The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was the party’s governing body between congresses, and its permanent apparatus of departments ran day-to-day party control over the Soviet state. For the study of active measures, its most important component was the International Department, which managed relations with foreign communist parties, funded and directed international front organizations such as the World Peace Council, and set the political line that KGB Service A turned into covert operations. Under Boris Ponomarev, who headed it from 1955 to 1986, the International Department worked alongside the KGB in coordinating influence campaigns abroad. Pages in this section cover the Central Committee departments relevant to Soviet foreign influence work.
Sources
- Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. Basic Books, 1999.
- Rid, Thomas. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.