Pionerskaia Pravda

an all-Union children’s newspaper, founded in 1925 in Moscow as a weekly Pioneer newspaper; an organ of the Moscow Committee of the All-Union Komsomol. Beginning in 1927, it was published by the Central Committee and the Moscow Oblast Committee of the All-Union Komsomol, and beginning in 1958, by the Central Committee of the All-Union Komsomol and the Central Council of the Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization.

Pionerskaia pravda is published twice a week. Its contributors have included N. K. Krupskaia, M. I. Ul’ianova, Em. Iaroslavskii, M. Gorky, V. V. Mayakovsky, A. P. Gaidar, S. Ia. Marshak, and L. A. Kassil’. The newspaper assists the Pioneer organization and the schools in the communist upbringing of the younger generation. It publishes materials on Soviet Pioneers and schoolchildren, on children’s democratic organizations in other countries, and on major events taking place in the USSR and abroad. The newspaper’s contributors include state and public leaders, scientists, writers, teachers, Pioneer workers, and youth correspondents.

In cooperation with public-education and other public organizations, Pionerskaia pravda organizes all-Union and international children’s excursions, inspections, competitions, exhibitions, and sports activities. These activities include the military game Zarnitsa [Summer Lightning], competitions for the prizes awarded by the Golden Puck and Leather Ball clubs, international exhibitions of children’s drawings, international photographic competitions, and exhibitions of works of young technicians. Each year Pionerskaia Pravda receives more than 200,000 letters from children, many of which it publishes. It has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1945) and the Order of Lenin (1950). Circulation, approximately 9.5 million (1975).