1

“Explaining the Empire: the , , and the Press, 1945-1960.” Patryk Babiracki Johns Hopkins University

Introduction

Some of the most consequential results of the Second World War in Europe, besides the human death, trauma and material destruction were the enormous political and economic opportunities available to those who could muster up the strength to take advantage of them. While for the U.S. they included huge potential for investment in the destroyed national economies, Stalin was more interested in political influence to the west of his country’s borders. With his troops on a fierce offensive beginning in the winter of 1942/43, he had an opportunity to secure it. He used thousands of military stationed in parts of East-Central Europe as leverage in negotiating with the Allies during momentous meetings in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam as well as an active means of support for the local communists.

He also tried to ensure that the social and political changes taking place under the

Soviet aegis would meet with support from below. Towards the end of the war, the

Bolshevik leadership began reorienting several institutions to establish Soviet cultural influence in the future East European satellites. Poland had a special place in Stalin’s plans due to its size and strategic location: it was the largest state in the region, a buffer between the USSR and Germany, and the direction from which traditionally the enemy came.1 This close proximity also furnished the two countries with a richer than elsewhere

1 Stalin’s interest in Poland is evidenced in the fact that as much as one third of his foreign guests in 1944- 1945 were Polish politicians. A. V. Korotkova, A. D. Chereva and A. A. Chernobaeva “Posetiteli kremlevskogo kabineta I. V. Stalina. Zhurnaly (tetradi) zapisi lits, priniatykh pervym gensekom. 1924- 1953 gg. Istoricheskii arkhiv 4 (1996): 67-114. 2

history of conflict and mutual antipathies. This made the task of securing popular

support for the Soviet-inspired changes a challenge from the beginning.

Some argue that an empire’s success and stability directly depends on the extent

to which its actors will resolve the conflict between “ethno-cultural heterogeneity in the imperial structure and universalism in its political practice.”2 In the context of the Cold

War, John Lewis Gaddis’s distinction between the Soviet and the American empires in

Europe rested on the extent to which each was able to align its own interests with those of

the local populations.3 Many scholars examined the Polish communists’ dissemination of

Soviet-oriented propaganda, including the most important medium of mass

communication in postwar Poland, the press.4 In so doing they focused mostly on their

successes in eroding the democratic values and forms of expression that existed right

after the War. In this paper I show that between 1945 and 1960 the Soviet officials used

the daily press in an attempt to achieve the same end directly, with only occasional

mediation of the local communists. By exporting the news to Poland they were hoping to

popularize the Soviet Union among the Polish readers with the Soviet official scenario

and to lay out a vision of a radically new relationship between the two countries.

I argue that these Soviet “news brokers” failed to fulfill their task, partly due to

the structural insufficiencies of the institutions they themselves represented. But even

more important was the fact that their ideological mission was at odds with the tactical

concessions that the Polish communists had to make as they were struggling to gain

2 Kaspe, Sviatoslav Igorevich, “Imperii: Genezis, Struktura, Funktsii” In Polis 5/1997. 3 Gaddis, John Lewis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997), 40-53. 4 The important publications on the press include M. Ciećwierz, Polityka prasowa 1944-1948 (: PWN, 1989); A. Kozieł, Studium o polityce prasowej PZPR w latach 1948-1957 (Warsaw, WDiNP UW, 1991); T. Mielczarek, Od „Nowej Kultury” do „Polityki.” Tygodniki społeczno-kulturalne i społeczno- polityczne PRL. (Kielce: WAŚ, 2003). 3

power between 1945 and 1947, and to some extent, when they were tightening their grip

on it afterwards. The Soviets were often in some kind of conflict over the timing, the

content, or the form of the articles either with the newspaper editors or the top Polish

communists to whom they occasionally appealed for help. This mixture of the internal

institutional flaws and external factors that prevented the Soviet authorities effectively to

impose their will onto the Poles directly affected the Soviet empire’s ability to engage the

local population during the beginning, and perhaps the crucial stages of the Cold War.

The Soviet authorities’ overall inability to respond to local reading habits and political sensibilities made the newspaper material they were sending to the Polish press unattractive to the local elites, who in the end had to answer for it and often found excuses not to publish it at all.

Some scholars argue that Stalin did not plan to impose Soviet-style institutions in

Eastern Europe immediately after the War. They maintain that the degree of pluralism that existed in Poland (and other states in East-Central Europe) between 1945 and 1947 was to Stalin a viable alternative for the future, and that he changed his mind only in response to the changing situation in international politics towards the end of 1946.

These two claims are often accompanied by efforts to minimize the Soviet agency in the state-building process and instead to emphasize the participation of the local elites in the communist transformation and their approval among the local populations.5

5 A. F. Noskova, T. V. Volokitina and G. P. Murashko are the most known supporters of this view. See their Narodnaia demokratiia—mif ili real’nost? Obshchestvenno-politicheskiie protsessy v vostochnoi Evropie 1944-1948 gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1993). Also, T. V. Volokitina, “Kholodnaia voina” i sotsial- demokratiia v Vostochnoi Evrope. 1944-1948 gg. (Moscow: RAN, Institut Slavianovedenia, 1998), esp. 49-51. For an overview, see Norman Naimark, “Post-Soviet Russian Historiography on the Emergence of the Soviet Bloc,” Kritika 3 (2004): 561-580. 4

In fact, the Soviet authorities, far from being merely observing or even responding

to the Polish initiative, actively intervened in the Polish press and sought to transform its

institutional structure and content to fit their needs as early as 1945-1947. Moreover, to

an extent that the press was characterized by a degree of pluralism during the two

postwar years, the Soviet authorities were eager to eliminate it from the beginning. By

doing so they tended to bring it closer to the Soviet model.

In the matters of press propaganda, Polish journalists and communists, who

generally were dependent on their Soviet masters, were able to find some room for

maneuver and occasionally exercise their own will. This was true particularly after 1953, but also before then, during the apex of Stalin’s rule. In that sense their relationship with

their Soviet comrades resembled the top party connections: while most likely sharing

strategic goals, they differed on which policies to implement.6 The difference was that a

greater degree of negotiation was involved, since in dealing with mid-level officials they

naturally had more courage to stand up to them. Conversely, the top Soviet authorities

who supervised the mid-level social and cultural institutions were inevitably more

tolerant to the Poles’ dissent than they would have been on the weightiest issues.

