Magazine article: How Dianetics came to Russia (1992)

[Note:  New Era Publications International, ApS.,  is the organization responsible for the sales and distribution of LRH books in Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and all parts of the world (except North America which is served by Bridge Publications Inc.), New Era, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, is currently being incorporated in Moscow and opening its Russian office.]

In 1988, representatives of New Era Publications went to the USSR with a professional association operating in the field of education. Publishers were met and they asked New Era to come back and give them a seminar on marketing. Michel Moatty and Boris Levitsky delivered this seminar to several publishers and officials and plans were made made to publish “L Ron Hubbard presents Writers of the Future”. Due to the still very difficult and controlled  communications between the USSR and other countries, this plan did not materialize. Communication lines were kept active with Soviet publishers who desperately wanted to publish Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health but were “advised” by the psychiatry-oriented censorship that “several chapters would have to be deleted”.¹
One of the then largest Soviet publishers sent one of his executive staff for one month to New Era to get trained in marketing and other basics such as communication.

In 1989, contacted by Mark Gould who was organizing a trade exhibition in Moscow, New Era hired a space in the prestigious Manege building and displayed LRH books there for several weeks. Two interpreters, Marina and Olga, were hired to help communicate with the thousands of visitors who came to the exhibition. The two translators became very interested in LRH technology and came later for four weeks to Copenhagen where they received basic staff training.

In 1990 a very famous Russian writer who was also the Cultural Aide for Mikhail Gorbachov was hired as consultant for New Era. In July 1991. using this writer’s advice for a strategic introduction of LRH books into the USSR, New Era organized a one week conference in Copenhagen where twenty top press editors and journalists of the USSR were presented with the multi-faceted works of L. Ron Hubbard. They went back with the purpose of getting LRH works published and introduced in a big way to the Russian population.

Concurrently, thanks to the contributions of numerous Scientologists around world, more than 15,000 LRH books were distributed in about 1600 libraries across the USSR by an ally of New Era who manages the Foreign Literature Library in Moscow.

A few days after the editors and journalism arrived back in their country, the August coup against the USSR’s communist regime was taking place. This coup led to the collapse of communism and broke up the Soviet empire.

Then things began moving very fast. Dozens of articles about LRH technology appeared in major daily and weekly papers such as “New Times” and “Rodina” (Motherland), and on radio and television shows, reaching over a billion people.

Contracts were signed for the publication of LRH books in Russian — The Detoxification Picture Book, the Study Tech books, The Way to Happiness, and LRH’S first fiction book FEAR.

At the end of December 1991, a Russian publisher from St. Petersburg contacted New Era and said that he had completed a survey on science fiction  buyers and distributors in Russia asking them who is the most popular science fiction writer in the West. They all came up with the name of Ron Hubbard. The publisher immediately took the next ship to Copenhagen and came to enquire about the acquisition of L Ron Hubbard fiction bestsellers. He returned to St. Petersburg with a contract for 1 million copies of FINAL BLACKOUT.

Marina and Olga, the translators who were now New Era Publications staff, kept in communication with all the editors and journalists who had now become friends and kept them informed of the progress made. Then on the 13th of March 1992, FEAR was released and 65,000 copies immediately sold out. Two hundred television and newspaper reporters, publishers, VIPs and officials were invited to a magnificent release event in the most prestigious venue in Moscow, the Metropole Hotel. During that evening representatives of five different publishing houses pressed New Era to obtain the rights to publish DMSMH and other bestsellers by LRH. In April all the publishers who had reached, as well as other publishers that were prestigious in the days of USSR, were visited and invited to make their proposals for the release of DMSMH in Russian.

Many individuals wanted to have the privilege and honor of publishing the 15 million copy bestseller but were hampered with the slow bureaucratic processes left behind by the former political regime.

A publishing contact was signed in May 1992 with “Voskresenye”, which means “resurrection” (a coming back to life, or revival). This publishing company has the purpose of publishing books “to create a better life”. This was a unique find in Russia. The management of the company love LRH’s works and the technology of Dianetics and have a primary interest in making the technology available to the people of Russia, including the government.

Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health will be released in Russia on the first of December 1992, and its first printing will be one million copies.²

Notes