'GLAVLIT': HOW THE SOVIET CENSOR WORKS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79-01194A000100860099-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 4, 1998
• Sequence Number: 99
• Publication Date: January 1, 1972
• Content Type: REPORT

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"'GLAVLIT': HOW THE SOVIET CENSOR WORKS", Leonid Vladimirov, Index,
Autumn/Winter 1972.
One of the main western goals in the upcoming phases of the
uropean security conference will be to lower the barriers in
astern Europe and the Soviet Union to freer movement of journalists,
ooks, and the press. It behooves us, therefore, to take a look at
he mechanism that controls what is read in the Soviet Union;
lavlit is also the prototype for censorship in the rest of Eastern
urope.
Also emerging from this review of Glavlit, written from personal
-perience by a former Soviet journalist, are some of the problems to
e faced by would-be traders who will have to cope with doing business
n a society where censorship bans publication of any absolute
dustrial or agricultural figures.
The author concludes that in this land where even the words
'Glavlit" and "censorship" are officially banned from editorial
L orrespondence or official telephone conversations, "so long as the
olitical structure of the Soviet Union seems to require that the
change of information and ideas be rigidly controlled... there is
ittle likelihood of Glavlit... being modified in any significant way."
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CPYRGHT
autumn/winter 1972 volume 1 no 3/4
editor: Michael Scammell
assistant editor: Jenefer Coates
index
editorial board: Victtoria Britain Stuart Hampshire Peter Reddaway Stephen Spender
page 3
Notebook M.F.
11
Nobel Prize speech (full text) Alexande
r Solzh
enitsyn
25
Apartheid and 'the primary homeland' Nadine G
ordime
r
31
'Glavlit': how the Soviet censor works Leonid V
ladimiro
v
44
Eighteen poems Ondra Ly
sohors
ky
57
Ondra Lysohorsky, the obstinate non-conformist Ewald O
sers
67
Libel, privacy and English law Sir John
Foster
QC & Paul Seighart
85
'Not in Rhodesia's interest' Judith To
dd
97
The Polygamist (extract) Ndabani
ngi Sith
ole
113
Index Index - a running chronicle of censorship
129
and the suppression of freedom of expression
around the world
Information control in Brazil Timothy
Ross
149
An interview with losif Brodsky
155
The work of the International Commission of
159
Jurists
Writers & journalists in prison - a check list by
167
Amnesty International
The Mote (extract) Mykhayl
o Osad
chy
175
Problems of intellectual freedom in France Roger Er
rera
185
Letter from Australia Allan He
aly
197
For the record
Spain: 20 years of censorship: a descriptive list of articles banned from Indice
210
New Zealand: The Little Red School-book reconsidered
216
Great Britain-Soviet Union: the appeal on behalf of Professor B.G. Levich
219
Switzerland: On the journalist's right not to reveal sources
223
Letters to the editor
246
Subscription offer
227
Book reviews
Anthony Thwaite
228
George Schdpflin
231
Antonio de Figueiredo
233
Neville March Hunnings
234
Stuart Hood
236
James Atlas
239
Contributors
Index is published quarterly by Subscrip
Writers & Scholars International, 35 Bow Street #2 for on
London WC2R 7AU Telephone [phone] ($6 for o
Cover design: Hannah Oorthuys by Intern
Printed in England by Villiers Copyrigh
Publications Ltd, London NW5 Internati
tions:
e year,
ne year;
ational
t ? W
onal 19
#5 for 3 years
$15 for 3 years
Money Order)
riters & Scholars
72
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Glav lit.
HOW THE SOVIET CENSOR
WORKS
Leonid Vladimirov
CPYRGHT
History
A decree imposing temporary restrictions on the freedom of the press was signed
by Lenin in 1918. The decree specifically indicated that censorship was to last
for the duration of the Civil War and was to be rescinded immediately the war
ended. In 1920, however, when the Old Bolshevik Myasnikov reminded Lenin
of this promise, he received the brusque and indignant reply, reiterated to this
day in Soviet propaganda, that freedom is a class concept and that the Bolsheviks
were not about to grant unrestricted freedom to `monarchists and anarchists '-
for, as Lenin acknowledged, this would lead to the Bolsheviks losing power. The
last part, however, is omitted from modern propaganda.
