CENSORSHIP IN RUSSIA

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 7

CENSORSHIP IN RUSSIA

MR STALIN EXPLAINS RETENTION

FOREIGN JOURNALISTS CRITICISED

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, April 14. Mr Stalin, in an interview with Mr Harold Stassen, former Governor of Minnesota, who is visiting Russia, alleged bad faith on the part of foreign correspondents in Russia as the reason for the retention of the Soviet censorship, says the Moscow correspondent of the British United Press. According to Mr Stassen, Mr Stalin said that Mr Molotov had tried to lift the censorship several times, but had had to resume it each time. He added: “The censorship was repealed in the autumn of 1945. I was on leave and correspondents began writing stories that Mr Molotov had forced me to go on leave. Then they wrote stories that I returned and fired Mr Molotov. These stories depict the Soviet Government as a sort of zoological garden. Our people got angry and we had to resume the censorship.” Mr Stalin recalled that during the Teheran conference one American correspondent cabled a story stating that Mr Stalin had struck Marshal Timoshenko at a dinner celebrating Mr Churchill’s birthday. Actually Marshal Timoshenko was not present, but American newspapers printed the story. Mr Stassen suggested that the lack of a news censorship would help RussianAmerican understanding and co-opera-tion. but Mr Stalin replied that it was difficult in Russia to dispense with the censorship.

Mr Stassen said that he found Mr Stalin alert and direct.