Many have visited the site "Voennoye Obozreniye", as I have already noted, have become much more demanding of the reported facts and often require links to the sources of this or that reported information. As they say - trust, but verify! But this leads us to articles of a purely scientific plan, which are quite difficult for an unprepared person to perceive. And, although the links to the primary sources of the "scientific character" of such publications, of course, increase, in reality they do not give the readers of the site anything! After all, no one will check them in the archives indicated in the links. Nevertheless, this material is offered to VO readers as an example of modern scientific publications, but they are unlikely to argue that all other articles were the same here! Although the material is certainly interesting and curious in all respects and is directly related to the military theme!
V. Shpakovsky
By 1941, the following system of informing citizens about life abroad was formed in the USSR: directives were sent from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) about the nature of coverage of international events and events in the country [1, L. 32], local party organizations, in turn, carried out lectures and seminars on the international situation, taking into account the received directives. It should be noted here that the source material for the aforementioned events was mainly the articles of the Pravda newspaper [1, L. 29.]. In the districts, conversations and meetings were held with local agitators [2, L. 94, L. 99], the topics of which were developed on the basis of materials sent by the regional and regional committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which then went down to the agitation collectives [3, L. 14]. The local population learned about everything that was happening abroad during meetings, conversations, lectures, readings [3, L. 33, L. 48, L. 68; 2, L. 38], carried out by the local departments of propaganda and agitation, and all the mass agitation work was carried out in the light of “Stalin's instructions” [3, L. 7, L. 18]. A similar system of information dissemination among the citizens of the USSR also operated during the war years.
In the Penza region from the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) telegrams sent instructions on the content of newspapers [2, L. 101; 1, L. 27], recommendations were given on how to cover certain foreign events [2, L. 24], for example: “We recommend holding talks among workers on the following topics by May 1: 1. United Front of Freedom-loving Peoples against the fascist invaders. 2. The world-historical significance of the struggle of the Soviet people against the German fascist invaders. 3. The struggle of the enslaved peoples of Europe against the fascist yoke. 4. The great liberation mission of the Red Army. 5. Friendship of the peoples of the USSR is the guarantee of our victory …”[1, L. 9]. By May 1, 1942, the Penza Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks proposed a list of slogans, which included slogans on the theme of friendship between the peoples of the world: "Hello to the enslaved peoples of Europe, fighting for their liberation from Hitler's tyranny!", "Hello to the oppressed Slavic peoples fighting for their freedom and independence against the German, Italian and Hungarian imperialist robbers!”,“Slavs, to arms! All for the people's holy war against the worst enemy of the Slavic peoples - German fascism!”,“Brothers of the oppressed Slavs! The hour of decisive battles has come. Take up arms. All forces to defeat the bloody Hitler, the sworn enemy of the Slavs! "," Brothers Slavs! Clear your land from German invaders. Death to the German occupiers! Long live the unity of the Slavic peoples! "," Greetings to the German people groaning under the yoke of the Black Hundred bands - we wish them victory over bloody Hitler! " German fascist invaders! " [1, L. 10] The activities of the newspaper "Stalinskoe Znamya" and regional publications were considered at meetings of the propaganda and agitation department of the Penza regional committee of the CPSU (b) [4, L. 22; 5, L. 1, L. 5, L. 7], and the appointment to the post of editor-in-chief of the newspaper and director of the publishing house "Stalinskoye Znamya" was controlled by the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) [5, L. 10, L. 11] … It should be noted that control over the content of newspaper articles was tightened during wartime.
The main reason was the fact that the press was "one of the sources of information for the enemy's intelligence" [2, L. 58]. Describing the system of informing the population about life abroad, it should be said that in 1941 the Soviet media system was modified in accordance with wartime requirements, namely, the network of central and regional newspapers was partially curtailed and the publication of the military press was organized. Researchers such as L. A. Vasil'eva [6], A. A. Grabelnikov [7], A. I. Lomovtsev [8] note in their works a reduction in the network of the central and local press. In particular, in the work of L. A. Vasilyeva cited the following data: “the number of central newspapers has more than halved: out of 39, only 18 remained … Pravda, published on 6 pages, from June 30, 1941, began to appear on four pages” [6, p. 195]. The general reduction also affected the Penza region.
According to the research by A. I. Lomovtsev, in the Penza region “regional newspapers were published 5 times a week on two pages; regional newspapers, the volume of which was reduced to two pages, were transferred to a weekly issue”[8, p. 114]. As the researcher notes, “the reduction in newspaper circulation took place throughout the first half of the war” [8, p. 114]. Indeed, during the war years, the Penza Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks established strict limits on the distribution of central and regional newspapers in the regions [1, L. 34; 2, L. 64; 9, L. 85], the frequency of regional newspapers was reduced [2, L. 34]. At the same time, a network of military newspapers was deployed in the active army, and the publication of a partisan underground press was organized [7, p. 82]. The sharp decrease in the number of newspapers available to the population did not hesitate to affect the entire information system and the level of awareness of Soviet citizens about current events in the country and abroad. Sometimes, due to the weak work of party bodies, the level of awareness of the population about all events that took place outside the village was practically zero.