The main organ of censorship in the entire half-century has been and remains
` Glavlit.' The precise origin of this title has long since been forgotten. Glavlit,
one of those once fashionable composite words made up of the first syllables
in an organisation's name, has usually been deciphered as Glavnoye upravlenie
po delam literatury i pechati - the ` Central Board for Literature and Press
Affairs '. Presently, however, the same organisation is officially entitled the
` Central Board for the Safeguarding of State Secrets in the Press. Under
the Committee for Press Affairs of the USSR Council of Ministers'. How-
ever, censorship is not subordinated to the Committee for Press Affairs in
any way. This committee itself was conceived and for some reason institution-
alised by A. I. Adzhubey, Khruschev's son-in-law, when he was at the height of
his career. From the first, the tasks of this committee were so vaguely defined
(in 1964) that the Chief of the.USSR Glavlit, P. D. Romanov, was appointed as
its head, and it did indeed appear that it was to function as a kind of legalised
censorship committee.
This ' error ' of course was quickly ' corrected ' and it was stipulated that the
Committee was to concern itself with only the press in general and was not to
intrude in censorship matters. But by a kind of atavistic survival this error was
perpetuated in a purely nominal bureaucratic form, so that censorship is still
supposed to come under the Committee for Press Affairs, which has the desig-
nation of a ' Central Board'.
It is curious to note that, despite the new title of the censorship, its old title,
Glavlit, continues to have a semi-official existence. Outside the building of the
Ministry of Electric Power, of which Glavlit occupies the sixth storey (Moscow,
Kitaysky proyezd), the sign reads ` Central Board for the Safeguarding of
State Secrets in the Press, Under the Committee for Press Affairs of the
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USSR Council of Ministers'. But up on the landing on the sixth floor the wall
is embellished with a dignified glazed plate saying Glavlit USSR. Censors to this
day are officially entitled ' Glavlit representatives ', censorship branches in cities
and regions are called Obllits or Gorlits1 and the stamp of the Military Censor
(see below), which is placed on every document passing through his hands, refers
to the ' Glavlit organs '.
Structure and Organisation
Glavlit is a vast All-Union organisation with its headquarters in Moscow. It is
directly subordinated to the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of the
CPSU Central Committee which in turn is subordinate to the CPSU Central
Committee Secretary for Ideological Questions, Petr Nikolayevich Demichev.
By some devious route, also perhaps an atavistic survival, Glavlit can receive its
orders directly, i.e. not via Demichev, but from the CPSU Central Committee
Secretary Suslov. It is possible to take complaints against the activities of Glavlit
to these men - but this is an extreme step, resorted to by individual editors only
in the most rare and .exceptional cases. One man who disputed most often with
Glavlit at Central Committee level, usually appealing to Demichev, was the
former editor-in-chief of Novy mir, A. Tvardovsky.
Each oblast (` region ') has a Glavlit Board (also applicable to local districts,
autonomus republics, autonomous oblasts and those Union Republics not sub-
divided into oblasts). The main cities of oblasts and other regional centres have
their own permanent local sections of the Obllit, their size.depending on the state
of development of the press and publishing business in any given location. Union
Republics sub-divided into regions or districts (apart from the Russian Republic)
also have republican ' Central Boards for the Safeguarding of State Secrets.
etc', but these organs are purely nominal, few in number and serve only as
transmission points between the really effective USSR Glavlit and the really
effective regional or district boards. The Russian Republic never set up its own
Glavlit, not even when its own Central Committee Bureau and the Russian
Republic's Union of Writers were constituted.
In addition to these various boards all central, regional and district newspapers,
the majority of city newspapers and important publishing houses, as well as all
major printing works have their own pool of permanent or visiting censors. Of
the journals, only the largest weeklies enjoy the ` privilege ' of having their own
pool of censors, though even Ogonyok2, since 1965, for instance, has been ` read '
(the Glavlit professional euphemism for ' censored' ) by a joint Glavlit pool
shared by all journals put out by the Pravda press located on Rumazhny proyezd.
