Censorship in the Soviet Union

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Censorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.

Vladimir Lenin believed that literature and art could be used for ideological and political as well as educational purposes. As a result, the party rapidly established control over print and electronic media, book publishing and distribution, bookstores and libraries, and it created or abolished newspapers and periodicals at will. [1]

Censorship was performed in two main directions:

State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press (also known as Glavlit) was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state secrets
Censorship of "political correctness", in accordance with the official ideology and politics of the Communist Party was performed by several organizations:
- Goskomizdat censored all printed matter: fiction, poetry, etc.
- Goskino, in charge of cinema
- Gosteleradio, in charge of radio and television broadcasting
- The First Department in many agencies and institutions, such as the State Statistical Committee (Goskomstat), was responsible for assuring that state secrets and other sensitive information only reached authorized hands.