On Budgeting of the Soviet Press in the New Economic Policy Period

For citation: Babyuk M.I. (2016) K voprosu o byudzhetnykh kharakteristikakh sovetskoy pechati perioda NEPa [On Budgeting of the Soviet Press in the New Economic Policy Period]. Mediaskop 1. Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/?q=node/2077

© Maksim I. Babyuk

PhD, Associate Professor at the Chair of Media Theory and Economics, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia), mbabyuk@yandex.ru

Abstract

The article describes peculiarities of the early Soviet mass media budget policies. This matter was not adequately studied at home because, for various reasons, studies on the Soviet media were mainly focused on political and sociocultural matters. The article is mostly based upon materials published in the 1920s, in line with some archival data which is being put into scientific circulation for the first time.

The article states that after the Bolsheviks had come into power, the then system of media economy was destroyed, and the government almost fully funded the newspaper and magazine publishing during the Revolution and the Civil War. However, transition to the New Economic Policy gave the Soviet media economy more marketization. Most Soviet newspapers and magazines started budgeting in tune with the market environment. The share of sales and advertising in the income structure increased. Yet, some instruments of budgeting were unavailable for the Soviet newspapers and magazines due to the political and macroeconomic reasons.

In general, even though the mass media played a tremendous propagandistic role in the USSR, the Party and other power structures of that period mostly demanded that news organizations to ensure economic efficiency of the Soviet newspapers and magazines. This approach is assumed to be caused by the lack of resources of the government in the 1920s, as well as by the economic views inside the Party. In the later period, when Stalin's personal power regime consolidated and the country went towards industrialization, the Soviet media budgeting was subject to more stringent regulation by the government.

Keywords: economy, funding, press, New Economic Policy, budget, profitability, income, expenditure.

Notes

Dekret SNK RSFSR «O vvedenii platnosti gazet» [The decree of the CPC RSFSR «On the introduction of payment for Newspapers]. 1921. 28 November. Available at: http://www.bestpravo.ru/sssr/eh-praktika/m3a.htm (aссessed: 17.11.2015).

Krasnaya pechat'. Ezhenedel'nyy organ otdela pechati TsK RKP [Red Press: Weekly magazine of news department of Central Committee of Communist Party. 1924−1925].

RGASPI [Russian State Archive of Social and Politic History]. F. 17 Op. 60 D. 845, 870, 899, 907, 917.

RGASPI [Russian State Archive of Social and Politic History]. F. 364. Op. 2. D. 9.

RGASPI [Russian State Archive of Social and Politic History]. F. 572 Op.1 D. 8.

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