Other journals are assigned to censors `servicing' (another piece of Glavlit
jargon) the larger publishing houses. All central literary and art journals, for
instance, are read by censors from Goslitizdat (' State Literary Publishing House '),
all central popular science journals by the pool of censors from the Nauka
(` Science ') Publishing House, etc. In the regions these departmental pools of
censors are subordinated to the Obllits and Kraylits. Provincial newspapers,
as a rule, are read by provincial representatives of the Obllits, who are always
housed for convenience, either in the editorial offices of the newspapers, or in
their immediate vicinity - for a newspaper is the most labour-consuming object
in the life of a Glavlit representative and all the rest i.e. the output of a local.small
printing house or lithographers ') can be dealt with on the side.
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In the event of the sudden illness of a provincial censor, the editor of the
local newspaper immediately informs the Provincial Party Committee and the
Obllit. On the same day, if possible, the Obllit sends in a replacement (it may
be a daily paper and it is absolutely out of the question for a single edition of
the newspaper to appear without being censored), or it asks the Second Secretary
of the Provincial Party Committee to step in and act as censor. The Second
Secretary is singled out, since only he has been given special instructions on
how to perform a censor's functions. He does not, however, have a right to open
up the fireproof safe or drawer of the incumbent censor or make use of his
personal stamp. During the absence of a provincial censor a printing house has
the right to print texts passed bearing only the signature of the Second Secretary
of the Provincial Party Committee and without the personal stamp of the censor
(see below). To do this, the director of the printing house has to seek the written
authorisation of the First Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee or the head
of the Obllit or Kraylit. In extreme cases (natural disasters, breakdown in the
postal services, etc.), authorisation can be given to the director of a printing house
by telephone.
The USSR Glavlit has the right to override the censor of any particular organ
and temporarily or permanently assume control. Usually this is done when the
newspaper or journal has `permitted political errors ' and the censorship control
over it needs reinforcing. This happened twice at the journal Znanie-sila
(` Knowledge is Strength ') where I worked. The first time Glavit ` took it over'
was in December 1959 for three months, after the editors had passed for the
proof edition an article by S. Altshuller entitled If the Visionaries Do Not Play
a March. This article was not published because, on the insistence of the censor,
the already printed copies were ` shredded ' and the edition had to be re-set. In
the following three months the journal had to be read in the USSR Glavlit itself
until it was again ` returned ' to the pool of censors at the Nauka Publishing
House. The second time this happened was in 1965, after the publication of a
story by Clifford Saymak The Generation Which Reached Its Goals. This story
was published but it caused anger at the Central Committee Agitprop. Up to
June 1966 the journal Znanie was still under the control of the USSR Glavlit.
Glavlit and Other Forms of Censorship
Apart from Glavlit, several other ` specialised ' central censorship services operate
in Moscow which do not exist even in Union Republics, not to mention in the
regions and districts. Officially materials originating outside Moscow and needing
the attention of some specialised censorship have to be sent to Moscow. In fact
the local Glavlit organs simply send on the material in question.
The largest of the special services is the Military Censorship of the General
Staff of the USSR Armed Forces. This is the only censorship organ which offi-
cially goes by that name: Admittedly on the building housing it (one of the
General Staff buildings on Kropotkinskaya ulitsa, No 19), there is no nameplate.
Moreover, all the materials to be sent to the Military Censor for examination
ave to be directed to the First Building of the USSR Defence Ministry,
litsa Frunze, also at No 19.
Strictly speaking the press organs send items to the Military Censor only in
those instances where Glavlit demands a decision of the Military Censor over
military questions contained in a given text. But rules are one thing and editorial
ork in practice is another. In fact, each editorial board knows full well in
dvance what material will be 'diverted' by Glavlit to the Military Censorship
d so it sends it straight there from the first.
The Military Censorship works efficiently, and, however strange it may seem,
xtremely liberally. However, its stamp of authorisation does not yet si
nif
g
y
rmission for publication. Given here is the full text of this large rectangular
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stamp, which, after being placed on the first page of the manuscript has to be
filled in by censor's own hand :
The Military Censorship has no objections to the publication of
materials of a military nature contained in .................. (to be
filled in by the censor) under the heading .................. (to be
filled in ' by the censor) on Pages ......... See Page ......... for our
remarks. Final authorisation for the possible publication of the
given material should be obtained from the Glavlit organs.
