Documents / FOIA release
This is a Central Intelligence Agency JPRS Report (JPRS-UPA-90-053) dated 1 May 1990. It contains a translation of an article by Lev Tsvetkov, chief specialist in the USSR Council of Ministers Information Department, from the Moscow journal ZHURNALIST. Tsvetkov criticizes one-sided Soviet press coverage of price increases and trade union protests. He urges journalists to cover the move to market relations within the context of the government's economic recovery program. It mentions a UFO only in passing.
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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 ## Document 6 of 8 Page 4 workers, for whom the rates have not been changed since 1955, although the costs of the means of transport and other resources necessary to them have increased significantly. And now the very same questions are arising among the manufacturers of cement, among metallurgists, and in other branches. In each separate instance there are grounds for such demands. But what will happen if this exploitation is not cut short? From the raw-material and transportation branches it will move quickly to the processing industry, and then the wave of higher costs will inevitably dash into the sphere of retail prices. 18. This is one part of the problem, the most obvious one, which everyone understands, because it directly concerns one's own pocket. So much has been said about escalating prices, that in the minds of many of us, 'one'' has unwittingly turned into 'the only one.' However, the other part of the problem has certainly not ceased to exist because of this. Alas, it too costs us a pretty penny; but it is not as obvious as the former except through a chain of cause-and-effects associations. 19. We never tire of branding our economy as "'cannibalistic'" in the press. But you see, just as the word "'candy'" does not produce sweetness in our mouths, nothing at all changes from our incantations. Once one decides to move toward cost-accounting and market relationships--one must take the practical steps. Careful steps--but take them, all the same! One of the first is to force the prices to operate for thrift. For example, on the world market diesel fuel is on the average only one-fifth cheaper than gasoline; in our country, however--it costs half as much. Is it surprising then, that certain managers utilize motor fuel in their boilers! Why then did raising the price of fuel for diesel engines--that is, changing it from a kind of symbol into a price-stimulus, a price-lever--cause such dissatisfaction on the part of the author of "'A Protest [Against Ill-Considered] Government [Decisions]'"? 20. I will remind you how the story of this protest turned out. The government was unable to examine it prior to 5 February. It was examined somewhat later. And then its representatives met with an inter-union trade union commission, apologized for the delay in answering the inquiry and set forth its own proposals, which after discussion and, naturally, certain clarifications, were adopted. 21. On the essense of the proposals--a bit later. But now, on the nature of the reactions to this event. A TASS report published in the papers on 11 February started out triumphantly: ''The sharp conflict brought about by the government decision to raise wholesale prices for diesel fuel and freight shipment and electric power rates, was decided in favor of the workers and their trade unions. In fact, the
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 10 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.