Soviet Institutions and the Polish Press

The Soviet authorities intervened in the Polish news market through five different

channels. One of them was the newspaper Wolność (Freedom), published by the Red

Army’s Political Department in Polish between 1944 and 1955. It appeared daily in

200,000 copies and contained six to eight pages per issue.7 It operated independently of

6 Andrzej Paczkowski provides an excellent overview of the problem in “Polish-Soviet Relations 1944- 1989: the Limits of Autonomy,” http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/REGIONAL/ECE/vol6no1/paczkowski.pdf 7 Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation), henceforth GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 148, l. 14; Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi Istorii 5

the Polish authorities. But the most important channel, in terms of size scope and

political weight, was the Soviet Information Bureau (SIB).8 The Bolshevik Party

established it on June 24 1941, three days after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. Its

responsibilities included informing Soviet audiences about the developments on the front, informing foreign audiences about life in the Soviet Union and its war effort, generating counterpropaganda against the Nazis as well as providing financial and organizational support to five anti-fascist committees.9

After a number of structural changes, in 1945 the SIB consisted of sixteen

departments. It employed 350 people on a full-time basis and 161 field correspondents.10

Among them were the brightest stars of Soviet journalism and literature, such as I.

Ehrenburg, B. Polevoi, K. Simonov, M. Sholokhov, V. Grossman, M. Shaginian, N.

Tikhonov and many others. In addition the organization worked with about 1500 freelance authors, about 100-140 per individual department.11 In 1946 the number of

full-time employees went up to 370.12 In January1945, SIB produced materials for

USSR’s diplomatic posts, its own field offices and local social organizations (obshchestv.

Org.) in 42 countries and a year later in 55 countries.13 Despite an almost total purge of

(the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History), henceforth RGASPI, f. 17, op. 137, d. 172, l. 256. 8 The others were: Glavlit, the Soviet censorship apparatus; TASS (the Soviet telegraph agency); the Soviet newspapers exported and distributed through the “Vsesoiuznoe Ob’edinenie Mezhdunarodnaia Kniga.”8 Finally, there was VOKS, the All-Soviet Society for Cultural Relations Abroad, which worked through the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society. 9 N. K. Petrova, Antifashistkie komitety SSSR, 1941-1945. (Moscow: Institut Ros. Istorii RAN, 1999). 10 GARF, f. R-8581, op.2, d. 154, ll. 25-26. 11 GARF, f. R-8581, op.2, d. 154, l. 27. 12 Afanas’eva, Maria Igorevna. “Sovinformburo: osnovnye tendentsii razvitiia,” an unpublished manuscript from the author’s personal archive. p. 48. 13 GARF, f. R-8581, op.2, d. 133, l. 4, 6. 6

the central apparatus between 1947 and 1949, the number of employees at the end of

1955 remained roughly the same: 368 people, including 57 on foreign posts.14

In 1945, the Central Committee of the VKP/b/ restructured the SIB to serve the goals of the Soviet foreign policy better. Besides intelligence gathering, which officially

became SIB’s responsibility only in 1947, changes included adding departments working

for socialist countries. The SIB goals, as outlined in June 1945, were:

To inform the foreign audiences about the political and economic life of the USSR, about the national, social and cultural achievements of its peoples as well as propaganda of the points of view of the Soviet community in the more important questions of international life.

The departments working for capitalist countries were much larger, but large

issues were also at stake for ones working for the Soviet sphere of influence. “We should

take particular care,” continued the authors of the document, “to inform about these

issues the government propaganda organs, democratic organizations and the press in

Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, as well as press organs

in Germany.”15 The managers of the Sovinformburo tried to accomplish this goal by

placing their own news articles through the institutions field offices in the local press.

SIB’s field office in Poland was set up in 1944 and began working full-steam in

1945; and a “Department of Poland and Czechoslovakia” was created in Moscow in

February1945 to serve offices in both countries, as well as newspapers published by the

14 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 31. 15 Draft of the decision of the Central Committee of the VKP/b/ titled “On the Work of SIB,” signed by A. Vyshinskii and G. Aleksandrov and sent to V. M. Molotov and G. M. Malenkov on June 29, 1945. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 316, l. 18. According to the decision of the Council of Ministers from June 25, 1947 SIB was also to serve as a branch of the Information Committee, headed by Molotov, and coordinating all Soviet foreign intelligence efforts. See Kostyrchenko, Tainaia politika Stalina, 364-365. This was, however, only an ex post facto codification of a process that had been taking place since WW II. 7

Red Army and, to a lesser extent, radio.16 The institution’s work was structured

vertically. The SIB representative in Poland reported to the head of “his” department in

Moscow. Simultaneously, he implemented the latter’s decisions and advised him on their

feasibility in the specific context at a particular time. The department heads as a rule

reported to the deputy director of the SIB. The top chain of command consisted of the

director of the SIB who made his decisions based on the general party line and occasionally, after consultation with the Central Committee.17

“Navigating the Political Reefs”: Soviet Officials and the Polish Audience

Sovinformburo’s presence in Eastern Europe was the first step in a long process

of Soviet Union’s postwar ideological expansion. For the first time in history it exported

revolutionary ideals abroad from a position of a globally-recognized power. At the same

time, the empire had to learn how to use this power carefully; in order not to imperil the

Polish communists’ power seizure, the Soviets had to adopt the tactics of waiting and

adjustment. They had to make sure that no political blunder be uttered before the

communists are fully in control.

Before 1947, the Polish communists (Polish Workers’ Party, or the PPR) were the

dominant political force in the country. Their position was the outcome of Soviet direct

military support, the ambiguous provisions of the Yalta agreement, and Stalin’s ability to

exploit its loopholes. But the communists still competed for popular legitimacy with

16 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 387, l. 135. Beginning in June of 1948 it also began servicing Hungary, and the department was renamed accordingly: GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 216. Later yet—at least in 1954-55- it was called the Department of “European People’s Democracies.” 17 Based on Lozovskii’s own testimony to the Party’s Verification Commission in 1946, during an interrogation by A. A. Kuznetsov. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 385, l. 41. A report from V. Sorokin to the Central Committee of the KPSS in August, 1953 confirms this mechanism, further specifying the Foreign Policy Commission of the Central Committee as the body that issued directives to SIB, before the latter was incorporated into the newly created Ministry of Culture. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii (The Russian State Archive of Contemporary History), henceforth RGANI, f. 5, op. 16, l. 646, l. 133. 8

other political groupings. Most notable among them were the moderate Polish Socialist

Party (PPS) and the pro-Western Polish Peasant Party (PSL). Even though PPR

effectively controlled the key “hard” ministries in the postwar coalition government