Date ............... Military Censor........................ (Signature)
One other special censorship institution, the atomic censorship, is housed in
a building of the State Atomic Energy Committee of the USSR Council of
Ministers, located on Staromonctny pereulok. In 1966 this censorship office was
headed by Valeriy Kalinin, who took over from Major-General Kandaritsky,
who had committed suicide.
Permission of this censorship office is required for all material containing any
mention of atomic energy, both in military and peaceful application. Even science
fiction stories are turned down by Glavlit if they contain mention of atomic fission
and do not bear Kalinin's stamp. Gaining personal access to this censorship for
editors of press organs is made extremely difficult, for, in order to get there, one
has to obtain a pass to enter the Atomic Energy Committee building. V. Kalinin
himself has the right to approve a pass, but is extremely reticent about this,
preferring to remain inaccessible, in order that he should be free of pressure
to make him hurry or of attempts to influence him. The censor works extremely
slowly - I know of cases where material was being ' checked' for five months.
Even the editors of Pravda have sometimes had to complain to Suslov and
Minister Petrosyants over the bureaucratic methods of the censors at the Atomic
Energy Committee. The speed with which materials were processed increased a
little after this, but, as far as I know, no one was punished. Censors in the
USSR are punished only for hasty and over-liberal processing; slow and quibbling
work is commended.
Another specialised censorship office is the Commission for Research and
Exploitation of Cosmic Space under the USSR Academy of Sciences. This is
no more than a specialised censorship group, very closely associated with Glavlit
and working in the Academic Institutes Building on Vavilov Prospect, No 18.
This office has been headed since its inception in 1957 by Candidate of Technical
Sciences Mikhail Galaktionovich Kroshkin. Every book, article, radio or TV
broadcast in any way connected with space flights must have an authorization
from Kroshkin's censorship office. At the press conferences given after each
flight by Soviet cosmonauts, Kroshkin sits behind them and ' corrects' their
replies on the spot.
Other specialised censorship groups also exist, for radio electronics, chemistry,
State Security. The last named is still known as the ' KGB Censorship'. If
questions entering the domain of one of these specialised offices crop up in the
text it must immediately be sent in to obtain the stamp of the appropriate
censor, before the material is sent to Glavlit. This rule is only inapplicable in
relation to the KGB censorship - materials are sent to them by the Glavlit
censors where necessary, and the board of editors are informed at the same time.
Processing Texts
According to current instructions Glavlit does not examine material still in
manuscript form, but only the printer's proofs. In practice, however, there are
many exceptions to this rule. If, for example, an article should go to a specialised
censorship office before being sent to Glavlit (the Military, Atomic or Space
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censor, for instance), a manuscript copy of the material is sent, while, in the
meantime, a proof edition is quietly composed at the printing works. If one had
to wait for a printer's proof before sending it in to the specialised censor the
entire production process would be held up, even though the production schedule
allows nine to eleven days for a monthly journal's censorship and subsequent
correction.
It also happens that a manuscript version is sent directly to Glavlit as well.
Experienced editors do this in those instances where they consider a particular
manuscript ` unsafe' from a censorship point of view. In such cases they usually
telephone the censor and, in a friendly and apologetic tone, ask his permission to
send him for ` consultation ' an item which has not yet been made up into proofs.
This is a rather delicate psychological move, for even if the material is a little
` tricky ', the censor will be inclined to pass it, since, he feels that he was asked
in an open way for his advice and in good time. He thereupon makes one or two
trivial corrections which the editors understandably will accept gratefully.
I have known instances when, after such a ` consultation ', the censors have
passed rather daring material and then afterwards themselves defended it before
their superiors; in such circumstances they think of themselves as champions, if
not of freedom, at least of fairness and even boast of their `high principles' to
the editors. By these and other methods the most human Glavlit workers soothe
their consciences troubled with the ` censor's complex.
If, however, one takes the normal process by which materials pass through
Glavlit's hands, then the editorial board presents `its ' censor with two copies
of the proofs - whether it be a newspaper, journal, book or children's calendar
which consists only of pictures. The proof must accurately reflect what the
coming edition will look like, even down to the layout. When Pasternak died,
Literaturnaya gazeta (` The Literary Gazette ') was only permitted to give a one
column obituary box on a `Member of the Literary Fund', Pasternak, Boris
Leonidovich. But the editors were clever enough to place next to it a three column
article about some Czech or Bulgarian poet whose headline, 'A Very Great
Poet', was read on the same line as Pasternak's name. The senior censor of
Literaturnaya gazeta received a severe reprimand for not checking the page layout.
