The Goskino chairman who harvested Politburo phone calls every Monday and enforced cuts he didn't always believe in
Every Monday Romanov went to work with a heavy heart, collecting the harvest of phone calls from weekend dacha screenings. 'One says one thing, another says the opposite — about the same film. What am I supposed to do?'
Alexei Romanov chaired the USSR State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino) from 1963 to 1972, presiding over Soviet film policy during the transition from the Khrushchev Thaw to the Brezhnev era. Born in Belyov, Tula Governorate, he built his career as a newspaper editor in Gorky and Belorussia before joining the Central Committee's propaganda apparatus in 1955, becoming a candidate CC member in 1961. As Goskino chairman, he oversaw the censorship battles around Tarkovsky's 'Andrei Rublev' and managed the entire film industry through the volatile post-Thaw years. Contemporaries described him as decent and soft-spoken but 'too disciplined,' a functionary who rarely initiated bans himself but enforced them without hesitation when orders came from above. He was replaced by Filipp Yermash in 1972 and spent his remaining career as editor-in-chief of the newspaper 'Soviet Culture.'
Career Timeline
- 1926–1929Construction worker → studied at Higher State Literary Courses (3 years)
- 1929–1944Reporter, dept head, executive secretary, deputy editor at newspapers in Aktyubinsk and Gorky
- 1944–1946Correspondent, Pravda, for Gorky Oblast
- 1946–1949Editor-in-chief, Gorkovskaya Kommuna then Sovetskaya Belorussiya
- 1949–1955Deputy editor-in-chief, Cominform journal in Bucharest
- 1955–1963Consultant → deputy → first deputy head, CC Propaganda and Ideology Dept
- 1961–1986Candidate member, CPSU Central Committee
- 1963–1972Chairman, USSR State Committee for Cinematography (Goskino)
- 1972–1983Editor-in-chief, Sovetskaya Kultura newspaper