TASS Agent in the International Information System (1925–1939)

The subject of the research is the TASS agent during the interwar period (1925–1939) as a special type of Soviet journalist who combined the functions of a reporter, diplomat, and political analyst. The object of the study is the Soviet information system and the place of the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union within it. The author examines various aspects of the topic in detail, such as the theoretical foundations of the agent's work, which trace back to Lenin's concept of the press and were developed by Y.G. Doletsky and N.G. Palkin; the criteria for professional competence and personnel selection for domestic and foreign correspondents; the organizational structure of the central apparatus and foreign bureaus. Special attention is given to the differences in accountability, material conditions, and social and living conditions of domestic and foreign agents, the participation of TASS representatives in international conferences of information agencies, particularly the Geneva Conference of Press Experts of the League of Nations in 1927, and contacts between TASS personnel and Western correspondents through official and personal channels. The methodological framework of the study comprises the principle of historicism, which allows for considering the figure of the TASS agent in development and in the specific historical conditions of the interwar period. These approaches are implemented through the analysis of archival administrative materials, sources of personal origin (memoirs of Soviet and Western correspondents), and others. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the figure of the TASS agent, especially that of the foreign correspondent, becomes an independent object of comprehensive analysis for the first time, filling an existing historiographical gap. A significant contribution of the author to the study of the topic is the introduction of archival materials from fund 4459 of the Russian State Archive into scientific circulation. The main conclusions of the conducted research assert that the TASS agent represented a fundamentally new figure in international journalism, combining the roles of journalist, diplomat, and political analyst within a centralized party-state system. The internal and external correspondent networks were connected by a common ideological framework and unified accountability to the party-state leadership, which radically distinguished the TASS model from Western agencies (Reuters, AP, UP, Havas). The author demonstrates how the pragmatic interest of Western agencies in Soviet news was used to gradually dismantle the European information cartel and promote TASS to a position among the leading global agencies.