On the question of the secret actions of the United States to support the anti-Soviet campaign in the 1970s and 1980s.

Yakupov Roman Aleksandrovich PhD in History Scientific Project Executor 440026, Russia, Penzenskaya oblast', g. Penza, ul. Lermontova, 37 penza.pr58@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Yakupova Dar'ya Viktorovna PhD in History Associate Professor, Section of Russian History and Methodology for Teaching History, Department of History and Philology, Penza State University 440026, Russia, Penzenskaya oblast', g. Penza, ul. Lermontova, 37 bubnova90@mail.ru Other publications by this author

In the 1970s, the USSR was focused on solving external problems caused by detente, as well as the need to implement a policy of trade diplomacy for the country's access to hard currency. This could not but affect the growth of domestic political problems. A costly foreign policy pushed domestic economic needs into the background.

At the same time, as consumption growth slowed down in the 1970s and the population became less isolated from the outside world, popular discontent grew, especially among young people, believers and national minorities. The leadership of the USSR was aware that social pathologies negatively affect the economic and social goals of the regime. The leadership of the USSR realized that internal problems, if not dealt with or mismanaged, could get out of control and lead to social clashes or a political crisis.

The growing concern of the Soviet leadership about the vulnerability of the USSR to external pressure fueled these concerns. Many Union officials were concerned that the increased access to information from the West, especially through foreign broadcasting, increased the frustration of many citizens about the Soviet standard of living and allowed them to more critically evaluate the regime's propaganda. This trend has become especially noticeable since the 1970s, then intensified against the background of the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan ^[1]. It is obvious that the detente, the beginning of the USSR's military campaign in Afghanistan, and the start of the "glasnost" policy served as peculiar factors for expanding the actions of the United States to use "soft power" against the Soviet state and its satellites.

Domestic research, due to the evidence of these conclusions, did not focus on the search for specific solutions of top US officials in this area. As a rule, many works focused on the use of the texts of the official directives of the US National Security Council, which described in general terms the key trends of the long-term policy towards the USSR. The US non-military support of the insurgents in Afghanistan is described in sufficient detail in the works of V.M. Toporkov ^[2], T.V. Rabush ^[3], M.R. Arunova ^[4] and other researchers.

Given the internal institutionalism of the American system of public administration, decisions regarding certain secret actions of the United States against the USSR, as a rule, required increased funding and appropriate discussion at all levels of government. This indicates that attempts to discuss and consider options for approving these political decisions should have been postponed in the documentary legacy of the intelligence community, the US State Department, the US Congress, exactly as in other information accumulation centers that traditionally played a role in coordinating actions against the Soviet Union.

A number of such documents, which have become officially available to researchers, have been discovered by us and are given in the current article to describe specific US measures to implement covert actions in Afghanistan in order to counteract the influence of the USSR's position, as well as support for centrifugal tendencies in the Soviet Union through the organization and financing of programs to support dissent, the development of radio broadcasting, increasing radio coverage zones, assistance in publications of samizdat literature, etc.

During the scientific search, we identified a document sent to the President of the United States on April 11, 1970, which describes the programs of covert actions carried out to exploit tensions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and identifies activities that could be used in the future. When assessing the vulnerability of the Soviet Union, the report notes that although "internal opposition is unlikely to have a significant impact on Soviet society in the short term, existing trends towards more active dissidence may be affected by external events" ^[5]. The CIA stated that "the discrediting of the regime by a serious economic crisis or another crisis of the Czech type can contribute to radical changes in the domestic political climate." Specialists of the US intelligence community recorded that the suppression of growing dissent by the Soviet authorities disappointed many foreign communists, and "dissent was widespread among non-Russian minorities in the Soviet Union." There was also an increase in criticism of the Soviet economy. "In Eastern Europe, where tensions have increased and the Western orientation has become much stronger, the Soviets have to rely on force to maintain stability," the report emphasized.

The CIA document we are investigating describes a lot of evidence of the effectiveness of the program aimed at extracting benefits from Soviet vulnerabilities: from the benefits brought by the broadcasting of Radio Liberty and Voice of America to the distribution of books and publications banned in the USSR.

