Russia

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World Press Review. Sep 1993, v40n9, p36. "Dissecting dianetics."

The perennial best-seller by L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, banned by Moscow until 1990, recently sold out its first Russian printing of 100,000 copies, with another 900,000 copies planned. Western and Russian sponsors of the work, which is the doctrine of the Church of Scientology, are taking advantage of the ideological vacuum in Russia to conduct a lavish promotional campaign.

But for at least one commentator, the book and its publicity strike an unpleasantly familiar chord. Albert Plutnik of Izvestia likens dianetics, with its promise of happiness and claim to infallibility, to Marxism-Leninism. The campaign, he writes, "reminds me of agitprop bolstering the image of a [communist] general secretary." While stressing that Hubbard should not be banned, Plutnik recalls the mass tragedies that have befallen other American sects: "That is all we need. New messiahs, new followers possessed."

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