How did the Soviet Union use censorship to control news media and literature?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

censorship Pericles, detail of a marble herm; in the Vatican Museum.

The Soviet Union implemented a comprehensive system of censorship, tightly controlling news media and literature. This supervision, guided by Communist Party doctrines, extended to all forms of publication, including broadcasts. Authors often practiced self-censorship to get published, while those deemed "unreliable" were denied publication altogether. This pervasive control, though occasionally relaxed, aimed to protect the state and prevent citizens from being "misled". The policy, known as Zhdanovshchina, enforced an anti-Western bias and demanded that art serve as state propaganda, shaping writers into "engineers of human souls".123