(including “Information and Propaganda” and “Public Security,” Defense, etc), the other

parties, especially the PSL, were a serious political opposition and conducted a fierce

anti-communist propaganda that found much resonance among many Poles. After the

PPR’s victory in the rigged elections in 1947 and swallowing up the PPS in 1948 (after

which it renamed itself United Polish Workers’ Party, or PZPR), the communists

squashed these major voices of opposition.18

Although between 1945 and 1947 the press was freer than it would be under the

communist rule, the communists strove to control it as much as possible without losing

their official democratic credentials. They had the advantage of controlling the paper

distribution apparatus which enabled them severely to restrict the PSL’s press.19 In

addition to numerous local publications, the national market was dominated by

newspapers of various parties, mostly PPR (communists), PPS (socialists), as well as the

cooperative “” (the Reader). The latter was set up by the PPR as a tactical

move to win over the non-communists; as such, it promoted a broad range of democratic

ideals until its submission to the party line in 1948.20

18 The best study of the subject is Krystyna Kersten’s The Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1943-1948, translated by John Micgiel and Michael H. Bernhard, with an introduction by Jan T. Gross (Berkeley and L. A: U of California Press, 1991). 19 The PSL press dominated the populist/peasant press in Poland, which, even when taken as a whole, composed a fraction of the total press market: 7.1% in 1944, 2.7% in 1945 and only 1.9% in 1949. Grażyna Kubicka, “Charakterystyka statystyczna prasy ludowej 1944-1949.” MateriałyPomocnicze do Historii Dziennikarstwa Polski Ludowej. vol. XII. (Warsaw, 1987), 40. On restrictions on PSL’s press, see Kersten, The Establishment, pp. 193, 195. 20 Słomkowska, Alina, Prasa w PRL. Szkice historyczne. (Warsaw: PWN, 1980). 9

In their efforts to propagate the USSR, the Soviet authorities tried to reconcile

their own goals with the reading habits of the Polish audience, while at the same time

making sure not to undermine the “democratic” credentials of their Polish comrades. The

first SIB representative in Poland was Major K. I. Orlov. At the end of 1946 he reported

to the director of SIB S. A. Lozovskii that in following the general directives, he worked

throughout the year to:

continually suggest to the Poles the thought that only in friendship with the USSR they will achieve peace and economic prosperity, that any other path spells trouble for them; […] to promote the economic and military power of the USSR; to dispel the slanderous statements about the backwardness of the Soviet culture and technology; […] to navigate political reefs, in order not to complicate the situation of the PPR with insufficiently considered articles (keeping in mind the question of the collective farms, the life in L’vov etc.); and to unmask the reactionary essence of the Anglo-Saxons’ foreign policy.21

Orlov captured well SIB’s general goals in Poland for the half-decade after the

war: by means of the press to convince the general Polish public to look eastward for inspiration, comfort and example in rebuilding their lives, culture and economy from the ruins of war.22 He also aptly described some of the major constraints on the full

popularization of the Soviet Union in the Polish press as well as the politics of tactical

adjustment to the precarious and uncertain political situation in postwar Poland. The

Soviet officials’ main concern was to avoid topics that might help lose potential votes.

The sensitive questions included Poland’s loss of its eastern territories and cultural centers, such as the cities Wilno and Lwów (renamed later as Vil’na and L’vov), and the

21 Otchet “O rabote predst. SIB v Pol'she za 1946 g.” dated December, 1946. GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 9. 22 The head of the Department of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary Volozhenin confirmed these goals in 1949, adding, that in the general work of the department he was guided by the decisions of CK in VKPb be from October 9th 1946 and June 25th 1947. GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, ll. 216-217.

10

Soviet collective farms, an institution that Stalin had introduced in 1929 by expropriating

the peasants and forcing them to work together on state-owned farms. The

Sovinformburo correctly surmised that mentioning them would be seen as an attempt to impose the Soviet system in Poland. In 1945 Orlov included the collective farms among unacceptable materials. He explained, that

The collective farm is a bugbear with which the Home Army (AK) is scaring the Polish peasant. It's too early in my opinion to explain the role of the collective farms. It could bring the opposite results. Consequently, I ask that you avoid the words “collective farms”, “collective farm workers” etc. Instead, write “peasants”, “villages”, “peasant farms’ etc.23

The circumstances for publishing material on the collective farms, he speculated

at the end of 1946, would become “more favorable” after the elections to the Sejm (the

Polish legislative body) in 1947.24

Another concession included temporary adjustment to the Poles’ reading habits

and traditional anti-Soviet bias. The latter was championed by the intelligentsia, who, explained Orlov, “consider us, Russians to be Asians, and themselves to be the bearers of the high Western culture.” For that reason, he added, the concept of the friendship of the

Slavic countries was very unpopular among them. This was the official slogan under which Stalin consolidated his empire in East-Central Europe. Consequently, Orlov suggested holding off the explicit praise of the Soviet government in the articles in order not to put the intelligentsia on guard.25 What also had to be taken into account was the

23 GARF,f. 8581, op.2., d.158, l. 39. The Home Army was loyal to the Polish government in London and actively battled both the Germans and the Soviets. 24 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 29. 25 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 10-11. 11 population at large, which the interwar government had been “poisoning” with anti-

Soviet “slander.”26

To disabuse the Poles of the anti-Soviet notions, Orlov suggested first sending the most general articles, whose goal would be to “familiarize the Polish reader with how the

USSR grew stronger, with our economy, strength of the , our attitude towards the ‘little peoples’ etc,” and to complement them with current news about the USSR.27 In addition Orlov asked not to send articles by authors with Jewish names or at least to provide their pen names, since “anti-Semitism has deep roots here” and might thus be an obstacle in propagating the Soviet Union.28 This was the reality of postwar Poland which the Polish communists, often themselves of Jewish origin, had to take into account.29

The form of delivering the news also had to be changed: after “hundreds” of meetings with editors in 1946, Orlov advised the Moscow office that the “political immaturity” of the Polish reader required the articles to be short, clear, and full of examples.30 The

Soviets continued the tactics of adjustments later, as they tried to gain sympathy of new groups of readers such as peasants or women.31

Institutional Difficulties

Like other Soviet institutions charged with shaping foreign public opinion, throughout its existence the Sovinformburo officials had to grapple with the

26 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 13 27 GARF,f. R-8581, op. 2., d. 158, l. 36. 28 GARF,f. R-8581, op. 2., d. 158, l. 38 29 Kersten, The Establishment. For a more recent and more interpretive account, see Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2006). 30 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 28. 31 E. g. GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1., d. 264, l. 563. Also see discussion below. 12

organization’s internal deficiencies.32 They occurred as a result of the necessity to meet the demands of the rapidly-changing geopolitical situation from within a system that was

highly centralized and often inefficient. This was especially true during the War but also

afterwards, when the shortcomings undermined the Soviet efforts to reach the East

European audiences with the metropole’s vision of empire. Orlov’s immediate problems

included his inability to read Polish, which prevented him from translating the Soviet

articles. Inadequate funds precluded hiring more translators, which impeded the

distribution of the articles among provincial newspapers, whose staff did not know

Russian. The articles that came in Russian –in mid-1946 it was about two-thirds—were

often badly written.33 When transmitted through a teletype they contained typographical

errors, and when shipped by plane they were notoriously late.

