 C00175554
 Page: 37    of 98
 CLAS UNCLASSIFIED
 CLAS UNCLASSIFIED
 APSN 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--pr--es4den-F-aboli-shing the
 undemocratic decree.  Alas, this did not happen.
 7    "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.
 9    "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."
 We G
 Approved for Release
 -   qlaolo
 C00175554
 Page: 38    of 98
 12           Much of the content of the 31 August PRAVDA relates to the paper's
 enforced nonappearance over the past week.  It publishes international
 appeals to Yeltsin to authorize publication and vox pop interviews
 commenting on its nonappearance.
 13           Most of page 3 is devoted to photographs of events in Moscow during the
 coup.  An accompanying commentary by S. Oganyan notes that the paper's
 former editors refused to publish these photographs, and pledges: "We will
 seek to work in such a way as to ensure that PRAVDA is the first paper
 closed by the next junta, if there is one."
 A page-6 announcement by the nevsdesk soliciting "news and original ideas"
 from readers declares that the paper will cover "all kinds of events, from
 pure sensation to 'insoluble' problems of everyday life; from encounters
 with 'flying saucers' to impromptu interviews with politicians."
 15   The paper contains no interviews with Soviet officials -- a staple of the
 "old" PRAVDA.  It features more photographs and cartoons, including one
 reprinted from the Paris INTERNATIONAL HERALD-TRIBUNE showing a huge
 Yeltsin shaking the hand of a midget Gorbachev and saying: "Welcome back
 to power, Mikhail." Photographs of an old woman praying before an altar,
 her hand on her brow, and of Gorbachev in a similar posture are carried on
 page 2.  There are also notably more religious locutions in
 correspondents' copy than were to be found in PRAVDA before its
 suspension.
 16   Besides reports from its own correspondents and TASS, it also carries
 reports attributed to INTERFAX and REUTER.  Few reports and commentaries
 approach 1,000 words in length.  There is a clear impression that an
 effort has been made to make the paper livelier in both presentation and
 _.  content.
 17   PMU will file liberally from this issue to convey the flavor of the
 revamped PRAVDA.  (endall) 31 aug              30/2027z aug BT #9119 NNNN

