Vladimir Komarov and Censoring

The second text in my Chinese reading class is about Vladimir Komarov. Besides learning such useful phrases as 'return to base' and 'the universe,' I've also scratched the surface of censorship and (re-)writing history. Vladimir Komarov was a Soviet cosmonaut who in 1967 was the first man to die in space. The space shuttle's parachute malfunctioned, and so he was unable to slow down and crashed upon landing. My Chinese text recounts the hours before his death, when he learned of the unsolvable technical problem, was communicating with ground control, and saying goodbye to his family. In the text, he insists on first giving a lengthy mission report before spending his last moments with his loved ones. He is worked up but in control of himself and gives a coherent account to ground control. He announces that in spite of everything he is happy to have devoted his life to space exploration. Then, he speaks in turn to his mother, wife, and daughter. His daughter tells him she wants to be an astronaut just like him. Finally, his lover's husband comes on the transmission, and says that he forgives Komarov because now he understands why his wife loved him. It is all very emotional, and the text basically concludes that everyone looks to him as a hero, and that he unquestionbly is one.

After some searching on the internet, I have found that the facts are true, but the dialogue and situation are distorted. The 1967 story published by the BBC reports the following:

"Mystery crash
The announcement from Moscow gave few details surrounding events leading up to the disaster, and there remain a number of mysteries surrounding the last moments of the doomed flight.
The Soyuz 1 is known to be a new and heavier type of spacecraft, built as part of the Soviet attempt to land a man on the Moon, and Colonel Komarov was thought to be testing it when the disaster happened.

Correspondents in Moscow had indications that all was not well with the flight from as early as yesterday, when earlier reports on Moscow Radio suddenly stopped and there was no mention of the space flight for nearly 13 hours. Experts have questioned why Colonel Komarov did not use an ejection system to get out of the spacecraft. The cosmonaut was also known to have suffered from heart problems."

The online BBC article then follows up with current, retrospective information:
"It is now thought that the Soyuz 1 space flight had been dogged by problems from the beginning, and that the craft was not ready for manned flight. But objections from the engineers were overruled by political pressures for a series of space feats to mark the anniversary of Lenin's birthday. The Soviet Union continued to dominate the space race for another two years, until the United States put the first man on the Moon with the Apollo 11 mission in 1969."

Finally, wikipedia goes so far as to say:
"On his second flight, Soyuz 1, Komarov was killed during a return, when the spacecraft crashed owing to failure of the parachute. Just before impact, Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin told Komarov his country was proud of him. An American NSA listening post in Istanbul noted Komarov's reply was inaudible, though persistent rumours stated that Komarov died cursing the spacecraft designers and flight controllers. Whatever the truth of the matter, a tape from a West German tracking station bearing some of Komarov's brief phrases was forwarded to the Command-Measurement Complex of the Soviet Union after the disaster and was reported to contain the word "killed", mixed in with Komarov's distraught unclear transmissions, among other flight data recorded on radio by the West Germans. The recording was made, apparently, on one of the last orbits, if not the final one."

Also, the fact that I've managed to read wikipedia at all is an issue of censorship. Indeed, it is blocked in China. I've managed to get an add-on that lets me around the national internet censoring when I want (perhaps I shouldn't be writing this...). I can also see my blog using this, which means that blogs on blogger.com are blocked by China.

Who do you believe? I obviously have more trust in the BBC, and even in wikipedia, than my Chinese text book, but even the justification for this trust, I suppose, should be questioned. Perhaps this is just a simple example of Chinese propaganda - the text encourages values such as devoting ones life to a common goal, to duty before anything else, and also to loving relationships between relatives. The China-Russia relationship also seems to be rather complex and interesting, and here in this part of China, particularly important to people.

Of course my Chinese book doesn't claim to be a news report, and I figured the dialogue wasn't exact, but the very different accounts are still surprising to me. If any of you know any more on these events, I'd be interested in hearing what you think actually happened. For now, I'm first reminded more concretely than ever to really keep my eyes open and question what I hear. Second, living in China now, I wonder, should I even be posting this?