The Soviet authorities responded to these problems, equally endemic in other

departments of Sovinformburo, in a traditional way: through the verification of staff

(kadry) and their subsequent purge. On Stalin’s order, a Central Committee Commission

was created in 1946 to verify the work and qualifications of the SIB personnel. It

consisted of A. A. Kuznetsov, N. S. Patolichev and M. A. Suslov, the director of the

Central Committee’s Department of Foreign Relations, a body directing the activities of

East European communist parties, and the future secretary of the Central Committee.34

Between June 28 and July 8 the three conducted hearings of all SIB Department heads

and Antifascist Comittees’ representatives.35 The results of the investigation were sent to

32 On other institutions, see Stykalin, A. S. “Politika SSSR po formirovaniu obshchestvennogo mnenia v stranakh tsentral’noi evropy i nastroenia intelligentsii,” Slavianovedeniie 3 (1997): 50-62. 33 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, ll. 5, 6, 27; 34 He was the head of the Otdel Vneshnei Politiki from 1945-1947 and the secretary of the Central Committee from 1947-1982. “Suslov, Mikhail Andreevich” in Iu. V. Goriaev, ed. Tsentral’nyi komitet KPSS, VKP (b), RSDRP(b), 1917-1991: istoriko-biograficheskii spravochnik (Moscow: Parad, 2005). 35 Petrova, 275-276. 13

Stalin on July 10.36 On September 9, 1946 the Central Committee of the VKP/b/ issued a

decision titled “On the work of SIB” that deemed the SIB apparatus to be unsatisfactory.

According to the document, a substantial percentage of the institution’s employees had

insufficient qualifications. Heads of departments were ignorant about “their” countries’

politics and economy, the report stated, and the SIB writers were frequently semi-literate

careerists.37

Between July 1st, 1947 and April 1st, 1949, the Central Committee discharged 100

people from the SIB’s central apparatus for “political and professional reasons” and

appointed 142 new employees. Many of them, like S. A. Lozovskii (former deputy

foreign-minister and member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee), were arrested and

later shot dead.38 As the number of employees went up from 154 in July, 1946 to 198 in

April 1949, the institution’s ranks changed in favor of Party members, individuals with higher education, and ethnic Russians. By 1949, 92% of the personnel had higher education (compared with 72% in 1946); 71% were Party members (compared with 55% before) and 76% were ethnic Russians (as opposed to 40% before).39 In the end there

were significantly less Jews in the organization: in 1946 they composed 48% of staff and

in 1949 only 12%.40 The contrast between ethnic groups was the sharpest in the top

36 Petrova, 276. 37 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, ll. 1-2. 38 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, ll. 2, 4; “Central apparatus” consisted of the following categories: top leadership, department directors and deputy directors, main editors, editors, correspondents, reviewers, translators, international network (zagranset’). 39 Table reprinted in Petrova, 277 (in report from July 10, 1946); Another table dated June 25, 1946 with the same data but slightly different breakdown can be found in RGASPI f. 17, op. 125, d. 384, l. 24. For firing and hiring tendencies see GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, ll. 2-4. Figures for April, 1949 can be found in GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, l. 5. I tried keeping track of the changes and came up with 196 (and not 198). I can’t account for the inconsistency. There is also evidence that there have been cuts before the Commission convened: according to one report, by the end of October, 1946, the SIB’s central apparatus consisted of 285 people, after 200 had been fired, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 509, l. 232. 40 Table reprinted in Petrova, 277; GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, l. 5. 14

ranks: Russians composed 80%, Jews 7%, Ukrainians 3% and “others” 10%.41 The most

pronounced tendency was that Russians were being promoted and Jews were not.42 In fact, some see the verification process as a prelude to the ethnic purges of the kadry that occurred later on the national scale and, more immediately, to a crackdown on the JAC

that began to unfold in 1946 and lasted until 1952, ending in the persecution of over a hundred of its members.43 A scholar of Soviet anti-Semitism sees the purges in the

Sovinformburo as symptom of Stalin’s deliberate, albeit “secret” policy of discrimination

against Jews in all areas of social activity after WW II.44

As late as in mid-1950, the director of the staffing department in Sovinformburo

reported that since 1946, the institution’s apparatus had been renewed in the following proportions: directors and deputy directors: 85.5%; main editors: 83%; Senior editors and editors: 90%, senior editors-translators and editors-translators: 60%, correspondents and reviewers: 90%, translators: 80%, international network (zagranset’): 96 %.45 The

verification of kadry affected the Polish department as well: the head of the Polish

Department Vera Kabluchko was discharged. So was Orlov himself, replaced by V. I.

Sokolovskii, a Soviet citizen of Polish origin. Shortly afterwards, a few, mostly staff members at the Polish field office, having been accused of incompetence, were replaced with “responsible and qualified” Soviet employees.46

41 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, l. 5. By “top ranks” I mean the SIB’s director, deputy director, the heads of departments and their deputy directors. 42 It occurred mainly through hiring the former more than firing the latter For example, 53% of the 100 individuals who were discharged were Russians and 32% were Jews. Conversely, 80% of the newly hired staff were Russian and 7% was Jewish. GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 231, l. 4. 43 Petrova, 273, 276, 290. 44 Kostyrchenko, G. V. Tainaia politika Stalina: vlast’ i antisemitizm. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2003). On SIB see pp. 361-364. 45 “Doklad o podbore i vospitanii kadrov SIB (sdelana na soveshchanii zaveduiushchikh otdelami u nachal’nika SIB 18 avgusta 1950), GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 255, l. 10. 46 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 132, l. 292; GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1., d. 264, l. 560. 15

These changes certainly alleviated, but did not eliminate Sovinformburo’s

structural problems. For example Sokolovskii reported in 1949 that the work at the field office “improved,” and so did the overall quality of materials sent from Moscow.47

During a closed meeting with Pozdeev in 1950, one of the department directors reported

that the SIB staff is generally well-prepared theoretically but their journalistic skills are

still far from the desired standard.48 But between 1949 and 1953, some materials

continued to arrive late. Their quality was often low or they were written specifically for

the Soviet audience.49

The Polish Editors: Obstacles and Solutions.