In reading the proofs the censor notes dubious or inadmissible places. After
reading it through he informs the editors, one of whom immediately appears to
discuss anything which has arisen.
At this point something should be said about the editorial boards' official
and unofficial representation. According to Glavlit's internal instructions (and the
words ` according to our instructions ' are constantly on the lips of censors) the
printed publication should establish contact with Glavlit only via the editor-in-
chief or his deputy, and in the case of newspapers also via the executive secretary.
But in newspapers, journals and book publishing houses it is physically impossible
to adhere to this instruction as it stands. Glavlit itself gives tacit approval to
contacts made between censors at the level of desk chiefs, the executive secretary's
deputy and, in publishing houses, sometimes at the level of rank-and-file, regular
full-time editors.
But there is in addition one rule which, as far as I know, has never been
violated. This is that under no circumstances may there be any direct contact
between the censor and the author or any freelance contributor to any printed
organ. Notes and corrections made by the censor should, where necessary, be
communicated to the author as if they came from the editors. The rules of the
game are such that the author is not even supposed to know that his work is
censored. The words ` Glavlit' and ` censorship ' are officially banned from
editorial correspondence or official telephone conversations. The printing house
belonging to our journal was located in another city, and when informing it about
the latest corrections made by the censor, we had to speak and write about the
Appro
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CPYRGHT
resetting made necessary by `author's corrections'. There are some cynical
editorial boards which even now deduct from the author's fees expenses for
` author's corrections', though these in fact cover nothing more than expenses
for resetting caused by the censor's demands.
And so the editorial representative meets with the censor. Together they
examine all the points noted by the censor. Sometimes the censor simply wishes
to learn the source of this or that report (I was quite astonished on being told
in England that a journalist there is not obliged to disclose the source of his
information, not even to the Good Lord himself). In other cases he demands
that some reference be struck out, since it comes under the ` Index ' (see below).
Finally, he may object to certain passages or entire articles for political reasons.
I have never heard the words ` for political reasons ' pass the lips of a censor,
just as I have never heard the precise reasons given for a text being withdrawn
or reworked. The censor simply points to the place marked in red and says:
` That will not do, it must be removed '; or: ' There is a strange sense here, it
should be changed or taken out entirely '.
I have tried at times to play the innocent and ask censors why they insist precisely
on taking out particular texts. It is impossible to receive an exhaustive answer
in such cases. The most friendly censor will give an answer to the effect that,
` Well, what is there to explain? You understand well enough yourself,' or
'Read the. text for yourself and see what kind of logic there is in it'. A less
polite censor will simply say, 'No discussion! '
`Index of Information Not to be Published in the Open Press'
Working on the text, the censor is guided by the ` Index of Information Not to
be Published in the Open Press '. This thick tome, marked ' Secret ' on the
cover, is also in the possession of chief editors of central newspapers and journals,
where it is kept in a safe, together with other secret documents. The censors
and editors in their conversations call this book almost officially the ' Talmud '.
It contains the following sections: ` General Information; Military Information;
Industry and Construction; Agriculture; Transport, Economics and Finance '.
At the end of the book is an alphabetical index, a great rarity in Soviet
publications.
The first section is of special interest. From it we learn that without special
government permission in every single instance it is forbidden to publish:
1. Information about earthquakes, avalanches, landslides and other natural
disasters in the territory of the USSR;
2. Information about fires, explosions, aeroplane, naval and mine disasters,
rail accidents (of course one may report to one's heart's content about such
occurrences outside the limits of the socialist camp);
3. Figures about the earnings of government and Party workers;
4. Any comparison between the budget of Soviet citizens and the prices of
goods;
5. Information about price increases, even seasonal or local increases;
6. Reports about increased living standards anywhere outside the socialist
camp;
7. Reports of food shortages in the USSR (it is possible only to speak about
local bottlenecks ' in the delivery of specific items);
8. Any kind of average statistics about the country as a whole not taken from
the Central Statistical Bureau reports;
9. The names of any KGB operatives apart from the Committee Chairman;
10. The names of workers for the former Committee for Cultural Relations
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with Foreign Countries, again, apart from the Chairman of the Committee;
11. Aerial photographs of Soviet cities and also precise geographic coordinates
of any populated point on Soviet territory;
12. Mention of Glavlit organs and the jamming of foreign radio broadcasts;
13. Name of political figures on a special list, to which belong five of the
eight Soviet `prime ministers', so far: Rykov, Molotov, Malenkov, Bulganin
and Khrushchev.