In plans to exploit the weaknesses of the Soviet system , the CIA identified the following areas:

– strengthening the exploitation of dissent through upgraded radio transmitting devices;

– wider dissemination of criticism from the intelligentsia and encouragement of nationalist aspirations among Soviet minorities;

– attacks on Soviet activities outside the Soviet bloc and increased exploitation of anti-communist themes abroad;

– support for leaders capable of providing a democratic alternative to organizations supported by the USSR;

– preparation for secret programs to counter the threat of Communist victory in the elections.

The CIA estimated that in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, the central authorities of the USSR used from 2,000 to 2,500 silencers at an estimated annual maintenance cost of $150 million. However, the jamming was still insignificant, since the target audience listened to the radio on several frequencies ^[6]. Since the mid-1970s, the Russian service of Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) has become a channel for distributing documents on violations of human and civil rights in the USSR. As a rule, the messages included coverage of petitions of repressed ethnic and religious minorities, such as Lithuanian Catholics, Crimean Tatars and Jews, as well as issues of information bulletins prepared by unofficial monitoring groups of the Moscow Helsinki Group. For a long time, the Soviet authorities considered the activities of RFE/RL destructive and provocative, and the organization itself was associated with American intelligence and did not correspond to the goals of state security.

While developing the topic of this work, a report on the secret activities of the CIA in Afghanistan, prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency on August 22, 1979, that is, shortly before the Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, came to our attention.  In this declassified document, the US intelligence community was instructed to carry out three options for action in Afghanistan, approved at a meeting of the Special Coordinating Committee, the body that approved major covert political operations in the United States under J. Carter ^[7]. According to press reports, in addition to secret intelligence operations, the committee dealt with the problems of studying state internal political crises ^[8].

So, what options for the policy of covert actions of the United States were supposed to be implemented by the United States against the background of an increase in the grouping of Soviet troops near Afghanistan and the ongoing revolutionary situation in Afghanistan? First of all, these actions aimed to expose the Kabul regime as despotic and subordinate to the USSR, and also publicized the activities of the insurgents. According to "Option 1", entitled "Psychological operations": the CIA needed to provide international radio communications and expand the propaganda of the rebels. The CIA considered the possibility of using existing radio broadcasts for these purposes. As indicated in the document, Langley initially studied the possibility of using radio equipment for the Voice of Afghanistan program. "Afghan insurgents need "regular and reliable" access to radio for the general population, which was 90% illiterate," the report emphasized. According to CIA estimates, the construction of a transmitter for the implementation of this idea should have taken from 18 to 24 months ^[9]. The creation of a production mechanism for the preparation of propaganda materials and the delivery of two radio transmitters to Pakistan to provide the insurgents with their "own radio" were, according to the CIA, "important steps, but the effect of the propaganda operation from these measures will be gradual and was part of a larger effort to activate the insurgency movement." While the debate was going on and funding was being sought for the construction of a radio transmitter, propaganda radio materials with the support of the United States were regularly produced for a low-power insurgent radio station that operated near the Afghan-Pakistani border in 1979.

Among other things, "Option 1" provided for approval of "assisting the rebels in expanding and distributing their recorded and printed propaganda" with minimal risk of linking the materials to the United States. To this end, a special group of propaganda and linguistics experts was assembled in the intelligence agency, which prepared both broadcast and printed materials for distribution inside Afghanistan. An auxiliary mechanism has been set up to produce propaganda materials, including cassettes for broadcasting rebel opinions on the radio and for hand-to-hand transmission inside Afghanistan. In addition, six leaflets were issued, and two of them were distributed in Afghanistan, including Kabul. Four cassettes were recorded, two of which were distributed in Afghanistan. In accordance with this plan and earlier planning documents on Soviet interference in the affairs of other countries, the following work was carried out in 1979:

– 145 main materials have been published in the mass media of 35 countries;

– Regular monthly briefings on Afghanistan within the framework of friendly relations, which were used by 23 agents of influence.

