From Izvestia editor to Soviet of the Union chairman: a Brezhnev-era media mandarin who became the face of the supreme legislature
When Andropov took power after Brezhnev's death, Tolkunov — who had once worked alongside him in the Central Committee — asked to return to newspaper work. Andropov offered him Pravda; Tolkunov chose Izvestia instead.
A Soviet journalist and state leader born into a railway worker's family who began as a Pravda reporter in 1938. During World War II he served as a war correspondent across multiple fronts, and from the early 1960s worked in the CPSU Central Committee's department for relations with socialist countries, managing the party's external propaganda line. Appointed editor-in-chief of Izvestia in 1965, he led the paper for 11 years before being transferred to head the Novosti Press Agency in 1976, then returned to Izvestia in 1983 when his old CC colleague Andropov came to power. Elected Chairman of the Soviet of the Union in 1984, he served until 1988 as the institutional head of the USSR's supreme legislative body.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1938–1939Reporter, Pravda information dept → literary contributor, assistant to editor-in-chief
- 1941–1944War correspondent (Kalinin, Northwestern, Bryansk, 4th Ukrainian, 2nd Belorussian fronts)
- 1946–1947, 1951–1957Pravda staff
- 1957–1965CPSU CC apparatus → deputy, first deputy head, Dept for Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries
- 1965–1976Editor-in-chief, Izvestia
- 1976–1983Chairman of the Board, Novosti Press Agency (APN)
- 1983–1984Editor-in-chief, Izvestia (second term)
- 1984–1988Chairman of the Soviet of the Union, Supreme Soviet of the USSR
Related historical events
Editor under censorship: the 1968 Czechoslovak crisis
Tolkunov's tenure as Izvestia's editor-in-chief (1965-1976) illustrates what choices a journalist could make under Brezhnev-era censorship and party interference. He took over shortly after Khrushchev's ouster and the dismissal of his predecessor Alexei Adzhubei; staff who had tasted relative freedom expected a purge and met the new chief warily. He is remembered, however, as an editor who encouraged his reporters' initiative and individuality while demanding that they answer for every printed word. On contentious stories he pushed for publication even while colliding with pressure from above, and he shielded journalists against criticism from the highest party bodies. That ethos also shaped the paper's hiring of internationally minded reporters such as Alexander Bovin, who had fallen out of favor with party officials.
The sharpest case came in August 1968, with the Warsaw Pact entry into Czechoslovakia. Izvestia's Prague correspondent and a dispatched special correspondent were told to write that the population had welcomed the entering Soviet troops; they refused. According to the correspondent Vladlen Krivosheev, Tolkunov sent a deputy editor to Prague to see conditions firsthand and, after the report, told him to "work calmly" and continue. Krivosheev was later moved to a paper under the editorial office and eventually left the newspaper; around that time, by his account, a journalist denounced Tolkunov to the Central Committee for shielding "anti-Soviet" journalists. Leonid Kamynin, then a colleague at the paper, likewise recalls that Tolkunov, saying the events were "so extraordinary that one can understand a person who could not overcome an inner crisis," declined to punish the reporters and instead smoothed the matter over, giving them time to find other work. This shows him refusing both to force the required coverage and to sacrifice his staff, balancing on a dangerous line. These episodes rest on participants' and colleagues' recollections and an anniversary essay, so confirming the editor's judgment and motives from documentary sources would require further verification.