Publishing houses in the Soviet Union

Publishing houses in the Soviet Union, with the exception of the brief initial period and the period of perestroika before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, were state enterprises under strict ideological control and censorship for the compliance with the communist ideology under the guidelines of the CPSU.

Centralization

On August 8, 1930 RSFSR Sovnarkom established the state publishing monopoly, OGIZ (ОГИЗ, Объединение государственных книжно-журнальных издательств, Union of the State Book and Magazine Publishers), subordinated to Sovnarkom. Its core was Gosizdat. Other union republics followed the pattern.

During the era of centralization the names of the most of them contained the acronym "гиз" ("giz") standing for "государственное издательство" (gosudarstvennoye izdatelstvo, i.e., "State Publisher", S.P.).

List

Early publishers

As of January 1, 1930 there were 995 publishers in the RSFSR alone.[1]

Period of centralization

Perestroika publishers

List of printing houses

References

  1. Creation of the Centralized System of Book Printing in the USSR, from "The History of the Book, a Textbook for Higher Educational Institutions" ("История книги: Учебник для вузов" / Под ред. Говорова А.А., Куприяновой Т.Г.), Moscow, Svetoton (Светотон), 2001, ISBN 5-7419-0040-2 (Russian)