In 1944, three months after the new government took control, all newspaper plants were made the property of the state. In the ensuing year, the government took over the distribution of newsprint, and many noncommunist editors and Communists were either jailed or executed. By 1945 only eight daily and weekly newspapers were permitted to publish. Five of them were published under the aegis of a governmental or party agency. _Rabotnichesko Delo_--which was patterned on the Soviet _Pravda_--became the organ of the Central Committee, and _Otechestven Front_--patterned on the Soviet _Isvestia_--became the official organ of the government. _Izgrev_ was an organ of the Fatherland Front _Zvenos_; _Narod_ was an instrument of the Fatherland Front (Otechestven Front) Socialists; and _Narodna Voiska_ was an army organ. _Politika_ was not directly affiliated with the party but was decidedly pro-Communist (see ch. 9). The other two newspapers, both expressing a degree of opposition, were tolerated only through 1946. These were _Narodno Zemedelsko Zname_, an organ of the Bulgarian Agrarian Union (Bulgarski Zemedelski Suyuz--BZS) and _Svoboden Narod_, an organ of the Social Democratic Party. In early 1947, however, they were closed down. The Fifth Party Congress in 1948, endeavoring to more fully exploit the potential of the press for propaganda purposes, called upon it to serve as the "first assistant of the Bulgarian Communist Party, of the Fatherland Front, and of the government." The primary function of the printed news media, as stated by that congress, was to mobilize the working people in terms of their identification with the so-called great socialist buildup. In the same year the Central Home of Bulgarian Journalists was established in order to train writers in the correct propaganda line established by the party. This institution was replaced in 1955 by the Union of Bulgarian Journalists. After World War II the national newspapers were generally four pages long and consisted of news concerning Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, and other socialist countries; progress reports regarding national economic plans; foreign news presented with a decided anti-Western bias; and information regarding cultural events and sports. Cartoons, which appeared occasionally in the daily and weekly newspapers, were generally propagandistic and dealt with so-called foreign agents, the bourgeoise, and other so-called enemies of the people. There was little humor in the newspapers, as their overall purpose was to portray and defend the communist system. The national newspapers were modeled after those of the Soviet Union, in both style and content. During the 1940s they established ties with the Soviet news agency, the Chinese Communist news agency, and the news agencies in other communist countries. All international events--those dealing with the communist-bloc countries and those dealing with the West--were integrated through these sources.