The industrial section of the ` Index ' bans publication of any absolute figures
on the number of workers and the productivity of enterprises (in reporting
`successes and achievements' one has to cleverly manipulate relative figures),
forbids publication of accurate addresses of enterprises and of industrial sites in
general, including the number of plants or even the numbers of their ` postal
boxes'. Then come two lists of enterprises: those which one can mention in the
cannot be mentioned in any context. The latter list is the longer.
press but without any detailed description of their operation, and those which
The agricultural section places a ban on the publication of absolute figures
about the harvest of any specific crop in specific regions of the USSR or in the
country as a whole; it forbids specific reports about harvest failures, forbids
comparisons - even indirect comparisons using percentages - of the harvest or
total yield of the current year with that of previous years, if figures for the current
year are only the same or lower. It is forbidden to write specifically about damage
and losses caused by erosion, drought, dust storms, floods, cattle disease. One
may not mention the number of tractors on any given farm if the size of its
acreage is also given, and so on.
All these are, of course, only isolated examples. They can be extended indefi-
nitely. It is forbidden to mention the existence in the country of `hard currency'
or closed retail shops, government dachas or sanatoriums, the opening or closing
of churches, the number of churchgoers, gold reserves or other valuable ores in
the country, any figures describing the assets held by the Soviet State Bank,
the number of crimes in any category for the country as a whole or for regions,
districts, provinces or cities. The ` Talmud ' contains over 300 pages filled with
rather small print.
Finally, working with the ` Index of Information Not To Be Published in the
Open Press ' is only one side of the activities of the censor. The ` Index' makes
no mention of the political evaluation of texts and I am not aware of any written
guideline for censors on this subject. From long and regular contact with Glavlit
workers, many of whom were my 'friends', I have reached the conclusion that
Glavlit does not issue any such guidelines. Censors develop and perfect their
political ' sense' in their internal seminars, which, according to my observations,
are held almost every day.
Technicalities
After the editorial board makes the required alterations in the text and gives the
censor the information he requires about the sources used, the material is signed
for printing. For this every printer's sheet (sixteen pages of text) or every news-
paper double page has to bear the censor's personal stamp, which looks like this :
Permanent Approved .............................................
Personal Number .................. Date....................... .
Number of Glavlit Representative ..............................
Censor (Signature)
On the top line, after the word 'Approved', the censor adds in his own hand,
` for printing '. Then he takes from his logbook the next available number and
adds this, together with the date the stamp was given. This number will be
reproduced in the publication data and can be seen on all Soviet publications
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except the special ones destined only for abroad. On the last line the censor adds
his signature.
One proof copy approved in this way is released to the representative of the
editorial board and a second, a true copy of the first, is held by Glavlit.
The printing house is now able to pass on the printer's proofs to the com-
positor upon receiving the text bearing the Glavlit stamp. For permitting any
printing run-off made on the printing machine without the approval of Glavlit,
the director of the printing works can receive up to eight years in prison. Having
printed up an edition, the printing house makes up ten ` signal copies ' and dis-
tributes them to fixed addresses - the CPSU Central Committee, the `Book
Palace '3, the Lenin Library, the Committee for Press Affairs. A postal distribution
list together with a stamp confirming dispatch is attached to the censor's ' signal
copy ', which the printers give to the editors and which the editors again present
to the censors. At this stage the censor compares this copy with the proof copy
he has retained and, satisfied that they are identical, he again places on it his
personal stamp, but now, instead of ' for printing ', he writes ` for the public '.
Having r::ceivcd this permission for publication the printer has the right to
release the copies which have already been prepared and held in stock.
