Pravda (“Truth”) was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. First published legally in St. Petersburg in May 1912 by the Bolsheviks, it became the party’s central organ after the 1917 revolution and set the authoritative line that other Soviet media followed. Its editorials and commentaries signaled official positions to Soviet readers and foreign governments alike. In active measures campaigns, Pravda and other central papers often repeated and amplified stories first planted in foreign outlets. This section covers people associated with the paper, including party ideologist Mikhail Suslov, who edited it, and commentator Yuri Zhukov.
