Glawlite

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The General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press ( Russian Главное управление по делам литературы и издательств , scientific. Transliteration Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literatury i izdatel'stv) was starting in 1922 as headquarters of the matters of literature and publishing a top censorship body for publications first in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic ( RSFSR) and later throughout the Soviet Union . The highest authority for the control of censorship in the Soviet Union existed under different names and responsibilities until 1989, two years before the political dissolution of the Soviet Union , with a relaxation of the censorship regulations from 1985.

Development since 1917

In the decree of October 27th / 9th November 1917 it was announced that the previous restrictions on the freedom of the press and the book industry would be removed and that complete freedom would re-enter after the political situation had been consolidated . The All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided on November 4th / 17th. November 1917 in a resolution that a renewed introduction of the so-called freedom of the press would be a measure of undoubtedly counter-revolutionary character and would therefore not be introduced.

The People's Commissariat of Justice then issued an ordinance in mid-December 1917 on the establishment of a supreme body to exercise censorship over the press. This regulation was passed by the Council of People's Commissars in a decree on the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press of January 28th / 10th. February 1918 confirmed and ordered that the opposition press would be banned and that prior censorship would be introduced by the state publisher at the beginning of 1919.

The decree of the Glawlit of 1922

The decree on the Glawlit was passed by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on July 6, 1922. The publication of the decree was published on July 23, 1922 in the official Izvestia newspaper No. 137 as a decree on the Central Administration for Literary and Publishing Affairs of the RSFSR (Glawit) and its local institutions . The Glawlit was under the People's Commissar for Enlightenment (Education) Anatoly Wassiljewitsch Lunacharsky and the authority NARKOMPROS . The Glawlit was divided into four sections, which in turn could be divided into sections:

  • Russian Literature Department
  • Department of Foreign Literature
  • Administrative department
  • Control department

Instruction of the Glawlit in December 1922

On December 2, 1922, the Glawlit issued an instruction which was addressed to the local Glawit institutions and described the provisions of the decree in more detail. Then the People's Commissariat for Education issued a decree in which the obligations of private publishers towards the Glawlit were determined.

Organization of the Glawlit

A Glawit department was set up at the People's Commissariat for Education. The head of this department was appointed by a college of the People's Commissariat. Two assistants were assigned to the head, one of which was appointed by the military through the former Revolutionary War Council (Revvojensovjet) and the other by the GPU secret police . This scheme of management was also introduced in the subdivisions of the Glawit.

At the local level, were as breakdown of the General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press Oblite which, at the level of Gouvernements Gublite established. Publications of the Comintern , the Central Committee of the CPSU , the local representations of the CPSU, the state publisher GOSISDAT, the Central Committee for Political Enlightenment (Glawpolitproswet), the Izvestia newspaper and the publications of the Academy of Sciences were exempt from censorship . These publications were also subject to the general prohibitions on the publication of military and state secrets.

Execution of censorship

The regulations for the execution of the censorship were constantly adapted to the political demands of the leadership. However, there were also annual requirements for the application of censorship in the field of economic and military secrets, which were listed in a secret manuscript entitled List of Materials and Information whose publication in the open press is prohibited . According to this, all individual information about almost all units of the armed forces, weapons, bridges, tactical and strategic instructions of the armed forces, arms factories and any facilities for military use were prohibited. Economic information about the harvest or other quantities that had not yet been published elsewhere in the Pravda and Istwestija newspapers was also permitted . Other information such as the construction of certain railway facilities, areas with epidemics, losses on exports, issuance of government bonds and the like could not be published either.

The censor process comprised three stages for printed matter. The previous censorship concerned the first manuscript. Then came the censorship of the prints and finally the censorship of the advance copy.

The preliminary censorship of the manuscript concerned the review by the editor, by two reviewers outside the editorial team, the college of editors and finally the editor-in-chief. This reviewed or modified manuscript was then given to the censor in three copies. One copy was received by the secret service, one copy was put in a filing system and the remaining copy was returned censored. This returned copy contained the censorship instructions and changes or deletions of the text. The mildest form of the instruction was the recommendation with which the censors returned responsibility to the editors. The author himself, however, was not allowed to look into the orders or recommendations of the censor.

If a manuscript was found to be free of any objections from the censor, it was stamped Free of Military and State Secrets . The corresponding prints received the stamp approved for printing . The subsequent preliminary copy , also called the signal copy and checked again by the censor, had the stamp released for distribution .

