now seem quite convinced of the superiority of Western and especially American ways—which doesn't mean they always know much about the latter...

...That," as Starostin put it, "is the downside of a free press for you...

...28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1991...

...Yes," says Kravchenko...

...Or return it and you owe us nothing...

...The letters published in Komsomolskaya Pravda (March 21) are a litany of somewhat different woes...

...He also said that "as soon as the necessary questions are solved, Russian TV will get six hours a week to broadcast on Channel 2," leaving me wondering whether Pozner had misled me...

...More interestingly, the Kommersant article mentioned persistent rumors in media circles that Kravchenko may soon be promoted to a higher government job...

...But in just 8 minutes a day, with SquarenoteTM on your IBM PC or compatible, you can gain complete control over your scattered notes, clippings, letters and documents...

...In a March 9 speech to democratic activists at the Cinema Center in Moscow (reprinted in several Soviet newspapers), Yeltsin mentioned an open letter in the hardline Communist/nationalist Sovetskaya Rossiya, accusing him of "leading Russia to capitalism": "It says I don't want to go Cathy Young is the author of Growing Up in Moscow (Ticknor & Fields...

...Do these people get their notions of America from Penthouse or something...

...You'll actually see the tops of your filing cabinets and desks, slim down your briefcase, and clean out your pockets...

...and "Communists...

...I don't...

...Does he harbor dictatorial ambitions...

...You can't find things when you need them...

...With no parallels intended, this is exactly what Stalin told foreign correspondents shocked by his personality cult: "I find it grating, but what can I do if the Russian people love me so much...

...My dream headline: "Soviet Leader Denies Anti-Communist Witchhunt...

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...A "group of mothers" from the Omsk region asks that soldiers being discharged after two years of compulsory service be issued non-regulation pants, which the mothers had not been able to buy for them...

...You'll never lose an idea again...

...It's a question of national security," laments Kravchenko...

...Kravchenko May Go, TV May Stay," read the caustic headline over the Kommersant piece) To protest these policies, many Soviet film producers, directors, and screenwriters are refusing to work for Central TV...

...Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it...

...According to that night's Vremya broadcast, he told them that in these times of "harsh political struggle" the company he heads must, as a state company, "defend the position of the country's President...

...A whole chicken, you understand...

...apparently, under the bylaws of the Journalists' Union, no member can be expelled in absentia...

...Kommersant, however, quotes Journalists' Union chairman Eduard Sagalayev as saying that no one was going to expel Kravchenko, since he had not technically violated any rules...

...Give Us Some Air...

...On the day he was supposed to be skewered by his colleagues, Kravchenko met instead with foreign diplomats stationed in Moscow...

...A more turbulent picture of the Russian-Soviet media wars was painted by the infamous Leonid Kravchenko, the State Broadcasting Company chief presiding over the crackdown on glasnost on the airwaves (see "Saving Face," TAS, April 1991) and known in the radical press as "the executioner of glasnost...

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...When the anarchists started unpacking their props in a metro passageway, a crowd began to gather and the young people barely escaped a pummeling, though they did manage to hold their march after all...

...Earlier, the news agency DU-Inform had reported instances of factory workers being offered food packages in exchange for anti Yeltsin signatures...

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...PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award UnionSquareware 27 SL Mary's Court, Brookline, MA 02146 Telephone 617-277-9222 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JUNE 1991 27 hold a mock rally ridiculing Yeltsin worshippers, with slogans demanding Yeltsin's canonization and his coronation as Russian Czar...

...Squarenote gathered all the research, organized it, and even printed out my lecture notes...

...Kravchenko's colleagues were simply going to censure him for unethical behavior...

...Asked about the fate of Television News Service (TSN), the lively alternative to Vremya, and its anchor Tatyana Mitkova, fired for bucking the official line on Lithuania, Kravchenko described her behavior as "journalistic debauchery" and stated that the TSN problem reflected "the loss of basic discipline in the country, of respect forone's elders...

...A perplexed small-town cop inquired, "on behalf of the whole precinct," if they should work according to the laws of the Russian republic or those of the Soviet Union...

...Several Russians living in rebellious republics, or with relatives there, called to voice their anxieties...

...So civil war in our country may well be preceded by space wars...

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...However, a March 25 report by Novosti News Agency says that the deputy chairman of the All-Union State Broadcasting Company, Valentin Lazutkin, told a meeting of journalists at the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU that regular broadcasting by the Russian TV company starting March 31 was in doubt, since the company was not ready for it...