Documents / FOIA release
This unclassified Central Intelligence Agency message, dated 31 August 1993 in the archive, reports on the 31 August issue of PRAVDA, the first to appear since 23 August after its suspension by Russian presidential decree. It describes the revamped masthead, an address from new chief editor Gennadiy Seleznev pledging centrist positions and independence, a support fund, and coup photographs. A newsdesk notice promises coverage of everything from encounters with flying saucers to interviews with politicians.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
CLAS UNCLASSIFIED CLAS UNCLASSIFIED AFSN PM3008201591 SUBJ FYI -- Pressfax Carries 31 Aug PRAVDA Full Text Superzone of Message 1 The 30 August Soviet pressfax first cast saw the return of PRAVDA, carrying the newspaper's six-page single edition for 31 August -- the first to be published since 23 August. 2 The revamped PRAVDA's masthead no longer features a portrait of Lenin nor the slogan "Proletarians of all countries, unite!", but above the title, still in the old familiar typeface, it states in small italic print: "The newspaper was founded 5 May 1912 on the initiative of V.I. Lenin." The masthead carries no tag-line description of the paper. The cover price is 15 kopeks (the 23 August issue was 10 kopeks). Across the top of the front page, above the masthead, the paper proclaims: "PRAVDA has been published -- and that is right and proper!" Across the bottom of the page it says: "Thanks to everybody who, together with us, defended the paper." 3 At the bottom of the back page is a note: "The founder is the PRAVDA journalists' collective." 4 PRAVDA carries the following front-page address from its new chief editor, Gennadiy Seleznev: 5 "Dear Readers! 6 "It is a whole week since you have seen PRAVDA, and it is not our fault that you have been deprived of contact with us. We were fulfilling the Russian president's decree on suspending publication of PRAVDA and we were hoping for an order from the country's president abolishing the undemocratic decree. Alas, this did not happen. "In the statement by the editorial collective (PRAVDA for 23 August) we said everything we think about our former founder. During the days when the newspaper failed to appear PRAVDA's journalists went further. The labor collective decided not to allow the country's oldest newspaper to disappear and entrusted the editorial office journalists' organization with the status of founder of PRAVDA. 8. "We will seek to be a newspaper of civil harmony and to uphold centrist positions while supporting democratic transformations in society. "Having endured our fill of humiliations, insults, and threats, we will begin to elaborate with trebled energy the topic of the defense of human rights. We will defend above all rank-and-file communists from persecution for their beliefs. They, who are not implicated in any plots or juntas, are now being defamed at every street corner, heedless of all decency. 10 "Things are very difficult for the newspaper at the moment. But this does not mean that it is going to quietly fade away and die. No, we are being reborn as an independent newspaper known throughout the world. And that is not highfalutin talk but the pure truth. God grant us all the strength and wisdom to continue the path of reforms chosen by our people, without losing our human dignity in the process." 11 A front-page announcement of the establishment of a PRAVDA support fund states that journalists have taken on "the difficult but honorable duty of restoring the original and proud meaning of the word that forms its [the newspaper's] title" but that today PRAVDA "is left virtually without any financial support." 286 Approved for Release 2/2010
Not linked to a story yet.
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. 2 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.