In the USSR, TASS broadcasts noted that the Voice of America dramatically expanded the volume of broadcasting in the Pashto and Dari languages in Afghanistan, and the US Senate adopted an amendment providing for the creation of a subversive radio station called "Free Afghanistan" ^[10]. In addition, Soviet news reports with reference to the Washington Post newspaper indicated that for these purposes, the US Information Agency (USIA) was allocated 500 thousand dollars to train "Afghan insurgents" in propaganda methods ^[11], and "the US Embassy regularly holds briefings to which CIA officers provide an invitation representatives of the media in order to distort the coverage of the "Afghan problem" ^[12].

But the propaganda supported by the United States could not work properly without monitoring the media programs published in the countries, including those affecting the position of the USSR and the United States on Afghanistan. As a result of the implementation of the actions, the activities of the Muslim World program ^[13] were funded, which was implemented by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), an information translation and monitoring service integrated into the US intelligence community. Officially, on September 10, 1979, a structural subdivision of FBIS, the Persian Gulf Bureau, was established, which was initially engaged in monitoring Iranian regional broadcasts in Azerbaijani and Persian. This was the first monitoring coverage of Iran that was provided to consumers through FBIS. By January 1981, the Bureau monitored about 26 hours of broadcasts daily from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the USSR and the United Arab Emirates, as well as from four secret broadcasters – the National Voice of Iran, the Free Voice of Iran, Radio Iran and the Voice of the Iraqi Islamic revolutions". 

The Soviet regional coverage – the Tashkent International Service in Uzbek and Persian and the Baku internal service in Azerbaijani, never before inaccessible for monitoring, also got into reviews and digests. Coverage of Soviet periodicals in Bashkir, Dungan and Tatar languages was added later, from June 1, 1981 ^[14].

The CIA also received permission to expand psychological efforts to support insurgents and unite Afghan dissidents. In particular, permission was given to work with an existing Pakistani agent with ties to Afghan dissident groups. Washington provided additional funds to the Afghan insurgents, together with the Saudis and Pakistanis, unilaterally for the purchase of non-military goods, and provided additional funds for the continuation and expansion of propaganda activities. In accordance with the decisions taken, monetary and non-military support was provided to the insurgents of Afghanistan. For this purpose, the presidential decree of July 3, 1979 established an amount of 695 thousand US dollars. Part of this sum was transferred to Nuristan activists in support of the efforts of this tribe to fight the pro-Soviet Taraki regime. Actions were also taken to collect medical kits for the rebels (one set for 50 people). It was also decided to inform the government of Saudi Arabia about the US decision to provide covert non-military support to Afghan dissidents. In addition, the Saudis were invited by the CIA to invest part of their own funds in similar covert aid projects. The CIA noted that ties were established in Pakistan with the leaders of Afghan dissidents. According to the CIA, monetary support for food, clothing and medicines was crucial to the opposition to the regime Taraki persisted throughout the winter of 1979-1980. ^[15]

In the USSR, intelligence promptly notified about all attempts by the American government to undermine confidence in the Taraki regime, including military assistance to the rebels ^[16]. In particular, the Soviet Union prepared actions and diplomatic initiatives aimed at blocking foreign broadcasting to the population of the countries of the Soviet Bloc ^[17]. The Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs subsequently summoned ambassadors from the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France, informing them that broadcasting to the territory of the Soviet Union was contrary to international agreements and that the Soviet Union intended to raise this issue at an international forum.

One of the proofs of the direct support of RFE/RL by the US intelligence community and the US State Department is a document dated August 3, 1987, signed by American President R. Reagan, published in the collection "Foreign relations of the United States". Under the title "Memorandum of Notification", which authorized an increase in funding for programs "Expanding the influence of the media in the Soviet Union/Eastern European Broadcasting". "Our expanded program is designed to use the current Soviet policy of "glasnost" and the revolution in electronic communications, two phenomena that open up an unprecedented opportunity to implement a program of covert actions to influence the Soviet audience," the report noted ^[18].