The decisions about which Soviet articles to publish ultimately depended on the

Polish communists’ own strategy of coping with the current political situation and their

physical ability to follow it. The strategy was characterized by a greater carefulness and

restraint in comparison with the Soviet approach, and resulted from the Polish leaders’ sensitivity to the local circumstances and sensibilities as well as more immediate fear of losing the political capital they needed to stay in power and carry out their political

program. Although the PPR gained a decisive voice in matters of press by mid-1947 and steered it monopolistically by mid-1948, the party control was not absolute.50 The frantic race to publish more newspapers than the opposition made it difficult for the communists

47 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 277, l. 8. 48 “Protokol zakrytogo soveshchania zaveduiushchikh otdelami, provedennogo u nachal’nika SIB 18 avgusta 1950 g.” GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 255, l. 1. 49 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 277, l. 7-8, 173; GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 305, l. 3; GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 373, l. 51-52; Also, “Protokol soveshchania u nachal’nika SIB t. Pozdeeva s zaveduiushchimi otdelami ot 2-ogo fevral’ia 1950 g.”, GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 252, l. 163. 50 For an overview of key moments in PPR’s monopolization of the press, see Andrzej Kozieł, “Koncepcje dotyczące prasy i dziennikarstwa w latach 1946-1956,” in Mieczysław Adamczyk, ed. Prasa regionalna w 40-leciu Polski Ludowej (Kielce: Kielecki Oddział Instytutu Kształcenia Nauczycieli, ????), 45-59. 16

to pick the editorial staff carefully, especially in the provinces.51 Especially unqualified

were the journalists of provincial party organs who in addition enjoyed greater

independence due to their distance from Warsaw. Finally, the communists may have

tolerated rejections of SIB articles for political reasons—in order not to preempt a

propaganda campaign they had planned for a different time, or not to compromise their

party’s press organ with Soviet-looking or badly-written journalism.

Sovinformburo’s representatives ran into obstacles all around in their attempts to place their articles in the Polish newspapers. The most common reason for refusal on editors’ part was the potential political risk of provoking the Polish reader. In October,

1946, for instance Orlov reported to Moscow that he had recently met with the editor of the “Czytelnik’s” central organ Życie Warszawy (Warsaw Life) [Wiktor] Borowski.

Upon his inquiry as to why SIB’s materials had disappeared from his paper, the Pole replied with the “theory” that involved not writing about the USSR in order to

“neutralize” the petty merchant before the elections to the Sejm.52 This was a common

excuse for rejections.

Orlov observed that another prominent communist editor “is scared of the anti-

Soviet citizen like the devil is scared of the incense.”53 Others, like the powerful editor

and director of “Czytelnik” , gave their assurances to the Soviet officials

but in fact secretly “sabotaged” the SIB materials. Soviet reprimands had only temporary

effect, according to Orlov.54 In addition, some publications, notably those of

51 E. Ciborska, Dziennikarze z władzą (nie zawsze) w parze. (Warsaw,), 52, 124; Kozieł, „Koncepcje…”, 51; Ciborska, „Redaktorzy”, 127. 52 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 16. 53 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 16. He was referring to Roman Werfel. 54 GARF, f. R-8581, op.2., d. 146, ll. 24-25. 17

“Czytelnik,” openly published anti-Soviet articles.55 All this made Soviet officials, not

only from Sovinformburo, suspicious about the Polish communists’ good intentions.56

But they tolerated them hoping that after the elections in January, 1947 things will change. “It will become clear,” wrote Orlov, “who was really worried about this and who used this excuse as a cover for his personal antipathy towards our country.”57

The way in which the Soviet officials reacted to these obstacles shows how they understood their mission in Poland. While some, like the SIB representatives, suggested tactical waiting and accommodation, others favored aggressive intervention in the Polish state institutions. In either case, the prospect of retaining the diversity of the press did not appear to them to be a long-term option. During a meeting with S. A. Lozovskii in

September, 1945 colonel Zaboshtanskii of the Red Army’s Political department raised two questions that he “need [ed] help with resolving.” One was the necessity “to conduct a purge of the Polish state apparatus, as it has been penetrated by reactionary, anti-Soviet and antidemocratic elements that now produce their anti-Soviet propaganda from legal positions.”58 Secondly, he said that it would be necessary to “establish the Polish

government’s state control over the press. We had a number of cases when newspapers

publish anti-Soviet articles.”59 Almost two years later Orlov similarly reported a “curious fact,” namely that nobody in the PPR’s central committee “was even thinking about”

55 “Ob antisovetskikh tendentsiakh pol’skoi legal’noi pechati.” February 21, 1946. GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 172, l. 28. 56 P. Galdin, an employee of Glavlit, wrote that “Mr. Borejsza says the reason for placing of a great amount of material from English newspapers is that the Polish people is more receptive to it.” But, he added: “We think that not so much the Polish people but Mr. Borejsza himself is more receptive to the English press than to ours and that he plays a double game with Soviet officials. “Dokladnaia zapiska # 2” GARF, f. R- 9425, op. 1, d. 308, l. 9. 57 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 17. 58 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 148, l. 16. 59 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 148, l. 17. 18

centralizing the press.60 It was these circumstances that demanded that the Soviet

representatives stay in Poland, negotiate the acceptance of articles with the editors and

monitor their publication.

Sometimes the SIB representatives directly pressured the editors to accept the articles. In 1945 Orlov mentioned “other Soviet employees” who helped him do this. He probably had in mind the officials at the Red Army’s political department. The ambassador to Poland Lebedev many times refused to intervene when asked by the SIB representative, although occasionally it did happen.61 Another time Orlov mentioned that

the adviser Iakovlev tried to “exert influence” on Borejsza through the PPR to get him to

publish more about the Soviet Union.62 In 1950, in his letter to Iu. G. Safronov, a VOKS

representative in Poland, one official observed that Przyjaźń (Friendship), the journal of

the Polish-Soviet Frienship Society, among other “insufficiencies,” publishes too few

responses to letters from Soviet citizens. “We need to advise the editors,” he wrote, “not

to leave letters […] from stakhanovites, collective farmers and cultural activists, without

a proper reply.”63

The SIB officials, while eager to publish their articles in the Polish press, cared even more that this happens on the Polish initiative. A. Volozhenin on March 26, 1949, congratulated Sokolovskii on recent successes. But he added, that in the future “we need to get the editorial offices to start ordering themselves articles on the subject of their interest.” “Obviously,” he clarified, “it is up to you to suggest them in which aspects of the Soviet life are important and should be publicized /osveshchat’/in a given organ of the

60 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 15. 61 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 17. 62 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 172, ll. 17-18. 63 GARF, f. R-5283, op. 22, d. 244, k. 206. 19

Polish press.64 The Soviet officials were apparently uncomfortable with exerting pressure

directly and tried to train the Polish editors to guess what they should want themselves,

much like the Polish party leaders had learned to ask Stalin for “advice” on key political

issues. It is likely that the SIB officials were bound by some internal statute, which

prevented them from telling the journalists directly what to do, much like Soviet advisors

and diplomats who, at least on paper, had a very narrow field for maneuver.65 .

Lacking the years of training in the Comintern that their bosses have had though,

many editors resisted the Soviet efforts. Sometimes the Soviets tried to elicit the Polish

initiative in efforts to align the universal claims of empire with local interest. In 1950,

Sokolovskii mentioned that he tried to get the Polish editors genuinely interested in the

Soviet materials, so that they would consider it not a favor to the field office or an obligation to the Soviet Union, but a “vital (krovnyi) task of the Polish press, and their patriotic duty.”66 Hence, he wrote, instead of asking them to publish the SIB materials,

the field office only informed them about materials available, recommended some articles, and waited for the Polish initiative.

