Soviet press on the eve and during the Great Patriotic War
The Soviet press played an important information and propaganda role during the Great Patriotic War. Newspapers and magazines not only informed about the events taking place at the front, but, along with the radio, were the main “window” to the outside world. The well-known writer, publicist and war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg assessed the importance of the press during the war years as follows:
Below we will trace how the press changed during the war years compared to the pre-war years, how the circulation, number and content of newspapers changed, and what scale censorship reached. For the sake of completeness, let's follow history Soviet press in dynamics, starting from the pre-war years.
A Brief Review of the Soviet Press in the 1920s-1930s
During the years 1920-1930, the number and circulation of newspapers were steadily growing, propaganda was becoming more and more mass. If in 1928 there were about 2000 newspapers in the country, the one-time circulation of which was 9,5 million copies, then in 1940 there were about 9000 of them, and the circulation exceeded 38 million copies. The largest newspapers were Pravda, Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Pionerskaya Pravda and others.
The most famous journalists of the 1920-1930s were V. V. Mayakovsky, L. S. Sosnovsky, M. E. Koltsov, N. Pogodin, I. Ilf, E. Petrov. Essay writers A. Kolosov, M. Shaginyan, B. Gorbatov, feuilletonists K. Radek, D. Zaslavsky, A. Zorich, G. Ryklin had wide popularity. Pravda and Izvestia also often published articles and texts of Maxim Gorky's speeches.
As early as 1921, all non-Bolshevik press was banned in Soviet Russia. Socialist-Revolutionary, Menshevik and other non-Bolshevik party publications were first forced to go underground, and soon ceased their activities altogether. From now on, it was possible to publish such press only abroad. Thus, a monopoly on information was established for Soviet propaganda. Millions of Soviet citizens did not have the opportunity to receive information from any other publications than official Soviet ones.
Let's open the source itself - the Pravda newspaper, the most widely circulated Soviet newspaper of those and many subsequent years, which could be found without any problems even in the most remote corners of the USSR. So, this is what she wrote about a few years before the war:
We are proud to subscribe to a new loan, which marks a new gigantic scale of socialist construction. With a friendly subscription, we demonstrate our selfless devotion and love for our beautiful homeland, for its government, party and dear, wisest leader of the peoples of the USSR and the working people of the whole world, Comrade Stalin.
("Pravda", No. 182, July 4, 1936)
Dear Comrade Stalin!
With a feeling of great joy and infinite gratitude, we discussed the draft law on the prohibition of abortions, on assistance to women in childbirth, etc. This draft is another contribution to your greatest concern for our children. And it is not for nothing that in our country our children laugh louder than anywhere else, the smiles of our children are wider than anywhere else. Because there is no country in the world where mothers would be so happy, where care for children would be so great.
The new law instills in us even more vigor and desire to give many good strong men-heroes to our happy country of Soviets. We promise you, Comrade Stalin, that we will honorably justify the title of Soviet mother. Long live our dear, beloved Stalin!”
("Pravda", No. 150, June 2, 1936)
The quoted quotes were chosen randomly; all issues of Pravda and many other newspapers of those years are full of similar notes. You can open any of them and find very similar rhetoric and set of phrases.
Any critical opinion was declared "anti-Soviet propaganda", and those who expressed it would either be shot or sent to concentration camps for many years. Of course, such measures would also apply to censors who let such information pass.
With such strict censorship and the sword of Damocles hanging over all the propagandists of that era without exception, there was no question of writing about the real problems of the country. For example, such a large-scale event as the famine of 1932-1933, which killed at least seven million people, was not covered by newspapers at all. After reading any of the issues of Pravda or another Soviet newspaper, an inexperienced reader inevitably got the impression that everything is fine in the country, there are no problems at all, that “life has become better, life has become more fun».
Naturally, when such propaganda flows from all the media without exception, then some part of the population, the most gullible, will inevitably begin to believe it. However, there were those who, even in such conditions, could maintain a clear mind. So, a huge number of diaries and letters of those years have come down to our time, where people talk about problems: about hunger, poverty, crime, denunciations, repressions, arbitrariness of officials, etc. Still, no matter how strong the propaganda, but to your own eyes you always believe more willingly than newspapers.