Deepening of censorship in 1931 and 1934

On June 6, 1931, the rights and duties of the Glawlit were confirmed and expanded by the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. However, there were also some exemptions from the censorship authority for certain publications and from 1934 the Glawlit cooperated with the military censorship (OWC). A 1934 decree also extended censorship to exhibitions, films, plays, and performances of the ballet.

New names and insinuations of the Glawlit

In 1946 the Glawlit was renamed the Administration for the Protection of Military and State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR . It was renamed the Central Administration for the Protection of Military and State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1953, and in 1966 it was renamed the Central Administration for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press under the Council of Ministers of the USSR .

The subordination of the Glawlit changed after 1945 to the Committee for Press at the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in order to then be assigned to the Committee for Printing at the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Contents of the 1922 Decree on the Glawit

The details of this decree were listed in twelve points:

  1. The control concerned economic, political-ideological and military aspects with regard to the publication and distribution of press products, manuscripts, photographs, pictures and the like as well as radio broadcasts, lectures and exhibitions.
  2. The Glawlit was empowered by its task to prevent the publication, publication and distribution of all works that carried out agitation and propaganda against the Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat , betrayed state secrets, aroused nationalistic and religious fanaticism and had a pornographic character.
  3. The following areas of responsibility were taken over by Glawlit:
    1. the management and supervision of the local institutions and agents of the Glawlit;
    2. the preliminary and final inspection of the literature to be checked according to the aspects under 1 .;
    3. the confiscation of publications directed against this ordinance in its orders;
    4. the granting of permits for publishing houses to start operating and for periodical press products, the cessation of the operation of a publisher and the prohibition of the publication of printed products, the prohibition of the import and export of literature, pictures and the like, whereby applicable laws were observed;
    5. the issuing of regulations, ordinances and instructions in the area of ​​the powers of the Glawlit, which are binding for all institutions, organizations and private persons;
    6. reviewing complaints relating to orders from Glawit agents and local agencies;
    7. a list of registers in cooperation with the relevant authorities of such information, which, according to its content, constitutes state secrets that must be protected and neither published nor known;
    8. the drawing up of a list of printed matter which has been banned from being published and distributed;
    9. the issuing of sanctions against persons who acted against the regulations of the Glawlit, its institutions and agents.
  4. The pre-inspection (point 3. b.) Is carried out by authorized Glawlit at publishing houses, editorial offices of the press with periodical editions, in printing works, at radio stations and telegraph agencies, in customs offices, in main offices of the post office and similar institutions. Glawit hires and dismisses agents. Their remuneration is paid to the organizations in which they work. In the case of the state publishers belonging to the Association of State Publishers (OGIS), the heads of the publishers carry out the preliminary control, who are appointed as agents of the Glawlit and have a special power of attorney based on an instruction from the People's Commissar for Education. These directors of the publishing houses of the OGIS appointed by the Glawlit confirmed and responsible editors in order to achieve an effective work of the control.
    In special cases, Glawlit is entitled to use OGIS special representatives for pre-inspection as well as for the production of literature and individual publications.
  5. The publications of the Communist International (Comintern), the Central Committee of the CPSU (B), the subdivisions of the CPSU (B), as communications of the Central Executive Committee, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the Communist Academy are excluded from the political-ideological control of the Glawlit and the Academy of Sciences. The local institutions of the Glawlit have an obligation to ensure that state secrets are protected by prior inspection of the publications.
  6. The Glawlit is led by a leader who is assigned to a college. The individual members of the college are confirmed by the People's Commissariat for Education, whereby a coordination with the responsible authorities takes place.
  7. In the centers where there is industry with a network of company newspapers and intensive activity of publishing houses, local representatives of the Glawlit are set up at the institutions of popular education.
  8. The tasks according to points 1, 2 and 3 (b, c, f, h, i) are assigned to the local facilities of the Glawlit. In the Rajons , the tasks of the Glawlit are carried out by individuals appointed by the Rajons Committee in consultation with the local Glawlit institutions.
  9. The local institutions of the Glawlit have the same organizational structure as the central authority of the Glawlit. The heads of the local institutions are proposed by Glawit and appointed by the People's Commissariat.
  10. All print products appearing in the RSFSR are given a release note by Glawit.
  11. Before a print product appears, the print shop managers have to hand over five copies to Glawit immediately after printing.
  12. Print products that have not been approved by Glawlit will be withdrawn from circulation at the request of Glawit by the administration of the organizations of the publishing houses, the book trade and sales.

