Abstract: Based on the revealed declassified documents, the paper examines previously unknown sources about the attempts of the American government to support various programs of dissent, freedom of speech and mass media in the USSR and countries where the pro-Soviet regime was supported. The subject of the study is the content of foreign intelligence published and declassified documents describing specific US measures to implement covert actions in Afghanistan in order to counteract the influence and strengthen the position of the USSR, as well as support centrifugal trends in the Soviet Union through the organization and financing of programs to support dissent, the development of radio broadcasting, increasing radio coverage areas, assistance in the publication of Samizdat literature, etc. The object of the work is the documentary correspondence of the US President and key figures of the American establishment on the use of resources for the implementation and promotion of anti-Soviet activities. The article reveals previously unknown details of the preparation of options and the implementation of approved programs of covert actions to discredit the Soviet regime as part of the military campaign in Afghanistan, as well as inside the USSR.
The sources allow us to highlight the activities of the US Special Coordinating Committee for the preparation of this strategy. The authors draw attention to the complexity of solving financial issues in the American administration, as well as the size of US financial injections to support destructive forces in the Soviet Union. Such evidence from very authoritative sources significantly expands the source base in the scientific coverage of the facts of the implementation of subversive activities of the United States against the USSR in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abstract: The object of this research is the processes that took place in the COMECON member-states due instability of the financial sector. The subject of this research is the impact of the economic factor upon the evolution of bipolar system of international relations and sociopolitical sustainability of the Soviet Union during the 1979 – 1983. The article provides a scientific assessment of extent of awareness of the US intelligence on the financial solvency of the COMECON member-states, their ability to meet repayment schedules for both interest and debts, and the consequences of possible default of any of the countries during the financial crisis. The authors set the task to analyze the target points of foreign analytics regarding the “dependency” of Western European enterprises on their Eastern business partners, as well as clarify the extent to which a significant decline in trade between the East and the West affected the Soviet and Western European economy. The use of unpublished foreign and domestic archival documents, as well as foreign periodicals define the novelty of this research. This article is first to disclose the information on how the United States turned the severe financial problems of Eastern European countries for the purpose of political pressure on such issues as Afghanistan, crisis in Poland, and construction of the Soviet gas pipeline. Leaning on the introduced into the scientific discourse CIA documents, assessment is given to the effectiveness of trade and economic policy of the United States and its Western European allies in relation to Eastern Europe. The article also analyses the support of centrifugal tendencies in the economy of the Eastern European countries of the Soviet bloc.

Abstract: The research subject of this study is the reciprocal influence of the problems of food supply and the social stability of the Soviet state with an analysis aiming to establish the relationship between the onset of the provision crisis and the massive politicization of economic processes in the USSR on the part of society during the examined period.The article is directed at studying the degree of impact the unfulfilled consumer expectations had on the social perception of power by the population of the Soviet Union during the agrarian crisis of the early 1970s.Particular attention is paid to the interaction between the government and society on questions of food supply, as well as the alleviation of the provision crisis through imports.The methodological basis of this work is founded on the basic principles of scientific knowledge - objectivity and historicism, which allowed the authors to study the evolution of the population's mass consciousness in a dialectical relationship with the era's phenomena. Upon implementing the above-mentioned principles, a number of both general scientific and specific historical research methods were applied (historical-situational, historical-comparative, historical-systemic, and statistical methods). The scientific novelty of this work is its attempt to reflect on the course of the socio-political development of the USSR under the influence of changing internal and external factors caused by the consumer crisis.The authors note that under difficult conditions, the authorities of the USSR and the CPSU Central Committee were forced to meet the social needs of the population in order to maintain a certain level of food provisions, as well as to support welfare. Evidence supports that increased social payments and higher wages in the early 1970s temporarily reduced the population's discontent with the Soviet political regime. The authors conclude that the concentration of the population’s attention on the low level of meeting their urgent needs was the basis of social inversion and the revision of the Soviet government approval index.