“A Newspaper at the Front is Needed in the Same Way as Food, Weapons and Ammunition”: Military Periodical on the Pages of the Journal “Agitator i propagandist Krasnoy armii” (Agitator and Propagandist of the Red Army), 1941–1945

The most important body of party-political work in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War were front-line, district, army and divisional newspapers, which played an important role in patriotic upbringing and military, political and cultural education of personnel. The historiography of the role of the military periodical press during the war years is represented by a large number of publications, however, the analysis of newspapers published during this period, presented on the pages of other periodicals contemporary to them, has not been revealed by historians, which determines the scientific novelty of this article. The goal of this paper is to analyze the coverage of the publication of such newspapers on the pages of the journal “Agitator and Propagandist of the Red Army”. To achieve it, a continuous review of the issues of the 1941–1945 journal was carried out. The study showed that during the war years the magazine published several dozen articles on military newspapers. The main aspects for which the publication of newspapers was presented and analyzed in the magazine were revealed: 1) the organizational work of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army in the leadership of the military periodical; 2) tasks, positive examples and shortcomings of the military periodical press in the initial period of the war; 3) the importance of party political work; 4) the significance of district newspapers; 5) the role of military commanders in newspapers; 6) propaganda of the work experience of agitators; 7) the work of editorial boards of newspapers with letters from military commanders; 8) training and education of personnel for the military periodical press; 9) forms and methods of working with newspapers, etc. This study expands the idea of military periodicals during the Great Patriotic War.