This can be judged by the data of memoranda and reports of party workers of the Penza regional committee of the CPSU (b) on the state of propaganda and agitation in 1941-1942. For example, in 1941 the following situation developed in the Bessonovsky district: “… Enterprises, organizations, institutions, two MTS and 56 collective farms in the district receive 29 copies of the Pravda newspaper (of which 18 remain in the regional center), 32 copies of the Izvestia newspaper (28), 474 copies of the regional newspaper "Stalinskoye Znamya", 1950 copies of the regional newspaper "Stalinsky Ustav" settle in the regional center. No magazines have been received in the region over the past two months …”[10, L. 21]. Regional and central newspapers reached the population with a great delay, sometimes central newspapers were delivered to the districts with a three-week delay [10, L. 21]. The work of the network of radio centers was also assessed by party organizations as unsatisfactory: “Three times a day, for 15 minutes, the latest news is broadcast over the telephone network from Penza. In a number of village councils that have telephones, these programs are often not listened to or listened to by people who are unable to tell about the news later”[10, L. 21].
Information about the events taking place in the country and abroad did not reach the population well for another reason. The problem was that the employees of the propaganda and agitation departments themselves were not sufficiently aware of how to conduct events to inform the population about events in the country and abroad. Many groups of agitators fell apart due to the mobilization of people to the front and the construction of defensive fortifications [10, L. 21]. As a result, unprepared and virtually random personnel were included in the informing process. Judging by the reports received by the editorial office of the newspaper "Stalinskoe Znamya", the level of training of such agitators was extremely low, they had the most vague idea of the top officials of the Soviet state: "Agitator of the collective farm" Parizhskaya Kommuna "comrade. Zolotova is a good production worker, skillfully organizing the work of collective farmers, and is not prepared to conduct political agitation. She cannot say who Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin is”[10, L. 25]. Naturally, such cadres were powerless to provide any reliable information about events in the country and outside the USSR: “On the collective farm im. Dzerzhinsky agitator teacher comrade Zhdanova does not answer listeners even to basic questions. She herself does not read newspapers, she cannot say anything about how the assistance of the USSR from England and the USA is expressed”[11, L. 4].
In 1942-1943. the situation remained difficult. According to a report at a meeting of a party activist in Penza on the state of propaganda and agitation on June 27, 1942, the population of the Penza region was practically not informed about what was happening in the USSR and other countries: the current international situation is completely unsatisfactory in the field. In many collective farms, state farms, MTS and industrial enterprises, political reports and conversations have not been and are not held for several months in a row. At the same time, radio and newspapers do not reach the broad masses of the village.
Most of the newspapers are deposited in institutions, village councils, collective farm boards, where they are often spent on cutting. Newspaper and news showcases are not organized”[2, L. 74]. In the course of inspections carried out by the Penza Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), the following facts were revealed: “The regional newspaper Luninskaya Kommuna (editor Comrade Lobova) for 6 months of 1943 did not give a single review of military operations on the Soviet-German front, nor information from the information bureau …
The population of the Luninsky region is not at all informed by the regional newspaper about the messages on the fronts of the Patriotic War”[11, L. 4]. As a result of all the above facts, the most diverse and incredible rumors about events abroad were spread among the population of the Penza region in the early years of the war. In 1942 "… in a number of districts of the region at one time a rumor spread that 26 states allegedly presented an ultimatum to the Soviet government to dissolve collective farms and to open all previously closed churches" [11, L. 4]. Here it should be said that such a situation developed not only in the Penza region, similar facts took place throughout the country. As noted by O. L. Mitvol, in his research, “the people in the rear heard the muffled echoes of events at the front, few had any idea what was really happening there, since the Soviet Information Bureau was limited to short and incomplete summaries. Uncertainty, lack of truthful information superimposed on pre-war ideas and expectations of a victorious war, gave rise to fantastic rumors”[12, p. 167].
The poor awareness of the population about the events in the country and abroad was also explained by the fact that at the beginning of the war, solving the problem of supplying food to the front, the Penza Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks pushed the holding of agitation and propaganda events to the background. This can be seen from the content of the minutes of the Plenary sessions in 1941-1942. [13, 14, 15]. This tendency in the work of local party organizations was sharply criticized by the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). The Penza regional committee of the CPSU (b) received a decree of July 14, 1942, in which its activities were characterized as follows: “… the party organizations of the Penza region during the war dramatically weakened, and in some cases even abandoned political work among the masses … The VKP (b) and its department of agitation and propaganda did not restructure the agitation and propaganda work in accordance with the tasks of wartime, showing in this unacceptable slowness and sluggishness”[11, L.3]. And further: "the regional committee of the CPSU (b), city committees and regional party committees do not manage regional newspapers and factory-run large-circulation runs, do not show the necessary care about the timely delivery of newspapers, magazines, brochures" [11, L. 4-5].
