Publishing in the USSR and Yugoslavia

Abstract

Book publishing in Eastern Europe is a large enterprise dominated by the USSR in style and organization. While the Soviet influence is generally thought to be one of censorship principally, this influence resulted in other changes in most Eastern European nations following their communization shortly after World War II. Censorship exists wherever there is communist rule—or, for that matter, wherever there exists a single ruling party. The influence of the Soviet Union on publishing, however, also extended into the areas of author payments, publishing house organization, and the distribution of books. Yugoslavia was under this influence until her break with Russia in 1948. However, starting in the early 1950s, book publishing followed the pattern of general change in Yugoslavia's economic and political systems. Mass decentralization occurred, and the market-price system was gradually introduced. Moral censorship slowly disappeared, and political control of what was published was minimized. It is impossible to judge at this point the full impact of these two essentially different publishing systems operating under governments controlled by Communist parties. In this publisher's opinion, however, the Soviet system assists in perpetuating a closed, monolithic society, while Yugoslavia's apparently assists in developing an open society that could lead to economic and political democracy.