Soviet Information Bureau

The final Sovinformburo operational summary, 15 May 1945

Soviet Information Bureau (Template:Lang-ru [Sovetskoye informatsionnoye byuro], commonly known as Sovinformburo [Совинформбюро]) was a leading Soviet news agency, operating from 1941 to 1961.

Operation

From the Soviet Information Bureau by Yuri Levitan, announcing the capture of Drezden, 8 May 1945

Operational summary of 30 March 1945, announcing the route of Army Group Danzig by the 2nd Belorussian Front.

Sovinformburo was established on June 24, 1941, shortly after the opening of the Eastern Front of World War II by a directive of Sovnarkom and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union "to bring into the limelight international events, military developments, and day-to-day life through printed and broadcast media."

During the war, Sovinformburo directed the activity of the All-Slavonic Committee, Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women, Anti-Fascist Committee of the Soviet Youth, Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Scientists and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC). In 1944, a special bureau on propaganda for foreign countries was set up as part of Sovinformburo. In 1961 Sovinformburo was transformed into Novosti Press Agency which was succeeded by RIA Novosti and, in 2013, International Information Agency Russia Today.

The radio announcements were performed on Radio Moscow (known for its Wide is My Motherland beeping) by Yuri Levitan. While Radio Moscow always started its announcements with the words "Moscow is speaking" (Govorit Moskva), during the German aggression against the Soviet Union in World War II the broadcasting was conducting from Sverdlovsk (today Yekaterinburg) until 1943 when it was moved to Kuibyshev (today Samara) until 1945.

The fall of Kiev was never announced by the Soviet Information Bureau.

Radio announcers

• Yuri Levitan

See also

• Eastern Bloc information dissemination
• Censorship in the Soviet Union
• Propaganda in the Soviet Union
• Radio Moscow