By undertaking various measures, SIB officials secured a quantitative increase in the publication rates of the SIB materials (see section below). But even in 1950, when all apparent obstacles to publication have been eliminated, they continued to face difficulties with publishing articles on agriculture, international questions, religion, the priority of the

Soviet science, or the theory of the Soviet state.67 According to Sokolovskii, the main

64 GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 55. 65 Golon, “Ambasadorowie,” 132; Noskova, “Sovetskie sovetniki,” 107. Also, Andrzej Paczkowski, “Wstęp,” in Polska w dokumentach z archiwów rosyjskich 1949-1953 (Warsaw ISP PAN, 2000), 12-13. 66 GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 305, l. 81. 67 On editors’ reluctance to publish about the theory of the Soviet state, see the yearly report for 1950: GARF, f. R-8581, op., 2, d. 305, l. 78; on the Church and the Vatican, in 1951, see GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 342, l. 18; The main peasant newspaper Rolnik Polski (Polish Farmer) published only four of SIB articles 20

problem was questionable hiring practices of the Polish editors, among whom were

“unreliable elements”68 In fact, Sokolovskii’s suspicions, whether genuine or meant to

demonstrate his own communist vigilance to his superiors, were wrong. Most of the

editors disagreed with him not on the ends, but on the means. As the communist fiction

writer, party activist and editor of Dziennik Polski (The Polish Daily) Jerzy Putrament pointed out in his letter to the Central Committee:

The mere repeating of the unquestionable services that the USSR had done for Poland is pointless, since it magnifies the conviction, especially popular in the intellectual-bourgeois milieu, but also to some extent among peasants and even workers, that our government and party are only puppets in Moscow’s hands.69

The other editors would have agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Appealing to the Polish Communists

When they failed to secure the publication of their material through the editors,

the Soviet officials sought help at the top, in the Central Committee of the PPR/PZPR.

They were on their own in intervening with the communists, for the ambassador refused

to help at all and the advisor on most known occasions.70 Both Soviet diplomatic

in 1951, and none on the collective farms. Upon questions from SIB officials, its editor, Groszowa, was reported to have answered that the “success of the collective farms are not applicable (ne pokazatelnyi) to Polish agricultural cooperatives,” GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 342, l. 21. The editor of Żołnierz Wolności (Soldier of Freedom) refused SIB articles altogether: GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 342, l. 22. On “insufficient” publication rates for articles about international questions and economy, see Sokolovskii’s report for the first quarter of 1950: GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 277, l. 173. He also admits though, that the reason for international news not to be published might be their lateness. 68 GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 305, l. 80. Among them he listed “the former PPS member Arski, “kowtowers” to the West (editor of Trybuna Wolności Kornecki), Polish nationalists and Jewish Zionists (Loew- Pszenski)” 69 AAN, syg. 295/X-24, k. 25. 70 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d.207, l. 18-19. 21

workers and advisors in all of East-Central Europe were subject to regulations that

severely constrained respectively their direct intervention or initiative in local affairs.71

The Polish communists sometimes resisted the Soviet initiatives and so the latter

at times failed to get what they wanted, particularly when it comes to the popularization

of specific subjects or its timing. Explicit refusals were more common before 1947. In

March, 1946, Sokolovskii in his capacity of a reporter from Wolność asked Jakub

Berman why the Polish press had been publishing so little about the Red Army’s help to

the population. The Pole replied that it was old news and should something new come

up, he would make sure it appears.72 Like the journalists, the top communists refused to

intervene on the Soviets’ behalf before 1947. This infuriated Orlov, who described it as

“hiding their heads in the sand.”73 And when they did acquiesce to the Soviet demands they often did so only temporarily.74

Based on the often poor results of their interventions with the Central Committee

members and information from eager editors the Soviets became increasingly suspicious

of the Poles’ good faith, and reported their doubts up to their own bureaucratic channels. .

“It is hard to believe,” concluded Sokolovskii after one of the incidents, “that all of the

above was not done on purpose.”75 When, in 1951, a VOKS representative heard rumors that the Polish communist Edward Ochab forbade the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society,

71 A. F. Noskova, “Sovetskie sovetniki v stranakh Tsentral’noi i Vostochnoi Europy, 1945-1953,” Voprosy Istorii 1 (1998): 104-113 ; Mirosław Golon, “Ambasadorowie Stalina—radzieccy dyplomaci w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej i na Bałkanach w latach 1944-1953,” Czasy Nowożytne XVIII-XIX (2005): 129- 178. 72 “Beseda ministra pol’skogo pravitel’stva Bermana s korrespondentom gazety ‘Vol’nost.’” GARF f. R- 8581, op. 2, d.172, ll. 12-14. The interview took place on March 21, 1946. 73 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 16. 74 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 207, l. 15. 75 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 52. 22

an institution over which he presided, the distribution of Wolność, he felt it necessary to inform the Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov about it.76

After they monopolized power the Polish communists lost their main argument

for defying the Soviets. In 1948, upon Soviet request, they fired a Polish editor who

refused to publish SIB’s articles on the grounds that “the Polish journalists write better

than the Soviet ones.”77 But in other cases, they tried to hold their ground. This was the

case when they refused (without success) to publish the article “Popov, and Not Marconi”

dedicated to the alleged Russian inventor of radio.78 The Poles nevertheless continued to

have their way in many cases by saying one thing and secretly doing another. The

Soviets occasionally found out about the Poles’ duplicity directly from the more

sympathetic editors, but chose not to confront the top communists, perhaps lest their

informants be compromised, and consequently suffered in silence.79

The differences between the Polish communists and Soviet officials seem to have

been more tactical than ideological. After all, most of the top Polish communists were

hardcore Stalinists whose devotion to the Soviet leader helped them survive the

Comintern purges of the late 1930s. Sokolovskii reported, on June 15, 1950, that the day

before the Polish party’s central committee “for the first time” allowed publishing

material against the Vatican. He must have meant Soviet materials, since

had kicked off a general anti-clerical campaign as early as March 21, 1949 during an

76 GARF, f. R-5283, op. 22, d. 307, l. 73. 77 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2., d. 217, l. 51. 78 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2., d. 217, l. 53. The article can be found in Warsaw’s AAN, Central Committee of the PPR, Department of Propaganda, syg. 295/X-27, k. 42. 79 E.g. the Poles prohibited the press to publish the peasants’ allegedly positive impressions from the trip to the Ukrainian collective farms, GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 51; or shifted a particularly overeager editor to a different and more time-consuming job: GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 52. 23

editors’ conference in the Central Committee.80 Yet a year and a half after Sokolovskii’s

message, the SIB representative Ivanov complained that during all of 1951 he was not

able to publish anything [disparaging] on the Vatican or the Polish Church leaders. N.S.

