A Self-Administered Poison: The System and Functions of Soviet Censorship by Arlen Blyum I. P. Foote (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 319 Blyum, Arlen. A Se[f-Administered Poison:The Systemand Functionsof Soviet Censorship. Legenda Special Lecture Series, 5. Translatedby I. P. Foote. Legenda, Oxford, 2003. viii + 28 pp. Notes. ?9.50: $14.50 (paperback). A. V. BLIUMis the doyen of all the specialistson pre-Sovietand Soviet Russian censorship indeed, it would be invidious to call him the M. K. Lemke of our times, because the early twentieth-centuryexpert on tsarist censorship faced far fewer problems of access and far less danger of getting into serious political trouble than Blium did. Obviously, during the 'period of stagnation' he could publish only on pre-revolutionarycensorship,but I have the strong impressionthat he was quietly collecting material on the Soviet period long before I99I, and even before I986, despitethe apparentlyminimal chances of ever being able to publishhis workin this area. In this respect,to use another provocative comparison, one might compare him to the KGB's archivist, Vasilii Mitrokhin,who also startedto gather materialson an even more distastefuland dangeroussubjectlong before there was the slightestchance that any of them would see the light of day in his lifetime. The Soviet censorship system, often known for short as Glavlit,was as all-encompassing a phenomenon as was the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVDNKGB -KGB, helping to keep the CPSU in power for nearlythree quartersof a centuryand having an equallynegativelong-termimpact on the post-Soviet (or neo-Soviet) future of the Russian Federation.Although Blium avoids the use of the phrase 'dumbing down', he does point out the negative personnel selection process at work in the USSR, ensuringthat in many (butnot in all) areas Soviet cadres were inferior both morally and professionally to their 'opposite numbers' in tsarist Russia and in economically more advanced countries.Indeed, the whole concept of 'progress'is thrown into doubt when one contrastsnineteenth-centuryRussian literaturewith the canonical works of Soviet literature.As Blium implies (pp. I8-I9), the qualitative difference was glaringlyobvious to any readersin the USSR who retainedor developed at least some taste and powers of discrimination. The title of this marvellouslittle book relates both to Soviet propaganda (P. ii) and to the Soviet censorship system in general. Blium concentrates on the censorshipof the arts, but the 'control' (a word often used as a more politically correct euphemism for 'censorship') of science and technology was no less damaging, especially, in my opinion, from the sputnik-Gagarin achievements onwards,hampering Soviet scientistsin their effortsto network with foreign colleagues and even to exchange informationwithin the USSR by post and telephone. It seems to me quite plausible that the misnamed 'Soviet system'would stillbe with us today if the censorshipcontrolshad been relaxedtwentyyearsbeforeGorbachevcame to power. By I985 it was too late. Timing is all. As for Blium'ssubtitle,the variouslevels of the censorshipsystemare delineated clearly enough, and the length of the brochure (originallyan Ilchester Lecture at Oxford)makes it impossiblefor the author to go into much detail about its functions:repressive;regulatory;model-setting;ideological;selective; protective; proscriptive;prescriptive. The outcome was inevitable. 'A new culture of mediocrity was created, as far removed from the heights as from 320 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 the depths' (p. I2). Frequently the decisions of the censors were so petty, absurdand counterproductivethat one is almost inclined to wonder whether there were vrediteli (wreckers)at work. Certainly,written and oral attackson 'unacceptable'productsmade many Soviet citizens try much harder to read, see or listen to them. However, with the police at their disposal,the political authoritiesseemed not to mind. 'It is evident that the determiningfeature of totalitariancensorshipis that for it thefactitselfofbanning is more important thanthe contents of theworkbanned' (p. 17). The study of censorship in Russia and the USSR is now something of a growth industry,but an enormous amount of work still needs to be done e.g., on Glavlit'sBulletins (and see also, concerning gaps in research on prerevolutionaryRussiancensorship ,N. G. Patrusheva'sarticlein Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 30, I998). This well-translatedbooklet will, I hope, stimulate more Western scholars to work in this fascinating field. Several of Bliurn's other works,plus much more researchon the subject,are now also available on-line at an excellent new site mastermindedin Nizhnii Novgorod: . Blium is stillhard at work, and...