Index on Censorship
campaigning publishing organization
Index on Censorship is an organisation campaigning for freedom of expression. It produces a quarterly magazine of the same name from London. It is directed by the non-profit-making Writers and Scholars International, Ltd (WSI) in association with the UK-registered charity Index on Censorship (founded as the Writers and Scholars Educational Trust), which are both chaired by the British television broadcaster, writer and former politician Trevor Phillips. The current CEO is Jemimah Steinfeld.
WSI was created by poet Stephen Spender, Oxford philosopher Stuart Hampshire, the publisher and editor of The Observer David Astor, and the writer and expert on the Soviet Union Edward Crankshaw. The founding editor of Index on Censorship was the critic and translator Michael Scammell (1972–1981), who still serves as a patron of the organisation.
Founding history
An Appeal from the USSR
The original impetus for the creation of Index on Censorship came from an Open Letter addressed "To World Public Opinion" by two Soviet dissenters, Pavel Litvinov and Larisa Bogoraz. In the words of the samizdat periodical A Chronicle of Current Events, they described "the atmosphere of illegality" surrounding the January 1968 trial of Ginzburg and Galanskov and called for "public condemnation of this disgraceful trial, for the punishment of those responsible, the release of the accused from detention and a retrial which would fully conform with the legal regulations and be held in the presence of international observers." (One of the accused Alexander Ginzburg resumed his dissident activities on release from the camps, until expelled from the USSR in 1979; another, the writer Yuri Galanskov, died in a camp in November 1972.)
The Times (London) published a translation of the Open Letter and in reply the English poet Stephen Spender composed a brief telegram:
“We, a group of friends representing no organisation, support your statement, admire your courage, think of you and will help in any way possible.”
Among the other 15 British and US signatories were the poet W. H. Auden, philosopher A. J. Ayer, musician Yehudi Menuhin, man of letters J. B. Priestley, actor Paul Scofield, sculptor Henry Moore, philosopher Bertrand Russell, writer Mary McCarthy and composer Igor Stravinsky.
Later that year, on 25 August, Bogoraz, Litvinov and five others demonstrated on Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia.
A few weeks before, Litvinov sent Spender a letter (translated and published several years later in the first May 1972 issue of Index).
“Index on Censorship” enters the record as campaigning publishing organization. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Index, Censorship and campaigning can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Index on Censorship” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Index, Censorship and campaigning provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1445615. VIAF identifies the subject as 133921278. The Library of Congress control number is n2008040025. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1981, 1968 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Index on Censorship” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.