Repeating History: Soviet Offensive Counterintelligence Active Measures

Abstract

: Drawing on the formerly classified in-house journal KGB Collection, this article argues that active measures, commonly known as Soviet foreign influence operations, were the concept and practice in which offensive counterintelligence encroached on foreign intelligence functions. In the 1960s, KGB counterintelligence officers were urged to implement active measures, instead of passive surveillance, by cultivating and recruiting foreign visitors and Soviet citizens with the aim of using them to penetrate Western institutions and collect sensitive intelligence. The counterintelligence directorate occasionally supervised foreign operations to implement offensive tactics. Given the parallels between the Soviet and Russian intelligence services, the expansion of the counterintelligence agency (the Federal Security Service) in post-Soviet Russia can be interpreted as its increased interest in and capabilities for active measures abroad.