ON THE AUTHORS AND AUTHORSHIP IN THE JOURNAL "COMMUNIST" IN THE MID-1950S
The purpose of the article is to identify the factors that forced the party leadership to actively develop the Communist party press in the 1950s, as well as to determine the particular mechanism of preparing the ideological texts. The focus is on the analysis of the activities of editorial boards and authors of ideological magazines. The research methodology included discourse and content analysis of the proceedings of the meetings of editorial boards and articles published in the party magazines. As a result, it was concluded that the idea of building communism required the indoctrination and ideological mobilization of both the party and society as a whole. In its turn it determined the need of the Communist party and its leaders for an institution performing not only teleological and mobilization functions but also functions of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist exegesis and conceptualization. Party magazines became such institutions. The circle of authors of the party's periodicals in the 1950s was carefully selected on the basis of principles of partisanship and ideological competence, their ability to self-censor and to develop creatively the ideas of Marxism-Leninism while remaining within rigid boundaries of the existing logical-semantic matrix of ideological articles. Complicated procedure of approvals, discussions and editing of texts led to the emergence of a «collective» author, who ensured the high quality of ideological articles, in terms of performing a function of political exegesis. At the same time, such a «collective» author guaranteed personal security both for a particular author, reducing the degree of his personal responsibility for the possible ideological «flaws» and for the Editorial board that published articles corresponding to «the party line».