Head of the Glawlit

literature

  • Jürgen Soenke : Studies on contemporary censorship systems (= newspaper and time. A: newspaper and time. NF 20, ZDB -ID 558348-2 ). Diesterweg, Frankfurt am Main 1941, (Also: Greifswald, University, dissertation, 1940).
  • Merle Fainsod : Smolensk under Soviet Rule. Macmillan, London 1958, (also: In der Werkstatt des Zensors. In: Ost -problem . Vol. 8, No. 24, 1956, ISSN  0472-2027 , pp. 837-844).
  • Peter Huebner: Censorship in the USSR (= reports of the Federal Institute for Eastern Studies and International Studies. 1971, 19, ISSN  0435-7183 ). Volume 1. Federal Institute for Eastern Studies and International Studies, Cologne 1971, ( digitized version ).
  • Martin Dewhirst, Robert Farrell (Eds.): The soviet censorship. Scarecrow Press et al., Metuchen NJ 1973, ISBN 0-8108-0674-6 .
  • Hauke ​​Wendler: Russia's press between independence and censorship. The role of the print media in the process of the political system change 1990 to 1993 (= Eastern Europe. 6). Lit, Münster et al. 1995, ISBN 3-8258-2460-8 .
  • Peter Brockmeier, Gerhard R. Kaiser (Ed.): Censorship and self-censorship in literature. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1996, ISBN 3-8260-1133-3 .
  • Herman Ermolaev: Censorship in Soviet literature. 1917-1991. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD et al. 1997, ISBN 0-8476-8321-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Roth : The commanded public opinion. Soviet media policy (= series of publications of the study society for time problems eV Zeitpolitik. 25). Seewald, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1982, ISBN 3-512-00643-4 , pp. 43-45, (in German translation).
  2. ^ A b Wolfgang Kasack : The Soviet literary censorship. In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 35, No. 2, 1985, ISSN  0030-6428 , pp. 71-86.
  3. ^ Paul Roth: The commanded public opinion. Soviet media policy (= series of publications of the study society for time problems eV Zeitpolitik. 25). Seewald, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1982, ISBN 3-512-00643-4 , p. 70.
  4. ↑ a b Christine Kunze: Journalism in the USSR. A study of the tasks and functions of Soviet journalists with special consideration of the structure of the mass media in the USSR and the discussion of the job description in the newspaper "Žurnalist" (= Dortmund contributions to newspaper research. 27). Verlag Documentation Saur, Munich et al. 1978, ISBN 3-7940-2527-X , pp. 256-258, (At the same time: Münster, University, dissertation, 1977: Journalism in the USSR. ).
  5. ↑ Herman Ermolaev: Censorship in Soviet literature. 1997, p. 4.
  6. ^ A b Georg Kandler: The press censorship in Soviet Russia. In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 1, 1925/1926, pp. 256-258.
  7. ^ Artur W. Just: The press of the Soviet Union. Methods of dictatorial mass leadership (= newspaper and time. 1, ZDB -ID 558347-0 ). Duncker, Berlin 1931, p. 47.
  8. ^ Wolfgang Kasack: The Soviet literary censorship. In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 35, No. 2, 1985, pp. 71-86, here p. 73.
  9. ^ Paul Roth: Sow-Inform. News and information policy of the Soviet Union (= journalism. NF 14). Droste, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-7700-4034-1 , p. 96.
  10. ^ Victor S. Frank: Soviet Union - The Art of the Possible. In: Dieter E. Zimmer (Ed.): The limits of literary freedom. 22 articles on censorship at home and abroad. Nannen, Hamburg 1966, pp. 111–118, here p. 113.
  11. ↑ censorship. In: Hans-Joachim Torke (Ed.): Historical Lexicon of the Soviet Union. 1917/22 to 1991. Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-36771-2 , pp. 376-377.
  12. ↑ Мещеряков Николай Леонидович - первый заведующий Главлитом (1922) .
  13. ^ Bill Keller: The Life of a Soviet Censor: Anything Goes? Not just yet. In: The New York Times , July 18, 1989.