With information about international events, the situation was also bad: "… in many areas until now the population is not sufficiently informed about political events, about the situation on the fronts of the Patriotic War, about the international situation, etc." [16, L. 2, L. 49]. In 1943-1945. in the documents of the Penza regional committee of the CPSU (b) there are materials about the unsatisfactory work on the distribution of newspapers in rural areas [2, L. 82, L. 89; 17, L. 11, L. 16, L. 21; 18, L. 10, L. 30], as well as about the problems in the operation of radio centers in the regions of the region [2, L. 113; 17, L. 7], it was reported that “Many radio centers - Sosedsky, Bashmakovsky, Neverkinsky, Tamalinsky districts are almost inactive. In most radio centers of the region, the Moscow program is broadcast no more than two or three hours a day … Many radio stations have long gone silent due to a malfunction of the loudspeakers and the broadcasting network”[1, L. 2]. In the course of the checks carried out, shortcomings in the activities of local agitators were also revealed. In 1945, in Kuznetsk, “at the tannery on May 30, in the dining room, a reading of the articles of the newspaper Pravda from May 26,“The Great Russian People”and“International Review”was held. Agitator comrade Gorkina (plant accountant, non-party) mechanically read one article after another, without even explaining the incomprehensible terms to the workers (conservatives, labor)”[17, L. 21].
Sometimes in the well-oiled mechanism of propaganda there were failures due to the slow reaction of local party organizations to changes in the external political course of the country. During the war years, inconsistencies in the conduct of propaganda activities occurred in the coverage of the allied relations of the USSR, Great Britain and the United States. For example, the lecturer Tokmovtsev in a memo [18, L. 16] on a business trip to the regions of the region in 1944 pointed out the following shortcomings in the work of the head of the propaganda department of the Neverkinsky region, comrade Myaksheva: “Comrade. Myakshev began his report by contrasting the system of socialism with the system of capitalism. They cannot exist for a long time. A struggle is inevitable between them. Either one or the other system must win … Comrade. I pointed out to Myakshev the shortcomings of his report. In particular, he also indicated that it is inappropriate to make an introduction with the opposition of the system. For this opposition cannot explain to us the course of the war and our alliance with the United States and Great Britain."
So, having analyzed the archival materials of 1941-1945, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) during the Second World War, the system of informing citizens about life abroad
faced a number of difficulties caused by objective reasons:
- lack of qualified personnel;
- reduction of the network of newspapers intended for the civilian population;
- poor equipment of the Soviet media network with technical means
dissemination of information (reduction in the number of radio points and radio centers) due to the orientation of the entire industrial complex of the USSR on the production of military products;
- a low level of awareness of employees of local party organizations about changes in the country's foreign policy (the development of allied relations between the USSR, Great Britain and the United States);
2) strict control of the activities of all media by party structures led to a slowdown in the circulation of information in the USSR, which led to such consequences as the emergence of unwanted rumors among the population, i.e. to misinformation;
3) despite many problems, the system of informing the population about foreign events continued to operate even in the most difficult times for the Soviet state, and the Soviet press was the main source of information about everything that was happening, both for the ordinary population and for party workers at the regional level.
List of sources used
1. Department of funds of public political organizations of the State
archive of the Penza region (OFOPO GAPO) F. 148. Op. 1. D. 639.
2. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 853.
3. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 720.
4. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 495.
5. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 1158.
6. Vasilyeva L. A. Mass media in political processes of totalitarian and transit types: a comparative study of the mass and the significance of the printed mass media of the Soviet and Russian patterns: Dis…. Dr. watered. sciences. Vladivostok, 2005.442 p.
7. Grabelnikov A. A. Mass information in Russia: From the first newspaper to the information society: Dis…. Dr. East sciences. M., 2001.349 p.
8. Lomovtsev A. I. Mass media and their impact on the mass consciousness during the Great Patriotic War: on materials of the Penza region: Dis…. Cand. ist. sciences. Penza, 2002.200 s.
9. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 1159.
10. OFOPO GAPO. F. 554. Op. 1. D.69.
11. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 637.
12. Mitvol O. L. Formation and implementation of information policy in the USSR and the Russian Federation: 1917-1999: Dis…. Dr. East sciences. M., 2004.331 s.
13. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 353.165 p.
14. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 595.256 p.
15. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 593.253 p.
16. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 1036.
17. OFOPO GAPO. Form 148. Op. 1. D. 1343.
18. OFOPO GAPO. F. 148. Op. 1. D. 1159.