Changes in the press in the first months of the war
In June 1941, about 9000 newspapers and 1800 magazines were published in the USSR with a total circulation of 38 million copies. Thus, the press continued to be the main and most massive source of information in the country.
Since the beginning of the war, the press and magazines have undergone significant changes. Many civilian publications were closed, and their resources were redirected to front-line needs. So, out of 39 central newspapers that existed before the war, only 1941 remained in July 18. Of the 335 central magazines, 145 were closed, and the rest began to appear less frequently and in much smaller circulations. Many newspapers and magazines of related trends were merged, out of 3-4 editions one was created with a new name.
Such reductions in the press continued throughout the first half of the war, and as a result, by December 1941, out of 9000 pre-war newspapers, only 4500 remained, and their total circulation was reduced to 18 million copies. Along with the newspapers, the number of journalists also decreased, one order from the Kremlin directly stated:
So, for example, if the Izvestia newspaper had 198 employees before the war, by the end of 1941 their number had decreased to 84. This was how money was saved that went to pay employees.
Note from the newspaper "Pravda" No. 303 for 1941
The main newspaper of the country continued to be Pravda, but even its staff was significantly reduced: out of 240 employees, only 147 remained, the vast majority of whom either became military officers at the front or left for evacuation to Kuibyshev and Kazan. Only 14 employees of the newspaper remained in Moscow. Thus, Pravda would continue to publish even if the capital fell.
In the autumn of 1941, the buildings of the editorial office and the printing house of Pravda were subjected to air bombardments, but this did not stop the work of the editorial office. Here is how Yakov Makarenko, an employee of the newspaper, recalls this:
The circulation of Pravda, like that of other newspapers, also declined significantly. So, if in June 1941 it reached three million copies, then by the beginning of 1943 it was reduced to one million.
At the same time, the number and circulation of front-line newspapers increased. Each front, army and even division had their own newspapers. Their total number during the first months of the war increased from 635 to 710.
Surprisingly, newspapers were published even by partisans in the occupied territories. The most famous example is the newspaper "Working Way", published since January 1942 in the Smolensk region occupied by enemy troops. The circulation of this newspaper by April of the same year reached 50 copies.
Newspaper content
Now about what and how they wrote in the newspapers during the war years. The entire press worked according to the same rules as the Soviet Information Bureau, that is, in accordance with the basic principles of military propaganda. Even in the most difficult days of the war, newspapers continued to write about the victories of the Red Army, that the enemy was suffering heavy losses, the exploits of ordinary military men were described, and much attention was paid to the crimes of the invaders.
Stalin himself often acted as the chief censor. All military reports were submitted to him before publication, and he always made changes to them. Sovinformburo employee Vladimir Kruzhkov later recalled:
1st page of Pravda, September 20, 1941. The day before, Soviet troops left Kyiv, and about 600 Red Army soldiers were surrounded, but there was not a word about this in the newspaper.
Interestingly, in all the Soviet media, the enemy side was referred to exclusively as "fascists" and never as "Nazis." This is due to the extreme inconvenience of the second term for military propaganda. As you know, "Nazi" is short for "National Socialist". If this term were used, it would be very difficult for propaganda to explain to the average Soviet layman why the socialists attacked us, while we ourselves are also socialists, and the word itself is used even in the name of our country - the USSR. At the same time, there were no such difficulties with the term "fascist".
The term "Great Patriotic War", which soon became common, also first appeared in the newspapers. In the newspaper "Pravda" dated June 24, 1941, a note was printed that said:
It is characteristic that the name of the war in the original is written both times in small letters: no one knew then that the war would last four years and cost 27 million victims.
Thus, during the war years, the Soviet press underwent significant changes. But even despite the sharp reduction in circulation, publications and journalists, she managed to remain one of the main sources of information for millions of people.
Information