Pravda is a Russian broadsheet newspaper that served as the official publication of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. During its tenure as an influential state organ, it reached a circulation of approximately 11 million copies.
The first issue of Pravda was published in Vienna on October 3, 1908, under the editorship of Leon Trotsky. Originally designed as an illegal, non-factional Marxist newspaper, it was smuggled into Russia to unify the Russian Social Democratic movement. In April 1912, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik faction launched a legal daily workers' newspaper in St. Petersburg using the same name and style.
Following the October Revolution, Pravda emerged as the leading government newspaper of the Soviet Union. It remained an official organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU until 1991.