Defining the Ideological 'Enemy': The KGB’s Reports on 'Trends in the Tactics of the Enemy for Conducting Ideological Subversion', 1974–1988
Aparat Represji w Polsce Ludowej 1944-1989, No. 18 (2020), pages: 389-403
Publication date: 2023-03-29
Abstract
Beginning in 1974, the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) began sending the other Soviet-bloc security services annual or semi-annual reports entitled "Trends in the Tactics of the Enemy for Conducting Ideological Subversion against the USSR". The reports focused on real and alleged efforts of the United States, as well as China, Islamic countries and foreign organisations, to encourage political opposition inside the Soviet Union. The reports, in conjunction with the triennial meetings of the divisions of the Soviet-bloc security services responsible for combatting "ideological subversion", served to mobilise these "fraternal organs" against increased foreign influence and contacts in the wake of the East-West détente of the 1970s. They also signalled areas in which the KGB would seek assistance from its allied security services. The article analyses the evolving content of the reports and the reaction of the Soviet-bloc security services to them based on the example of the East German Stasi.
Keywords
KGB • Stasi • wywrotowe działania ideologiczne • Konferencja Bezpieczeństwa i Współpracy w Europie • prawa człowieka • Ronald Reagan • Radio Wolna Europa • Agencja Informacyjna Stanów Zjednoczonych (USIA) • Narodno-Trudovoy Soyuz Rossiyskikh Solidaristov (NTS) • dysydenci • środowiska opozycyjne • odprężenie KGB • Stasi • ideological subversion • Conference on Security and Organization in Europe (CSCE) • human rights • Ronald Reagan • Radio Free Europe • Radio Liberty • United States Information Agency (USIA) • Narodno-Trudovoy Soyuz Rossiyskikh Solidaristov (NTS) • dissidents • détente
References
Archiwum Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej w Warszawie (Archives of the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw – AIPN), Warsaw
Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR (Archives of the Federal Commissioner for Stasi Records –BStU), Berlin
Cummings R.H., Radio Free Europe’s "Crusade for Freedom": Rallying Americans behind Cold War Broadcasting, 1950–1960 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010)
Droit E., "Arena der Tschekisten: die politischen Dimensionen der multilateralen Beratungen der kommunistischen Geheimdienste (1970er bis 1980er Jahre)", in ZeitRäume: Potsdamer Almanach des Zentrums für Zeithistorische Forschung, ed. M. Sabrow (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2014), pp. 43–56
Geoghegan K., "A Policy in Tension: The National Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Response to the Collapse of the Soviet Union", Diplomatic History, 42, no. 5 (2018), 772–801
Heil A.L., Jr., Voice of America: A History (New York–Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2003)
Johnson Ch., Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2011)
Puddington A., Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000)
Reagan R., "Address to Members of the British Parliament", 8 June 1982, online by G. Peters and J.T.Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/245236, accessed 15 Sept. 2020
Selvage D., and Süß W., Staatssicherheit und KSZE-Prozess. MfS zwischen SED und KGB (1972–1989) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019)
Snyder S.B., Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: A Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Stöver B., Die Befreiung vom Kommunismus. Amerikanische Liberation Policy im Kalten Krieg 1947–1991 (Köln–Weimar–Wien: Bohlau Verlag, 2002)
Süß W., ‘Wandlungen der MfS-Repressionstaktik seit Mitte der siebziger Jahre im Kontext der Beratungen der Ostblock-Geheimdienste zur Bekämpfung der “ideologischen Diversion”’, in “Das Land ist still – noch!”: Herrschaftswandel und politische Gegnerschaft in der DDR (1971–1989), ed. L. Ansorg, B. Gehrke, and D. Kneipp (eds) (Köln–Weimar–Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2009), pp. 111–34
Wilson J.G., The Triumph of Improvisation: Gorbachev’s Adaptability, Reagan’s Engagement, and the End of the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014)
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.