Bubnov, the editor of Wolność, after having seen Cracow’s churches packed with

worshippers in 1954, reflected on the pages of his diary: “All pillars of religion stand

intact. That is why there are many ideological questions we cannot raise in Wolność.”81

Similarly, careful as the Polish communists were about discussing the collective farms, they were secretly introducing the Soviet farm model in several areas of the country. as early as 1949.82 The directors of the Central Committee’s Press Department were equally

unwilling to publish the article about the world peacemaking mission of the Russian

Orthodox Church. One of them, Stefan Staszewski allegedly explained this with the

potential danger that the Poles might take it as an attempt to impose Orthodox

Christianity in Poland.83

1953 and After

The three years between Stalin’s death and the twentieth congress of the CPSU were characterized by an ideological limbo, in which an impending imperative to readjust the leaders’ approach to society conflicted with the momentum of . Struggles for succession in both Soviet Union and Poland distracted and divided the leaders. This was also true in the sphere of the press, where 1953 marked a watershed that released

80 Kozieł, „Koncepcje”, 53. 81 GARF, f. R-8127, op. 1, d. 33, l. 438. 82 In 1949 there were 243 cooperatives that totaled 42 thousand hectares; in 1953, after the official collectivization campaign that began in 1951, there were 7,7 thousand cooperatives that together 1.2 million hectares of land. Wojciech Roszkowski, Historia Polski, 1914-2005 (Warsaw: PWN, 2006), 215. 83 GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 342, l. 18. 24

tensions which had accumulated during the postwar years, and in turn, began the process

of reshaping the terms of the Soviet-Polish relationship

Even before Stalin’s death some SIB officials increasingly suggested the

possibility of shifting the task of popularizing the Soviet Union to the Poles. It appears that it was not an achievement of a long-term goal but rather the best solution in the

circumstances that they otherwise did not seem to control. The SIB employees’

frustration also played a role. For one thing, the Polish newspaper editors continued to pick and choose the Soviet articles for publication, often preferring to write it themselves.

According to one report, in August, 1953, Trybuna Ludu published 119 articles about the

USSR, but only six of them, or five percent, came from the Sovinformburo.84 The other problem was the general lack of sense of the Institution’s direction. V. Sorokin, in his nineteen-page letter to the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the CPSU dated

August, 10, 1953, argued that part of the problem are the contradictions inherent in SIB’s current project. He contrasted the ever-present imperative to improve SIB’s work, consistent with the institution’s general mission to popularize the Soviet Union abroad, with its conceptual, structural and functional limitations. One of them was the CPSU’s lack of explicit guidance.85

The field offices were effectively abolished in January, 1955. The SIB

management also abolished five editorial posts in the Moscow’s Department of European

People’s Democracies (until then the largest dept. in SIB with 12 editors.), expecting

84 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 373, l. 54. 85 “Nekotorye zamechania o rabote Sovetskogo Informatsionnogo Biuro,” RGANI, f. 5, op. 16, d. 646, l. 125. The other was the tendency to measure SIB’s success based on the relative publication rates given in percentages of the number of articles distributed, rather than attempts to improve their absolute number. Another was the fixed number of editors per territorial department, each of whom could produce only so many original articles per month. RGANI, f. 5, op. 16, d. 646, l. 133. 25

further drop in orders. But in fact, the orders went up. In Poland, for example, 418

articles were published in 1955, including 325 in the central press.86 The head of the

department P. Babenko explained with the fact is that with the abolishment of the field

offices, critical filtration of orders also disappeared, so that each particular newspaper in

each particular country was able to order exactly what it wanted.87 Wolność was closed in

1955, upon orders from above.88 Finally, then, the Poles got what they wanted: the

communists could forego the skirmishes over content, and the editors over the quality of

the Soviet articles and instead pick the material that fit their needs.

More radical changes came after the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956. The press in Poland seized this opportunity to gain more room for free expression.

Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956 became soon known in Poland and only culminated the wave of social expectations which, by Fall, empowered the reformist wing of PZPR to nominate Gomulka as party’s secretary. Mainly he was responsible for reframing the terms of Soviet-Polish relations in a direction that guaranteed less Soviet interference in domestic affairs. The press, too, was left with more room to maneuver, which caused top Soviet officials a great degree of concern.89 The form and content of

the Soviet press in Poland adjusted to popular demand, which existed but in smaller

proportions than the Soviets had imagined. The Soviets had to buy back 10,000 copies of

86 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 121 87 “Otchet o rabote otdela pechati evropeiskikh stran narodnoi demokratii Sovinformbiuro za 1955 god.” GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 118. 88 GARF, f. R-8127, op. 1, d. 33, l. 423. 89 A. M. Orekhov cites a memo from the Information Committee at the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Khrushchev, which expresses worries that the liberalization of the press is a serious threat to socialist system in Poland. See Sovetskii Soiuz i Pol’sha v gody “ottepeli”: iz istorii sovetsko-pol’skikh otnoshenii. (Moscow: Indrik, 2005), 147-148. 26

its illustrated journal Przyjaźń. 90 They launched a new journal, Kraj Rad (The Land of

the Soviets) in response to the declining demand for ordinary newspaper articles. From

now on, news was likely to travel from Poland to the USSR, and be read there. “In our

opinion the journal Kraj Rad should be distributed in Poland, just like the journal Poland

is in the USSR,” wrote G. Zhukov and A Poryvaev to the Central Committee of the

CPSU in 1959, illustrating the new trend.91 Finally, upon questions from Soviet officials

Polish editors could openly call the Soviet material boring and face no sanctions for such statements.92

Measuring the Soviet Success

The most significant consequence of the Soviet-Polish frictions was that the

Soviet scenario about the Soviet Union and the relationship about the two countries

reached the Polish reader in a refracted form. This means that articles on certain subjects,

notably agriculture, Soviet science, but often also economy and international news, were

consistently filtered out. The Soviet authorities relied on the press to introduce the Polish

audience to their vision of empire, they failed to do it to the degree they had hoped to.