Glavlit also had a sophisticated structure, so that important publications, after
approval for printing has been given, are also read by certain other highly-piaced
censors as well. If no snags occur here, the editors do not even get to know that
the work has been read at this higher level. But not infrequently questions can
arise entailing extra corrections. This applies most frequently to journals and
books, which can be ` held ' for resetting literally on the day before publication.
Such changes are always extremely expensive, but ' Glavlit expenses ' can usually
be written off somewhere without trouble.
In daily newspapers the process of censorship is only compressed in time, but
is in no way simpler. In exactly the same way the censor reads each number twice
through, approving it first for printing and then for publication. The difference is
that the executive secretary of the editorial board or his duty deputy, if he has
business with the censor, does not go over to the censor to talk over problems
and rework materials : having been informed over the telephone by the censor
that particular items have been questioned, he at once rushes over to the Glavlit
office with replacement material of the same length which has been held in reserve
` in the sheep-pen ' as journalists say. The text which has been pulled out is then
sent back to the editorial department for reworking in conjunction with the editor
and may appear in the next edition in a corrected version, or it may not appear
at all.
It is futile to argue with the censor about material forbidden in the ` Talmud
and virtually impossible over political matters. In the extreme case where an
editor decides to complain about ` his ' censor to the head office of Glavlit, he is
told : ' The Glavlit organs do not have the right to demand the withdrawal of a
text if it does not contain military or state secrets. We only recommend that it be
removed. -H you wish to print it despite our recommendation, you take the res-
ponsibility upon yourself. We will issue our authorising stamp and will pass on
our point of view to the Central Committee.'
After such a `liberal ' answer, any editor would immediately back down. I know
of only one case where an editor of a newspaper demanded a censorship stamp
against the ` recommendation '. He got his stamp and the newspaper came out
the way he wanted it, but almost immediately afterwards the editor was dismissed.
The Censors
At the very smallest, probably underestimated, computation the Glavlit organs
(not the special censorship which is quite small) employ around 70,000 people.
The absolutely overwhelming majority of these have a completed higher educa-
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Lion. Censors who do not have higher education are still to be found in some
provincial offices, far from large cities, but gradually they are being replaced
even there. In general in the last ten years there has been a radical ` rejuvenation '
of the censorship personnel. All men who have reached the age of sixty, and
women who have reached fifty-five, have been retired and in their place have
been recruited people aged between twenty-five and thirty-five.
For many years the head of Glavlit was Pavel Dmitrievich Romanov, a former
CPSU Central Committee Section Head. His first deputy was one Zorin (I cannot
recall his first name). Another deputy was Nikolay Nikolayevich Glazatov. For a
time, from approximately 1963 to 1966, another of Romanov's deputies was Ivan
Ivanovich Agayants, who was suddenly appointed out of the blue to the position
and very soon earned an unenviable reputation among editors. In 1966, however,
it became known that Agayants had been 'returned' to the KGB, where he held
the rank of general. He died in 1967.
I know that at the Central Glavlit office on Kitaysky proyezd there are some
boards and departments, but it is difficult to say what they are called and what
they do. On the Glavlit doors hang merely personal nameplates. One gets the
impression that apart from a limited amount of direct censorship work, the Glavlit
headquarters is mainly concerned with holding an endless stream of conferences,
seminars, courses, and so on. Two or three times a year Glavlit invites editors to
attend conferences.
Rank-and-file and senior censors who operate outside the headquarters as a
rule are combined in groups of two or more. They are housed in editorial offices
which bear only numbers and signs warning ' Unauthorised persons not admitted'.
These rooms are furnished with enormous safes and at night are personally sealed
by the censors.
Censors are recruited purely from among Party and Komsomol members. Many
of them come from the arts departments of the universities and colleges, where
there is always a reservoir of students who regret the lack of opportunity to engage
in political activities and accept censorship work as a substitute. Other sources of
recruitment to the censorship apparatus include, inevitably, the KGB, whose
workers are frequently' directed to ` reinforce ' Glavlit. Then, former journalists
and editors (generally the less capable ones) are often recommended for censor-
ship work by the Party organisations of publishing houses and editorial boards at
the request of Glavlit.
