Совинформбюро в СССР и за рубежом в годы Великой Отечественной войны

Abstract

The article studies aspects of the Soviet outreach during World War II. The tool of such outreach was the Soviet Information Bureau, established on June 24, 1941. The authors focus on main directions of the operation of the Bureau. The novelty of the authors’ findings lies in the fact that canonical texts of the Soviet Information Bureau were actually censored by Joseph Stalin himself. The article questions the significance of the underlying patterns for the development of domestic media content. The authors study how Stalin managed the media with the help of reports.
 The study is relevant, as it reveals and argues the key role of Marxist ideologemes, contained in the reports, as the dominant factor defining the whole complex of newspaper and journal sources. Upon studying Stalin’s notes, the authors conclude that the tenet of exceptional progressivity of Soviet socialist society was unquestionable for its leader. The argument on the excellence of the society and the proof of extreme reactivity of the opposing regime that cast shadow on the perfect society are connected with a complete perversion of facts. The article also contains the authors’ investigation into information expansion organized by Soviet Information Bureau in the international arena during the studied period. According to the researchers, the expansion was aimed at creating a springboard to launch an agenda offensive in the post-war period. The authors conclude that Bureau’s campaigns never succeeded despite major financial and labour investments due to deep ideological motivation: the majority of Soviet people, as well as most foreigners had no trust towards Soviet media.