Document 51

Memorandum to Orgbiuro "Concerning the Work of Glavlit," 2 January 1936

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 114, d. 731, ll. 72-77. Typed original.

To the Organization Bureau [Orgbiuro] of TsK VKP(b)

Concerning the Work of Glavlit

Printed works published in this country are reviewed twice by the organs of censorship. There is the so-called preliminary censorship carried out by authorized representatives of Glavlit who work in actual publishing houses, and the final censorship carried out by the Central Staff of Glavlit. (Daily newspapers are an exception: here the censorship review of the authorized Glavlit agent attached to each newspaper is final.)

An inspection of the work of Glavlit's central staff shows that the state of censorship in the country is totally unsatisfactory.

Glavlit's central staff carries out the final censorship of books coming to it that have been reviewed by Glavlit's agents working in publishing houses proper and at newspapers and krai (and oblast) censorship bureaus. Therefore, one can judge by the work of Glavlit's central staff the results and quality of the work of its agents in publishing houses and in organizations peripheral to Glavlit who carry out the preliminary censorship.

Glavlit's staff is made up of four basic sections: the Political and Economic Section, the Artistic Literature Section, the Agriculture Section, and the Regional Inspection Section. Supervision of the work done by preliminary censors is also a function of these sections. How does the central staff of Glavlit fulfill the tasks assigned to it?

The Political and Economic Section carries out final censoring for thrity two publishing houses, ranging from Sotsekgiz (State Economics Publishing House) to Medgiz (State Medical Publishing House) that publishes the Medical Encyclopedia, publications of the Central Committee of Esperantists, and so forth. Four people work in the Section; none is an economist. Neither the number of Section staff nor their training guarantees competent review of material for publication. Therefore, the vast majority of material received is simply not examined but goes into the "overflow" pile (in the Political and Economic Section the "overflow" pile reaches seventy to seventy five percent of material received). Nonetheless, even with so insignificant a percent of books being reviewed by the Section, during 1935 thirty books were held up that had been passed by the preliminary censoring, whereas during this same time period only twenty five books where held up by the preliminary censor.

This indicates the extraordinary weakness of the preliminary censorship and the careless attitude toward work by its staff.

Until very recently someone named Less worked as a political editor in the Political and Economic Section. Less was expelled from the party after his party documents were checked for his tie with Trotskyites. The Section head, Comrade Kazansky, (fired by order of the Orgbiuro) did not organize the work of the Section itself nor that of supervising the preliminary censorship. Kazansky indulged the self-seeking, anti-party activities of Glavlit's Authorized Agent at the State Financial Publishing House, Zaretsky, who has been exposed by the Party Control Commission. The Section passed Mezier's bibliographical dictionary which recommends Trotskyite literature.

The Agriculture Section reviews all literature related to agriculture. Four persons work in the Section: three have a smattering of knowledge about agriculture, one is a graduate of the History and Philosophy Institute. Serious reviews are not provided by this inadequately equipped Section. Suffice it to say that there is not a single specialist in issues of animal husbandry in the Section. "Overflow" in this Section reaches sixty to sixty five percent. "By and large" the majority of literature concerned with the most pressing agricultural issues is reviewed. Nonetheless, the Section holds up a large number of books: 116 for 1935.

The Artistic Literature Section. Of the four staff, only the Section chief, Comrade Spassky, is a graduate of the Institute of Red Professors. The other staff members lack special training. Authorized agents at the main literary publishing houses also are not trained to analyze fiction.

The Regional Inspection Section. This Section reviews all material published in krais and oblasts, everything from social and political literature to veterinarian, medical, etc. literature. Naturally, it would seem that the people working in this section (five persons among whom the responsibilities are divided on a territorial basis: each political editor has a group of krais) possess some kind of universal knowledge enabling them to review all the heterogeneous material for which they are responsible. Inasmuch as this is not and cannot be the case, final censorship is reduced to a cursory review and disclosure of only the crudest blunders of which there are many in books of the local krai publishing houses. Yet, even with this poor work organization the Regional Inspection in 1935 held up and withdrew seventy nine titles, eighteen of which were in languages of the national republics.

Until quite recently the deputy chief of the Regional Inspection Section was Orlov who was expelled from the Party after his documents were checked and who turned out not to be Orlov but Olshevsky, the son of a now-exiled tsarist police officer who had been an officer in the tsarist army. Olshevsky maintained ties with his brother, a White Guardist who had illegally returned to the USSR.

