Krokodil

(Crocodile), a Soviet satirical magazine. From 1922 it was published in Moscow as a weekly supplement to Rabochaia gazeta (The Workers’ Paper). Since 1932 it has been published three times a month by Pravda Publishing House.

Krokodil’s founder and first editor was the party journalist and satiric writer K. S. Eremeev. The magazine attracted such men as D. Bednyi, V. Mayakovsky, V. Kataev, M. Kol’tsov, I. Il’f, E. Petrov, and many other prominent Soviet writers, as well as the artists D. Moor, V. Deni, K. Rotov, B. Efimov, and lu. Ganf. Armed with satire and humor, Krokodil wages a struggle against what is unfavorable and alien to Soviet life and exposes bourgeois ideology and imperialistic reactionism.

Krokodil played a large part in establishing the principles of Soviet satire and in the formation of multinational Soviet satirical magazines. Its tasks were formulated in the decrees of the Central Committee of the ACP (B) On the Magazine Krokodil (1948) and On the Shortcomings of the Magazine Krokodil and the Steps Needed to Eliminate Them (1951). The magazine’s circulation in 1973 numbered 5.5 million copies. The magazine was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1972.