So, in 1986, about 500 thousand books, periodicals, audio cassettes and videocassettes with propaganda of Western values were distributed on the territory of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe as part of the efforts of the American government according to CIA reports. Langley was confident that at least two-thirds of these materials reached the target audience, that is, the intelligentsia and other elite groups. "Current political trends in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe reflect increased liberalization and internal debates about the need for greater openness or "glasnost." These trends are consistent with the goals of US policy and will be encouraged and promoted by this program of secret actions," the note noted ^[19].In our opinion, it is not necessary to overestimate the contribution of foreign propaganda to the level of decline in the social well-being of the population. Rather, we can say that foreign publications and radio broadcasts were among the first to show a sample of working with listeners in the new realities. However, where there was a religious or ethnic factor in the dissident movement, the role of foreign propaganda should be recognized as significant.

We have already described the contribution of Samizdat content to the national definition and the struggle for independence of a number of regions of Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia in the late USSR ^[20]. It should be noted that the growing possibilities of communication around the world, in essence, were based on the language, which, as we know, acts as the basis of ethnic community. That is why it was impossible to ignore one of the sides of the topic we touched upon – the influence of the information revolution and mass media on the processes of maturing ethnic identity, completing the process of mobilizing national constructs. Unfortunately, the USSR belatedly realized the role of communications, which determined the lack of resources for counter-propaganda. Although, the course of perestroika proclaimed by the CPSU in the mid-1980s led to a sharp increase in the number of printed publications. In 1987, over 7.5 thousand newspapers were published in the USSR, including about a thousand central, republican, regional and regional newspapers. The circulation of "Pravda" exceeded 11 million copies, "Labor" – 18 million copies, the circulation of "Izvestia" exceeded 8 million copies, and "Komsomolskaya Pravda" – over 17 million copies ^[21]. But, despite the beginning of the glasnost era, the periodicals of the late 1980s were still overflowing with speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev, which had a pronounced ideological and agitational orientation. At the beginning of Glasnost, the pro-state publications of the USSR only occasionally covered the failures of the first years of market transformations, they could not cope with the pressure of public opinion and popular discontent. The issues of both central and regional state publications were increasingly saturated with people's concerns about their further social existence. Moreover, democratization and glasnost not only opened up new topics for newspapers, but also created huge difficulties for them. Never before has one-party Soviet journalism faced the need to objectively reflect the numerous problems born of new political and economic thinking ^[22].

The analysis of the content of the broadcasts showed that RFE/RL influenced the Soviet public by providing information through the prism of democratic values, human rights and anti-communism propaganda. In particular, the information transmitted by RFE/RL was based on oppositions: communism and Eastern ideas were negative, and democracy and Western values were positive. Note that RFE/RL was extremely popular among the Soviet public in the period from 1987 to 1991. It became the leader of Western broadcasting, reaching about 30 million people annually in 1989 and 1990. According to surveys conducted during the period of the glasnost policy, listeners perceived RFE/RL as a very relevant and reliable source of information. The most important topics of the main RFE/RL programs in the period from 1987 to 1991 were the problems of perestroika and glasnost, human rights issues in the USSR and democratic societies, the Soviet standard of living and ideas about freedom, a critical review of Gorbachev's policies and actions, the national question in the Soviet Republics. In addition, Radio Liberty offered a wide range of cultural programs that reflected the political changes taking place in the USSR.Radio Liberty presented Soviet reality, focusing on factual data and exposing propaganda ideas that "everything is fine" in the USSR. News correspondents went to the field to check the facts. The editors of the programs shared expert opinions and opinions of representatives of socio-political organizations who were against the ruling party and the communist regime, cited excerpts from official documents revealing the misdeeds of the CPSU and the shortcomings of the communist system.

Using the early experience and results of covert actions in Afghanistan, against the background of the information revolution, the growth of the number of radios and the role of mass media in the global agenda, the United States immediately applied it on the territory of the USSR, actively supporting centrifugal tendencies in the Union republics through discrediting the successes of the Soviet state and its economic and political situation, as well as actively supporting the discussion civil rights groups of nationalists.