As a result of poor work by Glavlit agents at publishing houses, the state has suffered large material losses, and the book trade has been choked with low-quality literature. In twelve central book publishing firms for eleven months in 1935 as a result of final censorship sixty nine titles were withdrawn and sent to be pulped at a cost to the state of 413,510 rubles. Held back for revisions were eighty five titles costing 148,300 rubles.

As one can see from the survey of Glavlit Sections' work cited above, it is by no means evident that the composition of the central staff's employees is optimal, but what is evident is that the authorized agents doing the preliminary censoring are very ineffective and do not work well.

This makes it all the more necessary for Glavlit's central staff to concern itself not merely with catching the preliminary censorship's mistakes--a sluggish business which costs the state large sums--but with organizing and strengthening the work of the preliminary censorship and with the selection of cadres for the latter, since the present cadres are extremely tainted and almost all hold down more than one job. Now until very recently Glavlit has not concerned itself with this work. Those working for the preliminary censorship, that is, authorized agents and political editors affiliated with publishing houses, newspapers, and in peripheral organizations, not only were never duly verified, but were not even registered. Only now is registration of them beginning to be organized, and what immediately came to light was the fact that forty six out of the eighty eight Moscow preliminary censorship staff for whom there are personal files have received party and administrative reprimands (sometimes several) for grave political errors.

At the "Academy" publishing house, Glavlit's Authorized Agent is Rubanovsky who has received several Party reprimands for Trotskyite errors and sympathy with the opposition's views (he worked in the publishing house while Kamenev was there and continues to work there even now). Glavlit's Authorized Agent at the Children's Literature Publishing House (Detgiz), Gorodetskaia, has received a severe reprimand and warning for permitting disclosure of a military secret. During a check of her party documents, her party card was withheld.

Many political editors assigned to the leading newspapers are not sufficiently discerning in a political sense. They have a poor understanding of what they are supposed to do and often have a careless attitude toward their work. Because of this in the instructions given by political editors of various newspapers a lack of uniform standards is quite often observed (one political editor passes what another prohibits), there are a huge number of anecdotal instances of very innocent things being prohibited, while strictly confidential information continues to find its way into newspapers.

The thriving practice of holding down a second position by virtually every preliminary censorship staff member is totally unacceptable. Out of 126 preliminary censorship employees in Moscow, seventy six have a second position. At the same time, in publishing houses of technical literature thirty five out of forty two authorized agents or political editors have a second job, and the same holds true for twenty five of the thirty four staff members in military censorship.

If the state of censorship at the center of the country is clearly unsatisfactory, then in the provinces, and especially in the raions, it is utterly catastrophic. With the exception of Leningrad, Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Gorky, and Rostov, Glavlit has no real control over what is published. Almost everywhere in the raions control over the newspapers is entrusted as a tag-on job to the chairman of the raion ONO, the military commissariat, or raion party committee staff. Out of 3,250 authorized raion agents in the RSFSR, Ukraine, Belorussia, Transcaucasia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tadzhikistan only 297 work full-time.

In most instances oblast committees, krai committees, and the TsKs of the party's nationalities committees underestimate the work of censorship, do not assign it staff or assign it people who have made reprehensible errors and by and large are not qualified to do any kind of work.

The existing system of remuneration for political editors' service in the preliminary censorship is a sore spot in the work of Glavlit since political editors receive their salary not from Glavlit itself, but from the publishing houses in which they work. This system not only leads to a lack of uniform standards of remuneration for work done, but also makes the political editors dependent on the publishing houses and, at the same time, gives rise to corrupt practices on the part of censorship staff, to fraud, and to botched work. Zaretsky, the Glavlit agent in the State Financial Publishing House is a good example: he was getting paid a total of some three thousand rubles a month and was unmasked by KPK. Akselrod, the agent at the Foreign Workers' Publishing House, earned 5-6 thousand rubles a month.

The existing system of remuneration for this work has to be stopped at once. This was clearly demonstrated by the investigation KPK conducted in connection with the Zaretsky affair.

Thus, in its present state, censorship lags severely in the tasks assigned to the publishing sector by the Party.

Director of the TsK's Department of the Press and Publishing Houses

B. Tal

Deputy Chairman of KPK, TsK VKP(b)

2 January 1936