How it worked
A list of topics. There was a list of things you could not write about. It was often secret, and authors guessed what it contained from the rejections.
Reading before publication. The manuscript went to an official, who crossed things out, demanded revisions, or banned it entirely.
A stamp. Approval was recorded with a signature and a stamp. Without them, the printer had no right to set the text.
Accountability. The official was personally responsible for anything that got through. So they crossed things out just to be safe.
The fourth step explains the defining feature of any censorship system. The punishment for letting something through is always harsher than for crossing out too much, so the system inevitably shifts toward banning even harmless material.
That is also where the famous absurdities came from: descriptions of the weather, geographical names, and mentions of illnesses were crossed out. The official did not know whether something was dangerous and removed it because caution was never punished.
What authors did
The response was a special way of writing: say what you need to say so there is nothing formal to object to. Set the action in another country or era, put the idea in the mouth of a negative character, or hide the main point in a footnote or translation.
This technique had a side effect that is mentioned less often. Readers got used to looking for a second meaning everywhere and found one even where the author had meant nothing of the kind.
There was also a workaround through format. A scholarly publication, a children's book, a translation of a classic, or an official collection was reviewed differently and more leniently, so material that could not pass in ordinary print found its way there.
The most effective part of the system, however, required no official at all. Knowing what would be crossed out, the author left it unwritten from the start, and this internal editing left no trace in any archive.
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Sources
- Pre-publication censorship relied on lists of forbidden topics and personal responsibility for the censor who let something through, which shifted decisions toward prohibition
- authors responded with allegory and by moving into formats with more lenient review, while the most widespread effect is considered to be authors' self-censorship