Soviet diplomat and foreign correspondents in the USSR during war: through the pages of an Palgunov’s office diary (1941-1942)

Abstract

Introduction. This study is concerned with a problem of current interest, namely, the everyday political life of workers at the USSR Peoples’ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs during the Great Patriotic War. The novelty of the present study lies in the fact that the problem has been little investigated, while several documents are thereby introduced into general use for the first time. Materials and methods. The sources were the document complex in the Archive of Foreign Politics of the Russian Federation. The methodology is based on general scholar, special historical and source studies methods. Results. One of the components in the everyday political life of the Soviet diplomat Palgunov, who headed the Press Department in the Peoples’ Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, consisted of contacts with foreign correspondents who represented the mass media of the Allies, namely, Great Britain and the US. The correspondents were eager for getting the information concerning the war effort of the Soviet Union and the contributions into the defense of the country on the part of its citizens in the rear. However, this was hindered by the presence of strict political censorship in the USSR. The situation was aggravated by acute competition between British and American correspondents. Given these conditions, Palgunov acted as a kind of referee who was called upon to aid, both in obtaining information on the situation on the front and for help in the needs of their everyday life. Conclusions. The present author used the unpublished job diary of Palgunov for 1941–1942 to get a more accurate list of the British and American correspondents who were accredited in the USSR during that period of time. When combined with Palgunov’s memoirs, this source was used to present a true picture of how the Press Department was interacting with foreign correspondents. This author emphasized subjects such as the peculiarities in the activity of foreign correspondents in Moscow and Kuibyshev and in questions relating to the organization of their trips to the front zone. It has been found why they blamed Palgunov for bureaucracy and incompetence.