Communist press

[Bonobo]

Communist government`s official paper - People`s Tribune


In 1982, this man, Wiktor Matuszewski, with his friend, brutally murdered a taxi driver. He was sentenced to 25, while his accomplice got death punishment.


pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldemar_Krakos

Passports and visas - an article which justified the legal restrictions on passports in the socialist system. A major argument - socialist economy can`t afford educating specialists and then losing them on behalf of better developed Western countries. Quite frank.


The Party`s authority proves effective in its work for the good of the nation


A symbolic mistake! Bush made a few, too.....


Washington and human rights


Polish export of coal rises! Also - The Parliament corroborates the validity of Polish foreign policy.


This long, extremely boring speech about nothing was delivered during a Parliament session.

[pjotr]

Also in the West you had/have communist newspapers, like De Waarheid (The Truth, Pravda/Prawda) in the Netherlands. How orginal. The communist newspaper was known for it's boring reports about party meetings and affairs, Union affairs and reports of foreign communist party events.



De Waarheid

De Waarheid (literally 'The Truth') was the Dutch Communist Party newspaper. It originated in 1940 under the German occupation as a resistance paper, the day after general H.G. Winkelman had forbidden publication of the earlier Communist Volksdagblad. The party decided on May 15, 1940, to continue the Volksdagblad illegally under the name De Waarheid. The first months were spent setting up a nationwide network of 'handout points' ('stencilposten'), the main articles would be written centrally, whereas the different 'handout points' added localized articles. These local versions sometimes were published under different names as 'De vonk' ('The spark') and 'Het noorderlicht' ('The northern light'). The main publication was continued until 28 April 1990.

DUTCH COMMUNIST DAILY NEWSPAPER, 1945-1990
DE WAARHEID

On microfiche

The daily newspaper "de Waarheid" (The Truth = Pravda) was published in the Netherlands between 1945 and 1990 by the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN). It was the continuation of the stenciled, clandestine paper of the same name that circulated during the German occupation at least once every fortnight. Editing and distributing the illegal Waarheid incurred great risks and many workers on the paper paid for their efforts with their lives during this period. Among the many underground newspapers De Waarheid was one of the few that was able to reach a nationwide circulation because it was organized at the national level.

As early as the last months of 1944 when the end of the war was coming into view, the leadership of the illegal Communist Party decided to continue publication of the Waarheid after the liberation. The first national legal edition of the Waarheid appeared a day after the war ended on 6 May 1945, where this micropublication begins.

Thanks to its roll during the occupation and the thirst of the Dutch public for reading material, the Waarheid was one of the largest dailies immediately after the war. The day-to-day leadership of the CPN appointed the editor-in-chief of the Waarheid and the paper's content was a subject of discussion in the party and during party conferences. Nevertheless the editors retained their own journalistic and political say in the matter.

In the years following the liberation the main topics covered were: the rebuilding of the devastated country and the policy toward Indonesia, the Waarheid being the only Dutch paper to oppose dispatching troops there in the later 1940s. Much was written about art and culture and of course the paper devoted much attention as well to social problems and conflicts, such as strikes and elections for works councils, and to the activities of the Communist Party.

The advent of the Cold War brought about a decline in the number of subscribers and the newspaper encountered many difficulties. The intelligence service kept a record of subscribers (compiled among other ways by following delivery boys) and readers could be obstructed in their careers.

The Waarheid was also hit by an advertising boycott from larger firms. The newspaper therefore aimed at middle-sized companies and shopkeepers, but its advertisers mysteriously received anti-communist mail. Though many advertisers refused to be intimidated, campaigns to raise funds from voluntary contributions by readers and sympathizers remained an absolute necessity and the journalists worked for the minimum wage. The largest single loss of subscribers took place in November 1956 after the Soviet intervention in Hungary, which had led to attacks on the Waarheid's building and to the physical intimidation of individual communists.

Until the end of the 1950s the Waarheid had almost unconditionally defended the policies of the Soviet Union. Then a change began that led the CPN to a "policy of autonomy" in 1963 that was reflected in the paper's reporting. The paper produced remarkable coverage of the May days in Paris in 1968 and condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of that year. A slow increase in subscribers followed and more and more prominent people were again willing to be interviewed.

The expansion of television in the 1970s and 1980s, however, led to difficulties for the entire written press, the Waarheid not excepted. But merger with another paper was out of the question. Moreover, a change in the way politics was practiced caused people to be less attracted to a tightly led political party and its press. The Waarheid's coverage played a significant roll in the campaign against the neutron bomb in 1978/1979 and a "movement" in which people of various persuasions joined together arose. The Waarheid tried to take advantage of this development and turn the tide. The ties to the CPN were loosened, editorial statutes and an editorial council were called into being. The CPN strove to bring about a "renewal of the left" through which it also hoped to find a new group of readers for the Waarheid, a hope that proved illusory. Financial and editorial difficulties kept mounting and on 28 April 1990, almost halfway through the fiftieth volume, the last issue of the Waarheid appeared. In 1991 the CPN merged with several other small left-wing parties to form a new party, Groen Links, and dissolved itself as the others did.

