Soviet Presswatch/Death and Despair

...The AFA makes some good points about the proliferation of smut in the media but takes its cause to rather embarrassing extremes (like railing against "child sex themes" in ABC's "The Wonder Years...

...The Soviet Way of Death To continue on a macabre note, an article by Alexander Ryskin in the first issue of Megapolis-Express, a weekly launched in May (new Soviet periodicals are multiplying like rabbits these days, and it is often hard to find out anything about the people behind them), reminds us that glasnost has shed no light at all on at least one aspect of the Soviet legal system: the carrying out of death sentences...

...The other question in the survey was: To whom can the USSR serve as a model...

...Onward, Christian Soldiers While liberal Soviet intellectuals have found common ground with their American counterparts on the issues of criminal justice and the death penalty (they agree on little else), the nationalistic Russian ultra-right seems to have found an American ally as well...

...Name: ^ Charge my: Address: ^ VISA VISA ^ MasterCard sip Card #: City: Exp...

...The letters, says the editor's note, numbered over a thousand...

...The bodies of the executed are not returned to their families but buried secretly...

...Let us pause to let this sink in...

...Yet when it came to the USSR, I was facing impenetrable secrecy...

...to capitalist countries, 0.4...

...Its questionnaire was answered by more than 7,000 readers...

...A Lenin-Peter the Great Ticket What do Soviet people think of the Communists these days...

...One of the by Cathy Young many polls attempting to find out was conducted late last year by Rodina (Motherland), the new, mildly nationalistic general-interest monthly...

...Of special interest to us," writes Shipov, "is the fact that among the leaders of the Host of the Antichrist are familiar names: Pepsico and McDonald's," the two U.S...

...However, 34 percent did cast a vote for Peter the Great...

...I do not believe in Communism," adds Marina...

...to socialist countries, 2.3...

...the good old USA was next with 16.4 percent, while Sweden, the new socialist Mecca, got only 6.6 percent and West Germany, 7.3...

...Someone should bring this to Nelson Mandela's attention...

...To buy, mind you: they still have to pay, and stand in line for five or six hours after giving blood (the coupons are valid for one day only...

...while such a survey is not, strictly speaking, scientific, the respondents do come from a wide range of social classes, from academicians to factory workers...

...In that respect, indeed, Soviet citizens have never been richer...

...Blood Money Over the past few years, there has been some debate in the West over the propriety of people selling off their body parts for transplants...

...y ES, according to the title of Barb Ehrenreich's latest book, and the media nods its approval...

...And they do such things that it is best for no one to look at the bodies afterwards...

...City State Zip Complete this form and send with check or money order to: between the lines 325 Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E...

...Chaltzev was convicted...

...or about American death penalty statistics...

...The kids enthusiastically endorsed the suggestion...

...It is also rumored that the reason the bodies are not returned to the relatives of the condemned is that the executioners are "out and out sadists...

...But, to quote a Pontiac commercial, want real excitement...

...Meanwhile, in Leningrad, reports Moscow News (May 27), blood donors receive coupons entitling them to buy rare goods, such as white kidskin gloves, German-made pantyhose, Italian shoes, and a teakettle with a whistle...

...Some Kind of Hero A recent Soviet newspaper item reminded me of a bit of underground doggerel I heard as a teenager in Moscow, translatable, roughly, as follows: Grandpa found a grenade in a field near the city...

...According to the editor's note, Chaltzev tried on his own to understand the root causes of the dreadful misfortunes of our country...

...Washington, DC 20003 between the lines exposing the biases of the liberal press and the abuses of the Hollywood Left L 24 issues per year YES, I want to subscribe to between the lines ^ Enclosed is my check or money order for $29 for a full year...

...The Litenzturnaya Rossiya commentator, Yaroslav Shipov, mentions the AFA's recently published list of "the top ten sponsors of anti-Christian programming" on American TV...

...tide, the chief prosecutor of the region filed a brief of protest with the court...

...It turns out that even most staffers of the Ministry of the Interior, which is in charge of executions, have no access to any of the relevant documents: "Only a small number of individuals directly involved in executions, and the bosses at the very top, possess such knowledge...

...In the belief that the Communist party and the Communist idea itself were to blame for it all, he expressed his protest last summer by throwing two Molotov cocktails through the window of the regional party committee...

...An aide to a deputy minister of the interior had a brilliant answer to Ryskin's question about the bodies: "So what...

...And, most important, where else will you find such drama, such excitement...

