This memo from N. Mesyatsev, Chairman, Broadcast and Television Committee, Council of Ministers, analyzes Western radio “propaganda” and credits Western broadcasts with being “an effective tool of ideological intervention.” The document notes that the broadcasts pay attention to Soviet dissidents, and mentions their use of humor and Western music.

This lengthy review of foreign radio propaganda by Y. Novikov, an official of the USSR Gosteleradio [State Television and Radio] Guidance Department, pays particular attention to what it sees as Western broadcasters’ attempts to discredit Marxism-Leninism and Communist economics, as well as the notion of convergence between capitalism and Communism.

This TASS bulletin containing the transcript of a Radio Liberation broadcast urging Soviet forces stationed in East Germany to “return to the barracks” was sent to top Soviet officials. Radio Liberation, later to be renamed Radio Liberty, went on the air in March 1953.

Extract on Amnesty International and the KGB's attempts to undermine its anti-Soviet activity. The report states that Amnesty International is funded by imperialist powers, who have the intent of placing pressure on the Soviet Union to change its human rights policies.

The Committee for State Security reported on statements from the French and Italian Communist party leaders being used in anti-Soviet propaganda and broadcasted on western radio stations. The use of these statements caused a debate over socialist ideology, human rights, and freedoms. The report looks at prior anti-socialist activity and results of actions in places such as Hungary and Poland. The role of the KGB and decrease in crime rate is also discussed.

Materials provided by former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin to CWIHP, following the publication of the Working Paper No. 40, "The KGB in Afghanistan." As with all Mitrokhin’s notes, his compilation on Soviet “active measures” in South and Southwest Asia is based on other smuggled-out notes and was prepared especially for CWIHP. Please read the Notes on Sources for information on the nature and limitations of these documents.

In this folder Mitrokhin specifically focuses on Alexander Ginsburg’s anti-Soviet activities in the 1970s. The note recounts that Ginsburg was a repeat offender for promoting opposition to the Soviet regime and the head of the Russian Social Fund and Solzhenitsyn Fund. His position allowed him to receive financial and material aid from different foreign institutions–something that was prohibited by Soviet law. Ginsburg had been supplying these funds to many organizations promoting anti-socialist propaganda (including Ukrainian nationalist clubs, Jewish extremists, and Orthodox activists). According to Mitrokhin, Ginsburg received 270,000 rubles of foreign aid in the 1970s.

Mitrokhin reports that the KGB believed that in 1976 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ordered Ginsburg to unite all anti-Soviet adherents to actively and publicly support the Helsinki Accords. He also had been passing on important information about major anti-Soviet activities held in the Soviet Union to American correspondents Thomas Kent, Alfred Short, and others.

As Mitrokhin reports, in 1979 the CIA exchanged Ginsburg for two Soviet spies. After the exchange, Alexander Ginzburg was tried, but was not convicted because all witnesses refused to give evidence.

June 01 2007 - In this entry Mitrokhin explains the importance of having kompromats (a form of grey propaganda used in information warfare against opponents in business and politics) for Soviet anti-socialist activists. Mitrokhin provides two examples of KGB kompromats that played significant roles in repressing oppositionists. In late 1960s the Ukrainian nationalist movement had been growing in popularity. Ivanchenko was one of the radicals who allowed himself to publicly criticize Soviet policies and claimed that Ukraine faced Russification. He organized a club that promoted anti-socialist philosophy. All these facts of his biography were documented by the KGB. Mitrokhin states that Ivanchenko knew many influential Ukrainian nationalists very well. His connections were critical to the KGB. According to Mitrokhin, in 1970 he was blackmailed by the KGB. They used a kompromat: either Ivanchenko became their undercover agent and helped them to fight the anti-socialist movement or he would be excluded from the university and charged for his ideological crimes. Ivanchenko was recruited and his new codename was “Nikolai.” In another example of kompromat Mitrokhin states that in the second half of 1972 Jewish population in Odessa started an opposition movement against the Soviet immigration policies. One of their leaders, Emmanuel Pekar, was once arrested at the Odessa market for selling watches of foreign origin; however he was not charged. Mitrokhin states that Pekar was offered a choice—to become a KGB undercover agent in the Jewish community or go to trial for speculation. Pekar was recruited and his new codename was “Milan.”