Pravda

The legal newspaper of the Russian Bolsheviks. It was founded according to the decision of the Sixth (Prague) National Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, and began to be published in Petersburg on April 22, 1912. Pravda was a mass newspaper for workers with a large number of worker correspondents and worker writers; it was published by workers' voluntary contributions. Pravda was also the actual organ of the Bolshevik party. The editorial board of Pravda was also responsible for the large part of the party's organizational work, such as meeting with representatives of grass-roots organizations, gathering information on the party's work in various factories and forwarding instructions from the party. Lenin led Pravda abroad, where he organized the editorialboard, determined the guidelines for the newspaper, organized the writers, and often gave instructions to the editorial board on its work. Between 1912 and 1914, Pravda published more than 300 articles by Lenin.

Pravda was often persecuted by the Tsar government. Of the 645 newspapers published between 1912 and 1914, the 190 of them were subjected to all kinds of obstruction and suppression. The newspaper was banned eight times, each time changing its name to continue publishing. Finally, on July 8, 1914, on the eve of the World War I, the Tsar government banned the publication of Pravda.

Following the February Revolution in 1917, Pravda resumed its publication on March 5 and became the organ of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik) and the Petersburg Committee. Lenin returned to Russia on April 3 and joined the editorial board on April 5, directly leading the work of the newspaper. But in the July 1917, the editorial board of Pravda was smashed by the Cadets Party on July 5. On July 15, the provisional bourgeois government officially ordered the closure of Pravda. From July to October, the newspaper was continuously persecuted by the provisional bourgeois goverment led by Kerensky. It was renamed The Newspaper Pravda, Proletarskaia Pravda (Proletarian Truth), Trudovaia Pravda (Workers’ Truth), Put’ Pravdu (Road to Truth). Then, on October 27, 1917, Pravda resumed to use its original name and continued to be published as an organ of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Bolshevik). From March 16, 1918, on Pravda began to be in Moscow instead.