...As for the present, asked who should play the leading role in Soviet society, a puny 7.4 percent said the CPSU...

...To 37.3 percent, they are "patriots who dreamed of a better future for the people...

...No one knows how many death sentences are carried out daily or monthly, or what rules regulate the procedure...

...Box 549 • Arlington, Virginia 22216-0549 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1990...

...Nonetheless, asked to choose from a list of historic leaders for whom they would vote if their names were on a ballot, 59 percent named Lenin—possibly an indication that the image of the wise and compassionate Lenin instilled in Soviet people since childhood will not easily fade, or that the Gorbachev-era campaign to portray Lenin as someone who tried to curb the excesses of Communism has worked...

...It's not just those who've been shot—even the bodies of those who die a natural death in the penal colonies are not returned to their families, except by special permission of the local authorities...

...While Ryskin makes no secret of his view that the very idea of capital punishment is "savage and inhumane," one does not have to be Mario Cuomo to be appalled by the picture he paints...

...Only 12 percent said the Whites were "oppressors fighting for their capital and privilege...

...Like most things in this world, the Host of the Antichrist runs on hard currency only...

...companies whose products are most widely known in the Soviet Union...

...Fifty-three percent believe that if it hadn't been for the 1917 Revolution and the ensuing slaughters and social experiments, Russia would now be on 99 reasons to read between the lines Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, Dan Rather, Norman Lear, Ed Asner, Tom Brokaw, Sam Donaldson, Martin Scorcese, Oliver Stone, Martin Sheen, Debra Winger, Paul Conrad, Lew Wasserman, Ted Turner, Ben Bradlee Sr., Ben Bradlee Jr., Morgan Fairchild, Barbara Walters, Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, Shirley MacLaine, Phil Donahue, A. Kent MacDougall, Robert Scheer, Constantine Costa-Gavras, Peter Jennings, Charles Winkler, Jack Lemmon, Barbra Streisand, Howard Hesseman, Judd Nelson, John Randolph, Pat Kingsley, Sally Field, Robert Redford, Leslie Stahl, Kathleen Sullivan, Bill Moyers, Kelly McGillis, Jonathan Kwitny, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Blake, Emilio Estevez, Mike Farrell, Charles Haid, Daphne Zuniga, Ralph Bakshi, Jackson Browne, Darryl Hannah, Little Stevie Van Zandt, Geraldo Rivera, Michael Douglas, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Michael Gartner, Carl Rowan, Laurence Tisch, Rob Lowe, Robert Walden, Justine Bateman, Gregory Peck, Michael Tucker, Jill Eikenberry, Harvey Fierstein, Jack Valenti, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Frank Zappa, Bruce Christenson, Alexander Cockburn, Vladimir Posner, Max Frankel, Bill Thomas, Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione, Larry Flynt, Bob Geldof, Bryant Gumbel, Jane Pauley, John Denver, Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward, Jack Nelson, Stephen Kinzer, Walter Cronkite, Cathy Guisewite, Cher, Maria Lourdes Pallais, Tyne Daly, Valerie Harper, Saul Landau, Timothy Leary, Susan Sarandon, Dennis Weaver, Noam Chomsky, Barry Diller, Casey Kasem, Seymour Hersh, Alex Cox...

...Such a practice is often viewed with horror as the epitome of capitalist greed and exploitation...

...For instance: Sovetskaya Kultura of May 26 reports that Moscow alone now boasts six democratic parties...

...Further fueling the voguish "Reaganomics" bashing is a new paperback novel by Kevin Phillips, reviewed in this issue...

...Yes, he acknowledged (with tongue at least partly in cheek), life abroad is much more prosperous and all that, but where else is there room for such tremendous improvement in people's lives...

...That is, if you have any cash not yet transferred to the Greedy Rich...

...One writer, 15-year-old Marina, says she was "shaking with hatred and joy" after reading about Edik Chaltzev's act of protest...

...1.50 for one $10.00 for ten $20.00 for twenty-five ^ Please send me reprints ^ Payment enclosed for $ of "The Silent Boom" by Warren Brookes (make checks payable to The American spectator...

...One could say, of course, that over here we have plenty of fun with just one...

...State/Zip: Signature: The American Spectator • P.O...

...To no one, said 19.5 percent of the Togliatti residents...

...Name Address AS5_1 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 1990 29 a par with the world's leading powers...

