Nõukogude tsensuurisüsteemi loomine ja organisatsiooniline väljakujunemine Eesti NSV-s 1940-41 ja 1944-53

The purpose of this study was to give a picture of the installation of Soviet censorship system, Glavlit (the exact name of the apparatus in Estonian was ENSV Kirjandus- ja Kirjastusasjade Peavalitsus or ENSV KKP) in Estonia. The years selected for the analysis were 1940-41 and 1944-53. Estonia „entered“ the Soviet Union in 1940 and the totalitarian, stalinist power regime started to settle in. The main hypothesis of this study was that the ENSV KKP worked inefficiently during these first years of its existence; in other means, it did not work as well as the leaders of the Communist Party (and also the leaders of Glavlit`s head administration in Moscow) wanted it to work. The main hypothesis was confirmed: the ENSV KKP did not work as efficiently as it should have due to poor working conditions, incompetent staff and the shortage of staff, as well as the lack of publishers and libraries interested in co-operation. Mostly it is seen in the sphere of „cleaning“ the libraries from ideologically unsuitable literature. The censors were reproached because of inefficient work by the leaders of the ENSV KKP as well as the head administration of Glavlit (in Moscow). The KKP staff consisted of approximately 30 people during the period researched and the staff was divided into administrative office and the censors. The number of censors varied as the rearrangements took place in the structure of the organisation, being the smallest (8) during the autumn of 1944 and the greatest (24) during 1953. In addition to full-time workers the help of local censors was used in the districts. To educate the censors, weekly meetings were held where mistakes and new prescriptions from Moscow were discussed. The ENSV KKP also arranged courses and seminars where local censors where invited as well. Despite of everything the ENSV KKP working in the post-war stalinistic era lacked staff, the working conditions were poor and the newspaper editors and libraries did not tolerate the censors. Due to that the tasks assigned by the Party were not fully executed.http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b1738545~S1*es