Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union

The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union, also known as tass (acronym of the Russian тррафное аентQUalk sat agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) was the state news agency of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The name is due to the fact that in its time of origin, the first years of the 20th century, news was transmitted by electric telegraph. It was created by decree on July 25, 1925 from the former ROSTA agency. In 1971 it was transformed into a State Committee dependent on the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

It had an extensive network of offices and correspondents around the world and competed with advantage over news agencies from capitalist countries. Because it was part of the centralized structure of the USSR, its journalists and managers were frequently accused of being spies. TASS had affiliates in 14 republics of the USSR and directly covered the Russian SFSR, which did not have its own agency.

In articles and journalistic notes it was generally cited as TASS News Agency. The current news agency of the Russian Federation and institutional heir to TASS, ITAR-TASS, retains the last part of its name as a reference to the Soviet original.

Agencies of the republics

• RATAU (Russian: РАр, Ukrainian RSS)
• BelTA (Russian: Belorrussian RSS)
• UzTAG (Russian: рзТАГ, RSS de Uzbekistan)
• KazTAG (v КазТАГ, RSS of Kazakhstan)
• Gruzinform (Russian: Грузинформ, RSS of Georgia)
• Azerinform (Russian: Asteринформ, Azerbaijani RSS)
• ElTA (Russian: E.L.A., RSS of Lithuania)
• ATEM (Russian: АТМ, RSS de Moldavia)
• Latinform (v Literature, Latvian RSS), current LETA
• KyrTAG (Russian: КирТАГ, RSS of Kyrgyzstan)
• TajikTA (Russian: Tayikistaa, Tayikistaa RSS)
• Armenpress (Russian: Арменрес, RSS from Armenia)
• Turkmeninform (Russian: Туркменинформ, RSS from Turkmenistan)
• ETA (Russian: ETNA, Estonian SSR)
• There was also KarelfinTAG (Russian: КарелфинТАГ) of the Carelo-Finesa RSS