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Soviet Union [USSR] The Party Role
In the late 1980s, the secretary for ideology and the Central
Committee's Ideological Department functioned mainly to mold
popular opinion. The former not only regulated the media but also
issued directives to republic and provincial
(
oblast,
kraia--see Glossary, and autonomous division)
leaders to administer the
mass media and the arts through the various "letters" departments
(the media control organs that oversee "letters to the editor"
offices), the International Information Department (foreign affairs
information overseer), and the Culture Department. Parallel
departments dealing with ideology and propaganda operated at lower
party levels throughout the country to centralize control over
local publications
(see Soviet Union USSR - Intermediate-Level Party Organizations
, ch.
7). Both the central and the local ideology and propaganda
departments supervised culture, education, and science. In
addition, as part of the party's
nomenklatura (see Glossary)
authority, party leaders at all levels selected editors of
newspapers, magazines, and journals within their domains
(see Soviet Union USSR - Nomenklatura
, ch. 7). According to Soviet émigrés surveyed in a
1982 Rand study, "The Media and Intra-Elite Communication in the
USSR," the Propaganda Department (which was absorbed by the
Ideological Department in 1988) wielded great power in selections
of editors for the central press organs and publishing houses. In
many instances, these high positions were filled by party members
who had previously worked in some section of the Propaganda
Department, whether at the
all-union (see Glossary) or at the local level.
Data as of May 1989
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