Nowadays, the functions of the press and television, in general, are narrowed down to a minimum: the majority of mass media representatives are allowed to report only "jaundice", "crap" and whatever their founders want. The fact remains: in the information age, the media of this very information can mainly only entertain, frighten, or, as they say, "shape public opinion." Fortunately, this was not always the case.
From the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War - June 24, 1941 - by order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), a Soviet information bureau was created. The then leaders of the country understood very well that only objective and timely information received could stop panic, put an end to defeatist sentiments, and raise the spirit of the fighting country. And the main method of delivering such information was radio - the most "operative" type of mass media at that time.
Every day, millions of Soviet people froze in front of radios or public address speakers. They were waiting for the issues in which the Sovinformburo transmitted official information about the state of affairs at the fronts, in the rear and in the occupied territories, about the partisan movement and international events. This structure also directed the coverage of military events in newspapers and magazines, which were published not only in the USSR, but also sent to other countries. After all, it was vital to stop the wave of untruths spread by Goebbels' propaganda ministry.
In total, during the war years, more than 2,000 front-line reports and orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief I. Stalin were broadcast on the air, about 135,000 articles were sent to the bulletins of Soviet embassies and missions, as well as to foreign newspapers, magazines and radio stations. And on May 15, 1945, the last operational report of the Soviet Information Bureau was published - Yuri Levitan said: "The reception of captured German soldiers on all fronts is over."
It is worth emphasizing the role of this legendary radio host, who began all the reports with the famous phrase "From the Soviet Information Bureau". It was he who announced the start of the war, the capture of Berlin, and the Victory. It is possible that this native of Vladimir, who came to Moscow at the age of 17, would have been able to realize his dream and become an actor, if he had not come across an announcement about recruiting a group of radio announcers.
The fate of Levitan, perhaps, was finally determined by another case. One night, Stalin heard someone reading the editorial of Pravda on the air. The next day there was a call to the Radio Committee, and Levitan was asked to read Stalin's report at the opening XVII Party Congress.
During the war years, the voice of the main announcer of the Soviet Union so infuriated Hitler that he considered him almost the very first enemy of the Reich. Moreover, the German special services developed a plan to kidnap Levitan, for whose head they promised either 100 or even 250 thousand Reichsmarks. Therefore, it is not surprising that he was guarded around the clock, like the highest state officials, and no one except his closest circle knew how he really looked. Some data on work during the war years were declassified only half a century later …
Subsequently, this unforgettable voice continued to be a part of Soviet life: its owner read government statements, reported from Red Square and from the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, dubbed films, and aired the program "Veterans Speak and Write" on the All-Union Radio.
Of course, Levitan was the symbol of the Soviet Information Bureau, but in fact, the activities of this department were not limited to the broadcasting of front-line reports. It is worth noting, first of all, the highest literary and journalistic quality of the prepared materials, which came from the pen of Alexei Tolstoy, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Fadeev, Ilya Ehrenburg, Boris Polevoy, Konstantin Simonov, Evgeny Petrov (during the war years he "retrained" in simple correspondent and, alas, died during a business trip to the front).
Despite the phrase "Moscow is speaking," the broadcast itself was carried out from Sverdlovsk (until 1943) and Kuibyshev (in 1943-1945), and in addition, in 1944, a special department for propaganda to foreign countries was created as part of the Sovinformburo. This area of work was also very important: it was necessary not only to constantly convince the leaders of the "Western democracies" of the need to open a second front, but also simply to tell ordinary people about what the Soviet people, the country itself, were. After all, most of the inhabitants of the same Great Britain and the United States knew little about the USSR, believed in the most stupid fables, and some simply did not want to know anything. But the Sovinformburo, including thanks to the activities of various Antifascist committees, managed to arouse at least interest in the Western public, which later often grew into sympathy.
When the struggle of the Soviet Army and the people against fascism ended, in the post-war period the main activity was to inform about the domestic and foreign policy of the USSR. In those years, the bureau's materials were distributed through 1,171 newspapers, 523 magazines and 18 radio stations in 23 countries of the world, Soviet embassies abroad, friendship societies, trade union, women's, youth and scientific organizations.
Then, after the war, a book publishing department arose as part of the Sovinformburo, and representative offices abroad (in London, Paris, Washington, Germany, India, Poland) began to expand their activities. The release of local periodicals was organized - for example, in 1948 the first issue of the Etude Sovietic magazine was published in France, and in 1957 in the United States began publishing the CCCR magazine, later renamed Soviet Life.
In addition, the employees of the departments carried out, in modern terms, monitoring of newspapers and magazines from many countries of the world, translated anti-Soviet materials and organized counter-propaganda demonstrations. During the Cold War, the importance of such work could hardly be overestimated. And then followed a "reformatting" of the bureau's activities, which was succeeded in 1961 by the Novosti Press Agency, which continued the tradition of honest and unbiased informing readers and listeners about what was happening in the country and the world.