De Waarheid, one of the four main resistance newspapers or pamplets

[pjotr]

The french Communist newspaper L'Humanité.
It stil exists today ( humanite.fr/ )



L'Humanité

L'Humanité ("Humanity"), formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party (PCF), was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). The paper is now independent, although it maintains close links to the PCF. It is the last French national daily newspaper of the left, Libération now being of a centrist social-liberal view.

Overview

Pre-World War II

When the Socialists split at the 1920 Tours Congress, the Communists retained control of l'Humanité and the PCF has published it ever since. The PCF owns 40 per cent of the paper with the remaining shares held by staff, readers and "friends" of the paper. The paper is also sustained by the annual Fête de l'Humanité, held in the working class suburbs of Paris, at Le Bourget, near Aubervilliers, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in the country.

The fortunes of l'Humanité have fluctuated with those of the PCF. During the 1920s, when the PCF was politically isolated, it was kept in existence only by donations from Party members.

Louis Aragon started to write for l'Humanité in 1933, in the "news in brief" section. He later led Les Lettres françaises, the 's weekly literary supplement. With the formation of the Popular Front in 1936, l'Humanité 's circulation and status increased, and many leading French intellectuals wrote for it. L'Humanité was banned during World War II but published clandestinely until liberation of Paris from German occupation.

After World War II

Its status was highest in the years after the war: during the late 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the PCF was the dominant party of the French left. L'Humanité enjoyed a large circulation. Since the 1980s, however, the PCF has been in decline, mostly due to the rise of the Socialist Party, which took over large sections of PCF support, and circulation and economic viability of l'Humanité have declined as well.

Until 1990 the PCF and l'Humanité received regular subsidies from the Soviet Union. According to the French authors Victor Loupan and Pierre Lorrain (fr), l'Humanité received free newsprint from Soviet sources.

Post-Soviet Union

The fall of the Soviet Union and the continued decline of the PCF's electoral base produced a crisis for l'Humanité. Its circulation, more than 500,000 after the war, slumped to under 70,000. In 2001, after a decade of financial decline, the PCF sold 20 per cent of the paper to a group of private investors led by the TV channel TF1 (part of the Bouygues group) and including Hachette (Lagardère Group). TF1 said its motive was "maintenance of media diversity." Despite the irony of a communist newspaper being rescued by private capital, some of which supported right-wing politics, l'Humanité director Patrick Le Hyaric described the sale as "a matter of life or death."

There has been speculation since 2001 that l'Humanité will cease as a daily newspaper. But in contrast to most French newspapers, its publication has increased, to about 75,000.

After 2001

In 2006, the paper created a weekly edition, l'Humanité dimanche. In 2008, it sold its headquarters due to financial problems and called for donations. More than €2 million had been donated by the end of 2008.

[pjotr]

Who are the successors of Trybuna Ludu?

NIE of the editor-in-chief and owner of NIE is Jerzy Urban?



Trybuna Robotnicza?

[Bonobo]

Dec 10, 2010 0:42:49 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Who are the successors of Trybuna Ludu?

NIE of the editor-in-chief and owner of NIE is Jerzy Urban?

Boring Trybuna hasn`t got a successor, I suppose. NIE is an anticlerical satirical weekly.

Dec 10, 2010 0:11:05 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Also in the West you had/have communist newspapers, like De Waarheid (The Truth, Pravda/Prawda) in the Netherlands. How orginal. The communist newspaper was known for it's boring reports about party meetings and affairs, Union affairs and reports of foreign communist party events.

Too boring, wasn`t it? That is why the system had to fall. ;D ;D ;D

If, due to chronic paint and paper shortage, you aren`t able to provide kids with their favourite stuff as comic stories, then sorry, guys, f**k out of the country! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[pjotr]

Dec 16, 2010 22:17:20 GMT 1 Bonobo said:

Dec 10, 2010 0:42:49 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Who are the successors of Trybuna Ludu?

NIE of the editor-in-chief and owner of NIE is Jerzy Urban?

Boring Trybuna hasn`t got a successor, I suppose. NIE is an anticlerical satirical weekly.

Dec 10, 2010 0:11:05 GMT 1 pjotr said:

Also in the West you had/have communist newspapers, like De Waarheid (The Truth, Pravda/Prawda) in the Netherlands. How orginal. The communist newspaper was known for it's boring reports about party meetings and affairs, Union affairs and reports of foreign communist party events.

Too boring, wasn`t it? That is why the system had to fall. ;D ;D ;D

If, due to chronic paint and paper shortage, you aren`t able to provide kids with their favourite stuff as comic stories, then sorry, guys, f**k out of the country! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Communism has left the building, yes! ;D Their boring and heavy news did not interest people. The socialist (social-democratic) press also collapsed, evnthough it was not connected to communism. People simply did not like political newspapers and to the great regret of the workers newspapers, the workers prefered the rightwing Telegraaf (which in my opinion is a boring, and stupid newspaper too). Communism was outdated long before it collapsed. It did not gain significant support in the eightees.