...Almost 56 percent regard the execution of the Czar's family as a "crime that has no justification," and only 4.6 percent agree that "the Czar and his family suffered a harsh but just punishment and this issue ought to be left alone...

...Chaltzev was given a suspended sentence and was released after eight months of imprisonment...

...to 34.7 percent, "avengers who punished guilty and innocent alike...

...Brookes's myth-debunking antidote looks at job growth, savings rates, competitiveness, and wage rates with actual statistics and keen analysis...

...Right through the window he threw it in there .. . Grandpa's had a long life, so what does he care...

...Komsomolskaya Pravda offered those of its young readers whose ideas and attitudes are in tune with the hero of the article to start a Political College in its pages [emphasis mine...

...Donald Wildmon's outfit...

...Order your copies today...

...Ominously, he concludes: And thus, my esteemed compatriots, you should know that every time we buy a McDonald's hamburger or a bottle of Pepsi, we are contributing to anti-Christian activity—in other words, crucifying Christ over and over again...

...Role Models Dejected American leftists are fervently reassuring themselves that it's not really capitalism but Swedish socialism that people behind the Rusty Curtain are hankering after...

...And the Soviet condemned aren't necessarily Ted Bundys: the laws of the USSR still retain the death penalty for large-scale bribery, embezzlement, or "profiteering"—enterprise, that is...

...In Kazan, blood donors get coupons allowing them to buy an imported chicken...

...date...

...The big winners: "The will of the people expressed through a referendum" with 47.9 percent, and the "Congress of People's Deputies" with 33.1 percent...

...Japan was picked by 22.2 percent of the respondents...

...And what of the Bolsheviks of seventy years ago...

...Next we turn to Komsomolskaya Pravda's guest page in the Pravda of May 24, featuring letters in response to a February 1 KP article, "A Political Boy," which had profiled 17-year-old Eduard (Edik) Chaltzev, of Gorky...

...the president got even less (2.3 percent),trailing "the working class" with 4.4 percent and the Orthodox Church with 2.9 percent...

...and to African countries, 1.5 percent...

...After the publication of our arCathy Young is the author of Growing Up in Moscow (Ticknor & Fields...

...Some say that the condemned are shot without warning, while being led down the prison corridor under one pretext or another, or at dawn when only half-awake...

...It's a bit less convincing once you reflect that the rubles shelled out by Soviet customers to American companies are very unlikely to end up in the pockets of American TV networks...

...A kidney for a car, anyone...

...Evidently, Leningrad is not the only Soviet city to try this bold approach to chronic shortages of goods...

...to everyone, said a proud 2.3 percent...

...The Silent Boom" The Reagan Decade: Was it "The Worst Years of Our Lives...

...In the absence of facts, says Ryskin, fantastic rumors about "the way it's done" abound...

...To counter similar nonsense uttered by Michael Dukakis during his 1988 presidential campaign (Memo to Ehrenreich, Phillips: he lost), TAS commissioned economic columnist Warren Brookes to assess the state of the American economy under President Reagan, and reprints of his August 1988 article "The Silent Boom" are still available...

...A newspaper officially published by the Central Committee of the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth League appeals to soulmates of a young, man guilty of a terrorist act against the Communist party...

...and, to 3.7 percent, "heroes and defenders of the disenfranchised...

...The March 1990 issue reports the results of a citywide survey conducted by the Omnibus Sociology Center, asking, "The achievements of which country do you consider the best example for us...

...to developing countries, 3.1...

...29.6 percent view those events as "an inevitable conflict between the new and the old" and a mere eight percent as "just popular vengeance against the exploiters" (more than one response can be selected...

...to 36.7 percent, "honest but embittered and ignorant people...

...A brief item in the May 18 Literaturnaya Rossiya, a Slavophile, anti-Western, anti-Semitic weekly, quotes approvingly from a report of the American Family Association, the Rev...

...The anti-Communist Whites are seen in a largely positive light: by 60 percent, as "people forced to defend themselves, their loved ones, and their world," and by 29 percent, as "patriots fighting for national dignity, honor, and traditions...

...It is doubtful that many of them read the monthly newspaper Molodyozhny Aktsent (Youth Accent), published in the Volga city of Togliatti...

...57.2 percent regard the Civil War of 1918-1922 as "a tragic mistake" and 24.9 percent as an outpouring of "the bitterness and irritation stored up in society over centuries...

...He took it and went to the Party committee...

...Strangely enough," writes Ryskin, "I had no difficulty obtaining fairly exhaustive information about the procedure of execution in the U.S...