The role of L.F. Ilyichev’s letter in the organization of foreign policy propaganda on the eve of the U.S. exhibition in Moscow in 1959

The article considers one of the key documents on the preparation of Soviet foreign policy propaganda for covering the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 – a letter from the Head of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Committee of the CPSU for the Union Republics, L.F. Ilyichev, sent to the Central Committee of the CPSU. The author introduces the previously unpublished full text of the archive document from the fund No. 5 of the Russian State Archive of Modern History, as well as later handwritten corrections with relevant comments and observations. The paper analyzes the goals and objectives of the document and also provides an overview of the degree of current studying the issue of covering the American Exhibition in Moscow in domestic and foreign historiography at the present stage. In this research, the author comes to the conclusion that the Department of Agitation and Propaganda played one of the main roles in the organization of the exhibition coverage. The article traces the mechanism of implementation of the decisions taken in the field of propaganda and interaction with the Soviet media on the example of this document. The author points out an intermediary role of Agitprop in this mechanism: all the decisions, agreed with the Central Committee of the CPSU are assigned in the form of tasks to central newspapers, the TASS news agency, radio and television. The main goal pursued by Agitprop was to minimize the propaganda effect in the media field from the American Exhibition in Sokolniki and to attempt weakening the interest of Soviet citizens in the event itself. The author also emphasizes the importance of corrections made to the document after typewriting, which meant reducing the sharp tone of the paper. In addition, the article remarks the role of a handwritten note on the organization of the Exhibition, made in the end of the document, as a form of reporting to the higher management for the events held at that time.

History of the USSR, history of management, American National Exhibition of 1959 in Moscow, American Exhibition in Sokolniki, Soviet foreign policy propaganda, Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Agitprop, L.F. Ilyichev, V.I. Snastin

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