Problems of Peace and Socialism

Soviet stamp, commemorating the 30th anniversary of Problems of Peace and Socialism.

Problems of Peace and Socialism (Russian: Проблемы мира и социализма), often referred to by the name of its English-language edition World Marxist Review ('WMR' for short), was a joint theoretical and ideological journal of communist and workers parties around the world. It existed for 32 years, until closed down in June 1990. The offices of WMR were based in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Each edition of the journal had a circulation of above half a million, being read in some 145 countries. At its height, WMR appeared in 41 languages, and editors from 69 communist parties around worked at its office in Prague. The master copy of the journal was its Russian-language edition Problemy Mira i Sotsializma.

The idea of launch the WMR as the joint ideological monthly publication was raised at the 1957 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties. The first issue came out in September 1958. At the start, WMR was published in Russian, Hungarian, German, Polish, Chinese, Albanian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Romanian, Korean, Czech, Mongolian, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish and Japanese.

In some ways WMR represented a continuation of the Cominform organ For a Lasting Peace, for People's Democracy. WMR was supposed to play an important role in formulating a joint political line of the communist parties of the Socialist Bloc. However, it never really came to fill the function of begin an intra-Bloc organ, but was rather used by non-ruling communist parties.

In the wake of the Sino-Soviet split, the Albanian edition was canceled in 1962, followed by the Chinese and Korean editions in 1963. Meanwhile, a Greek edition was started in Cyprus in 1962, a Portuguese in Brazil in the same year and a Sinhala edition was launched in Ceylon in 1965. During the same period, new distribution centres were set up in Switzerland, Uruguay, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

The costs for the printing of the journal were mainly covered by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communist parties from East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Mongolia also contributed. Around half of the 400 strong staff were from the Soviet Union.

The journal was to gain notoriety as the incubator of perestroika. Several of Gorbachev’s top advisors on his reforms (such as Gennady Gerasimov, Georgy Shakhnazarov, Yevgeny Ambartsumov, Anatoly Chernyaev, Georgy Arbatov, Aleksandr Tsipko, Yegor Yakovlev, Ivan Frolov, among several others) had worked at the journal in Prague.

Final period

Towards the end of 1989, there were sharp changes in the editorial policy at WMR. Articles written by writers like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Dubček, Milovan Đilas and Andrei D. Sakharov began to be published.

By the time the journal was closed down, its staff had been reduced to 40. The remaining staff were mainly Czech employees, who took care of the building. Towards the end, most of its financial backers withdrew their subsidies. As of 1990, only the Soviet and Mongolian parties retained their subsidies.

In 1990, the Roman Catholic church reclaimed the building where the WMR editorial office had been located.

The last editor, Molnar, tried to negotiate remodeling the Peace and Socialism International Publishers venture into a broader leftwing publishing house. The company was to be renamed 'Patria'.

Editors

Aleksey Rumyantsev was the first editor, and served in the position until 1964. After Rumyantsev, G. P. Frantov (rector of the Academy of Social Sciences) took over the editorship.

In 1986 Aleksandr M. Subbotin, who was also a member of the Auditing Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, became editor of WMR.

Towards the final phase of WMR Lubomir Molnar became new editor. Molnar, a Czechoslovak diplomat, was the first non-Soviet editor.

External links

• Archive of the Persian-language edition