Censorship of the Military Press during the War in Afghanistan

Section: Essay

This paper deals with the issue of the censorship bans operating in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. At that time, a limited contingent of Soviet troops was deployed in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war was covered in mass media in a laconic and biased manner. To a great extent, it was so because of the Soviet censorship system performing a controlling and prohibitive function. The paper considers the hierarchy of censorship levels, characterizes their role in the control over media content and in measured coverage of events related to the deployment of the contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and its participation in combat action. The author of the paper examines the documentation sources of the censorship bans mass media were obliged to comply with. It is found that under the influence of political changes in the country these bans tended to be relaxed, yet they ensured political and ideological control over media themes and content, which manifested itself in restrictions on distributing full and reliable information about the events in Afghanistan. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the author uses his personal observations as he repeatedly went to Afghanistan as a correspondent of Frunzevets, a newspaper of the Turkestan Military District. This fact makes it possible to demonstrate not only the practice of censoring the military press but also the ways war correspondents got around the censorship bans.

Blyum A. (2000) Sovetskaya tsenzura v epokhu total’nogo terrora. 1929—1953 [Soviet Censorship in the Era of Total Terror. 1929—1953.]. Saint-Petersburg: Academic Avenue Publ. (In Russian)

Bondar’ V. O. (2012) Voennaya cenzuraperiodicheskih izdanij v Rossijskoj imperii v XIX — nachale XX veka: avtoref. dis. ... kand. istor. nauk. [Military Censorship of Periodicals in the Russian Empire in the 19^th - Early 20^th Century: extended abstract of PhD hist. sci. diss.] Vladikavkaz. (In Russian)

Engel’gardt N. A. (1904) Ocherk istorii russkoj cenzury v svyazi s razvitiem pechati (1703—1903) [An Essay on the History of Russian Censorship in the Light of the Press Development (1703-1903)]. Saint Petersburg. (In Russian)

Feoktistov E. M. (1929) Za kulisami politiki i literatury, 1848—1896. Vospominaniya [Behind the Scenes of Politics and Literature, 1848-1896. Recollections]. Leningrad: Priboj. (In Russian)

Goryaeva T. (2009) Politicheskaya tsenzura v SSSR. 1917—1991 gg. [Political censorship in the USSR. 1917-1991]. Moscow: the Foundation of the First President of the Russian Federation B. N. Yeltsin, Rosspen Publ. (In Russian)

Grinchenko N. A. (2001) Istoriya cenzurnyh uchrezhdenij v Rossii v pervoj polovine XIX v. [A History of Censorship Institutions in Russia in the First Half of the 19^th Century]. In Cenzura v Rossii: istoriya i sovremennost’ [Censorship in Russia: History and Modernity]. Pp. 15–46. (In Russian)

Ivanov D. V (2000) Formirovanie voennoy cenzury Rossii 1810—1905 gg.: avtoref. dis. ... kand. istor. nauk. [The Early Development of Military Censorship in Russia in 1810-1905: extended abstract of PhD hist. sci. diss.] Moscow. (In Russian)

Kozlov A. (2007) Istoriya Sovetskoy voennoy zhurnalistiki 1945—1991 gg.: monografiya [A History of Soviet Military Journalism: monograph]. Moscow (In Russian)

Levchenko I. E. (2014) Stanovlenie sistemy sovetskoj cenzury [The Early Development of the Soviet Censorship System]. Ekaterinburg: Azhur. (In Russian)

Lyakhovskiy A. (1995) Tragediya i doblest’ Afgana [The Tragedy and Valor of Afghanistan]. Moscow: Iskonna Publ. (In Russian)

Makushin L. M. (2009) Cenzurnyj rez.him i zhurnalistika: ot «chugunnogo» ustava 1826 g. do zakona o pechati 1865 g. [The Censorship Regime and Journalism: From the “Cast Iron” Statute of 1926 to the Press Law of 1865]. Ekaterinburg: Izd-vo Ural’sk. un-ta. (In Russian)

Masyagin K. V. (2008) O moej rabote v cenzure [On My Work in Censorship]. In Cenzura v Rossii: istoriya i sovremennost’ [Censorship in Russia: History and Modernity]. Vol. 4. Saint Petersburg. (In Russian)

Nemirovich-Danchenko V. I. (1879) God vojny (Dnevnik russkogo korrespondenta): 1877-1878 [A Year of War (a Russian Correspondent’s Diary): 1877-1878]. Vol. 3. Saint Petersburg. (In Russian)

Pogodin M. P. (1874) Istoriko-politicheskie pis’ma i zapiski v prodolzhenii Krymskoj vojny. 1853-1856 [Historical and Political Letters and NotesDuring the Crimean War. 1853-1856]. Moscow. (In Russian)

Ramazanov A. (2008) Voina zatish’a ne lybit: Roman [The War Hates the Lull: a novel]. Moscow: Eksmo Publ. (In Russian)

Rejfman P. S. (2015) Cenzura v dorevolyucionnoj, sovetskoj i postsovetskoj Rossii [Censorship in Pre-Revolutionary, Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia]. Moscow: Probel-2000. (In Russian) 

Timofeev V. (2018) O politicheskoi tsenzure v period voini v Afganistane [About Political Censorship During the War in Afghanistan]. Social’no-gumanitarnie znaniya 8: 313–320. (In Russian)

Zhirkov G. V. (2001) Istoriya cenzury v Rossii XIX—XX vv.: uchebnoe posobie [A History of Censorship in Russia in the 19th-20th Century: study guide]. Moscow: Aspekt Press Publ. (In Russian)