As in any section of society, the censors include all kinds of people, and the
differences also extend to their loyalties. Certain censors who officially do every-
thing required of them, unambiguously make it known that they are gnawed by
conscience. Quite a few are willing to do everything to stress that they are
honourable men with principles who are ready to insist on their decisions before
anyone. Others, also suffering from the ` censor's complex ', try to be as informal
as possible in relations. with-editors and display their friendly disposition. Others
again wish to appear as something like participants in the creative process, entering
into discussions on the artistic merits of a text inviting editors to frank dis-
cussions as equals and repeating endlessly that in this respect they are not em-
powered to give any instructions, but are simply interested in an exchange of
opinions. Possibly some are genuinely interested, but others are only sounding
out the political tendency of the editors in such a discussion.
If a censor, especially a young one, forbids something which is clearly honest,
human and just, then he may come right out and say to the editor sotto voce:
` I hope you understand that this ban does not come from me personally. I would
give permission with pleasure, but even if I did it would just make trouble for
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you and me.' One of my colleagues, the deputy editor-in-chief of a large central
newspaper, asked one censor who had made such a comment: ` So what are you
doing in such a rotten job?' At which the censor uttered a deep sigh and said:
` Yes, I'm quitting, I'm quitting! ' He did not report the talk he had had with
the editor and soon he really did disappear somewhere.
Naturally there are also not a few mindless, harsh apparatchiks with whom
it is very difficult to work. These are both men and women - perhaps more
women than men. Complaining against such censors to the Glavlit chiefs usually
means only that their position is strengthened, and that they arc able to be
even more savage to the ones who complain.
Conclusions
Although the picture I have drawn of the Soviet censorship rests principally on
my experience of it during the 'fifties and early 'sixties, it is clear that its
essential features have changed little since Stalin's day. Indeed, remarkably little
has changed since the early 'thirties, when Stalin finally succeeded in institution-
alising and controlling every aspect of the communications and publishing media.
Those changes that have actually come about over the years have usually been
ones of emphasis and intensity and have barely touched the machinery I have
described.
In more recent years, the trend has been towards a greater, rather than lesser,
severity in matters of censorship, so that Solzhenitsyn, for instance, in 1967 made
it the first object of attack in his famous Open Letter to the Fourth Congress of
the Soviet Writers' Union. And so long as the political structure of the Soviet
Union seems to require that the exchange of information and ideas be rigidly con-
trolled and directed, there is little likelihood of Glavlit and its satellites being
modified in any significant way.
Solzhenitsyn on ` G lavlit '
Not having access to the platform at this Congress, I ask that the
Congress discuss the following.
The no longer tolerable oppression, in the form of censorship, which
our literature has endured for decades, and which the Union of Writers
can no longer accept.
Under the obfuscating label of GLAVLIT, this censorship - which is
not provided for in the Constitution and is therefore illegal, and which
is nowhere publicly labelled as such - imposes a yoke on our literature
and gives people unversed in literature arbitrary control over writers.
A survival of the Middle Ages, the censorship has managed, Methuse-
lah-like, to drag out its existence almost to the twenty-first century. Of
fleeting significance, it attempts to appropriate to itself the role of
unfleeting time - o f separating good books from bad.
Our writers are not supposed to have the right, are not endowed with
the right, to express their cautionary judgments about the moral life
of man and society, or to explain in their own way the social problems
and historical experience that have been so deeply felt in our country.
Works that might express the mature thinking of the people, that might
have a timely and salutary influence on the realm of the spirit or on the
development of a social conscience, are proscribed or distorted by
censorship on the basis of considerations that are petty, egotistical,
and -from the national point of view - shortsighted. Outstanding
manuscripts by young authors, as yet entirely unknown, are nowadays
rejected by editors solely on the ground that they ` will not pass'.
Many members of the Writers' Union, and even many of the delegates
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at this Congress, know how they themselves have bowed to the pressures
of the censorship and made concessions in the structure and concept
of their books - changing chapters, pages, paragraphs, or sentences,
giving them innocuous titles - just for the sake of seeing them finally
in print, even if it meant distorting them irremediably. It is an under-
stood quality of literature that gifted works suffer disastrously from all
these distortions, while untalented works are not affected by them.
Indeed, it is the best of our literature that is published in mutilated
form.
Solzhenitsyn in his ` Open Letter to the Fourth Congress of the Soviet
Writers' Union', 1967.
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