Draft decree on the press, November 1917
For the bourgeoisie, freedom of the press meant freedom for the rich to publish and for the capitalists to control the newspapers, a practice which in all countries, including even the freest, produced a corrupt press.
For the workers’ and peasants’ government, freedom of the press means liberation of the press from capitalist oppression, and public ownership of paper mills and printing presses; equal right for public groups of a certain size (say, numbering 10,000) to a fair share of newsprint stocks and a corresponding quantity of printers’ labour....
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/nov/04.htm
Earlier in 1917, Lenin wrote:
The publication of a newspaper is a big and profitable capitalist undertaking in which the rich invest millions upon millions of rubles. “Freedom of the press” in bourgeois society means freedom for the rich systematically, unremittingly, daily, in millions of copies, to deceive, corrupt and fool the exploited and oppressed mass of the people, the poor.
This is the simple, generally known, obvious truth which everyone sees and realises but which “almost everyone” “bashfully” passes over in silence, timidly evades.
The question is whether and how this crying evil can be fought.
First of all, there is a very simple, good and lawful means which I pointed out in Pravda long ago, which it is particularly opportune to recall now, before September 12, and which workers should always bear in mind, for they will hardly be able to do without it when they have won political power.
That means is a state monopoly on private press advertising.
Look at Russkoye Slovo, Novoye Vremya, Birzhevka, Rech, etc. — you will see a multitude of private advertisements, which yield a tremendous income, in fact the principal income, to their capitalist publishers. This is how bourgeois papers hold sway, how they get rich, and how they deal in poison for the people all over the world.
In Europe there are newspapers which have a circulation as large as one-third the number of inhabitants of the town (for instance, 12,000 copies in a town with a population of 40,000) and are delivered free to every home, and yet yield their owners a sizable income. These papers live by advertisements paid by private people, while the free delivery of the paper to every home ensures the best circulation of the advertisements.
Then why cannot democrats who call themselves revolutionary carry out a measure like declaring private press advertising a state monopoly, or banning advertisements anywhere outside the newspapers published by the Soviets in the provincial towns and cities and by the central Soviet in Petrograd for the whole of Russia? Why must “revolutionary” democrats tolerate such a thing as the enrichment, through private advertising, of rich men, Kornilov backers, and spreaders of lies and slander against the Soviets?
Such a measure would be absolutely just. It would greatly benefit both those who published private advertisements and the whole people, particularly the most oppressed and ignorant class, the peasants, who would be able to have Soviet papers, with supplements for the peasants, at a very low price or even free of charge.
Why not do that? Only because private property and hereditary rights (to profits from advertising) are sacred to the capitalist gentlemen. But how can anyone calling himself a revolutionary democrat in the twentieth century, in the second Russian revolution, recognise such rights as “sacred”?!
Some may say it would mean infringing freedom of the press.
That is not true. It would mean extending and restoring freedom of the press, for freedom of the press means that all opinions of all citizens may be freely published.
What do we have now? Now, the rich alone have this monopoly, and also the big parties. Yet if large Soviet newspapers were to be published, with all advertisements, it would be perfectly feasible to guarantee the expression of their opinion to a much greater number of citizens—say to every group having collected a certain number of signatures. Freedom of the press would in practice become much more democratic, would become incomparably more complete as a result.
But some may ask: where would we get printing presses and newsprint?
There we have it!!! The issue is not “freedom of the press’ but the exploiters’ sacrosanct ownership of the printing presses and stocks of newsprint they have seized!
Just why should we workers and peasants recognise that sacred right? How is that “right” to publish false information better than the “right” to own serfs?
Why is it that in war-time all sorts of requisitioning — of houses, flats, vehicles, horses, grain and metals — are allowed and practised everywhere, while the requisitioning of printing presses and newsprint is impermissible?
The workers and peasants may in fact be deceived for a while if such measures are made out to be unjust or hard to realise, but the truth will win through in the end.
State power in the shape of the Soviets takes all the printing presses and all the newsprint and distributes them equitably: the state should come first — in the interests of the majority of the people, the majority of the poor, particularly the majority of the peasants, who for centuries have been tormented, crushed and stultified by the landowners and capitalists.
The big parties should come second — say, those that have polled one or two hundred thousand votes in both capitals.
The smaller parties should come third, and then any group of citizens which has a certain number of members or has collected a certain number of signatures.
This is the distribution of newsprint and printing presses that would be just and, with the Soviets in power, could be effected easily enough.
Then, two months before the Constituent Assembly, we could really help the peasants by ensuring the delivery to every village of half a dozen pamphlets (or newspaper issues, or special supplements) in millions of copies from every big party.
That would truly be a "revolutionary democratic" preparation for the elections to the Constituent Assembly; it would be aid to the countryside on the part of the advanced workers and soldiers. it would be state aid to the people’s enlightenment, and not to their stultification and deception; it would be real freedom of the press for all, and not for the rich. It would be a break with that accursed, slavish past which compels us to suffer the usurpation by the rich of the great cause of informing and teaching the peasants.
Comments
Lenin, for workers' democracy
No, let's discuss the press
Of course I don't dispute the banning of some papers after July 1918. (That is if we are also aware that some of bans were later lifted).
However, even someone who knew nothing at all about the issue would ask: if Lenin was as bad as you say, why was the press only banned in July 1918? Why not at the end of 1917?
Someone more honest that you might explain the context of the bans on some of the press after July 1918. Might something have happened in July 1918 to change the situation in Russia?
Or perhaps you don't know, or care. Perhaps you are exactly as you appear: superficial and glib.
So, I'll give you the opportunity: maybe you might be good enough to tell your readers, here, what you think the *reasons* were for the banning of some of the press in July 1918; what the *intention* was; what the *context* was.
eh?
Thing about this site is you can't expect to get away with this sort of abuse. Back your view with an argument, please. If you don't you just seem ignorant.