Quantitively speaking, between 1945-1949 the Soviets made significant progress

in getting their materials into the Polish newspapers. In 1944 SIB sent to Poland 495 articles, and in 1945—2531.93 In April, 1945 Orlov distributed to newspapers, Polpress

and Polish radio 138 articles. Of those, the agencies used 60 articles, or 43%, which

90 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 454, l. 29. Apparently before the eighth plenum of the CC PZPR the journal sold in 270,000 copies and afterwards the figures went down to 85,000. 91 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 497, l. 1. G. A. Zhukov is most likely in question. Between 1957-1962 he was the head of the State Committee for the Cultural Relations Abroad at the Council of Ministers. A. M. Orekhov, SovetskiiSsoiuz i Pol’sha, 271. He is not to be confused with G. K. Zhukov, the Marshal of the Soviet Union. 92 “Zapis besedy s chlenom redkollegii gazety Tribuna robotnicha /g.Katovitsy/ Mechislavom Kofta,” GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 470, ll. 71-72. 93 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 154, l. 34. 27

Orlov called “relatively not a bad rate.”94 In July, 1946 Lozovskii listed Poland among

the countries with the smallest publication rate of around 50%, together with the US,

China and South Africa.95 In 1948, the rate for the third quarter was 79.3% and for the

fourth—158.3%, totaling 81% (2190 articles/news reports out of 2703) for the year. If we

measure it by all the newspapers that published an original article or a duplicate it was

only 37%.96 In 1949 Polish editors published about double amount of Soviet material in

comparison with the year before. 97 Similarly, the percentage of the original Soviet

articles published in the Polish press at all (2232 out of 2839) was 79%. If we measure it by all the newspapers that published an original article or a duplicate it was 167%. (4738

out of 2839)98

Since the Poles were likely to accept some themes and genres more than others, it allowed them to “overfulfill their obligation” to the Soviet side that was measured in general percentages and quantities, while still being selective. In 1950, the rate was

84%, and in 1951, 92%.99 In 1952, (1024 out of 1243).100 In 1953, it went down to

86.5% (1106 out of 1279).101 In 1954 SIB sent to Poland 1,410 articles, roughly the same amount as to Czechoslovakia and Romania.102 In July of 1954 the publication rate was

40% (57 out of 144).103 In 1955, 418 articles were published, including 325 in the central

press.104 (According to another report for 1955 gave 452 original articles were sent and

94 GARF, f.R-8581, op. 1, d. 146, l. 23 95 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 385, l. 21. 96 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 1, d. 264, l. 553-554. 97 GARF, f. 8581, op. 2, d. 277, l. 2. 98 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 277, ll. 1-2. 99 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 342, l. 16. 100 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 373, l. 8. The figures take into account 122 articles from the year before. 101 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 398, l. 25. 102 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 118. 103 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 398, l. 130. 104 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 121 28

additional 314 duplicates (presumably of articles meant for the Soviet or other East

European reader) and 76 “cut outs” /vyrezok/ from the Soviet press.105 Counting all this, the publication rate was 49.6%. Comparatively, the East European average was 59.3

%.106

This nominal success between the years 1948 and 1953 seems bleaker when we

realize that these figures tell us only that a given article was published, but not in how

many newspapers. In reality, they often appeared in one paper but not in others, which

limited their propagandistic influence; for example, the provincial press was constantly

off limits to the Soviet officials. Similarly, articles on certain subjects, such as the

collective farms, or Soviet science were consistently refused. Others, like international

news and economy, theory of Soviet state and other subjects tended to vacillate

depending on the Polish communists’ need.

Finally, Some Soviet articles, meant to popularize the new empire in the Polish press sometimes misfired because they were either unconvincing or unimpressive. One article that appeared in Życie Warszawy on August 12-13, 1951 titled “A Distinguished

Engineer” (Znatnyi mashinist) told of a stakhanovite feat of a Soviet locomotive-operator

Blinov. In response, the editors received an incredulous letter from a Polish engineer

Kozłowski who was so impressed by the described stunts that he did the math and concluded it was a joke. It appeared that Blinov, at the speed of 150 km/h, drove a train that was four kilometers long and consisted of four hundred wagons. Kozłowski berated the editors for publishing the article without a consultation with the specialist and advised

105 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 125. 106 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 121. It broke down as follows: Hungary -- 43.5 %, Bulgaria – 50 %, Czechoslovakia -- 59.6 %, GDR -- 75.7 %, and Romania topped the chart with 89.3 %. In 1958 304 articles appeared in the Polish press (in addition to 990 pieces of information). GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 402, l. 125; GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 497, l. 90. 29

that they should quickly publish a commentary explaining that the article was a mistake,

in order to save the paper’s reputation.107 Reactions such as this help explain why the

Polish editors often dragged their feet in publishing the Soviet material.108

Another sympathetic reader politely complained that he did not understand the

distinction between “democratic” and “undemocratic” music made by one Soviet

author.109 There were readers who felt strongly about some issues, such as religion and

the collective farms. “Try to touch our Church, and you’ll see what’ll happen,” warned

one, writing to Wolność. “We’ll slaughter our cows and won’t go to the collective farms

anyway.”110 Similarly, Potemkin reported in 1953, some articles on the Soviet boasted

successes of the Soviet collective farms that were actually lower than Polish results.111

Given the constant complaints on the SIB representatives’ part, such thoughtless articles

were not uncommon. They turned out to be another obstacle in the Soviet efforts to engage the Polish public into its imperial project.

Conclusion

The rigidity of their approach prevented the Soviet authorities from effectively involving the Polish subjects in a common project. On the one hand, they were not able to produce high-quality journalism that would be more likely to get accepted by Polish editors, many of whom had a developed sense of a professional identity from working in the Western-style press of the interwar era. On the other hand, the Soviets could not accommodate the Polish communists’ tactical differences in matters of propaganda.

107 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2., d. 305, l. 23. 108 Based on the author’s conversation with Mr. Daniel Luliński, (May 31, 2006) who began working for Trybuna Ludu in 1953. 109 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 86. 110 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 245, l. 87. 111 GARF, f. R-8581, op. 2, d. 373, l. 51-52. 30

Their tolerance ran out after their Polish comrades seized power in the beginning of 1947;

after that, they viewed all disagreements on the Poles’ part with utmost suspicion, and

struggled ever harder to have their own way. By doing so, they wasted a fair amount of

energy and certainly deprived the Polish leaders of whatever incentive they had left for

cooperating with the mid-level Soviet functionaries. In the long run, the Soviets

squandered an opportunity to involve large parts of the Polish mass public to their own

vision of empire. Clearly, not all who read the Soviet articles would have been

convinced. But if, as some argue, social representations can shape people’s acceptance of

reality by conventionalizing and prescribing their conceptualization of objects, persons,

and events, then the mere lack of exposure to the articles was a high cost anyway.112

The Soviets tried to accomplish their goals by actively intervening in the Polish

media apparatus and the content of the press. Where they merely responded to the local initiative, it was when they had created such initiative in the first place. Where they tolerated the Poles’ dissent, as was the case between 1945 and 1947, they did so as a temporary tactical move designed to prevent jeopardizing their comrades’ precarious political standing and not as a long-term alternative. Regardless, the Polish communists continued to differ on some issues even after they seized power, and in defying the

impatient Soviet officials, they gained some autonomy for action. Both of the above

factors—the Soviet inability to reach the Polish masses directly and failure to

accommodate the communist elites—help us understand yet another dimension of the

Soviet imperial weakness as well as of the perennial instability behind Soviet-Polish

relations.

112 Serge Moscovici, “The Phenomenon of Social Representations,” in Robert M. Farr and S. Moscovici, eds., Social Representations (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984), 3-70. 31