TASS takes Russia's oldest news service back to the U.S.S.R.

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-russia-tass-name-change-20141001-story.html



Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin addresses the new Soviet Army in Moscow's Red Square in this May 25, 1919, photo by the TASS news agency. The post-Soviet ITAR-TASS service reverted to its communist-era name on Wednesday.

TASS takes Russia's oldest news service back to the U.S.S.R.
Carol J. Williams
10.1.2014

Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency has shorn itself of a post-Soviet moniker and gone Back to the U.S.S.R.

The Moscow-based information empire, with 70 national news bureaus and correspondents in 63 other countries, announced late Tuesday that it would be reverting to the name TASS effective Wednesday.

TASS was the acronym taken by the news agency created by decree of the Communist Party Supreme Soviet in 1925, standing for the Cyrillic-letter abbreviation for Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. ITAR, which stood for Information Telegraph Agency of Russia, was added after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union to identify the agency with independent Russia.

In its dispatch explaining the name change, TASS said the Soviet-era brand was "a symbol of professionalism, enthusiasm and commitment to maintain and develop its best traditions."

[Gman]

1. Putin starting to show his hand?

[DetlefK]

2. "TASS, which is not intended to be an abbreviation"

http://en.itar-tass.com/russia/751947

So TASS used to be an abbreviation, but now it's not meant to be an abbreviation, even though the change back to TASS happened to tie the agency to its soviet-era roots?
That's like switching Russia's name to "USSR", boasting about the deep historical connection to that name, and then denying that it has anything to do with "the" USSR.