Editing Active measures (section)

==Description==
Active measures were conducted by the [[Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies|Soviet]] and [[Intelligence agencies of Russia|Russian security services]] and [[secret police]] organizations ([[Cheka]], [[State Political Directorate|OGPU]], [[NKVD]], [[KGB]], and [[Federal Security Service|FSB]]) to influence the course of world events, in addition to [[Intelligence collection|collecting intelligence]] and producing revised assessments of it. Active measures range "from [[media manipulation]]s to ''special actions'' involving various degrees of violence". Beginning in the 1920s, they were used both abroad and domestically.<ref name="Mitrokhin"/>

Active measures includes the establishment and support of international [[Communist front|front organizations]] (e.g., the [[World Peace Council]]); foreign [[communist]], [[socialist]] and [[Opposition (politics)|opposition]] parties; [[wars of national liberation]] in the [[Third World]]. It also included supporting underground, revolutionary, [[insurgency]], [[Crime|criminal]], and [[Terrorism and the Soviet Union|terrorist]] groups. The programs also focused on [[counterfeit]]ing official documents, [[assassination]]s, and [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression]], such as penetration into churches, and persecution of political [[Soviet dissidents|dissidents]]. The intelligence agencies of [[Eastern Bloc]] states also contributed to the program, providing operatives and intelligence for assassinations and other types of [[covert operation]]s.<ref name="Mitrokhin" />

Retired KGB Major General [[Oleg Kalugin]], former head of Foreign Counter Intelligence for the KGB (1973–1979), described active measures as "the heart and soul of the [[Soviet intelligence]]":<ref name="Kalugin"/>

<blockquote>Not intelligence collection, but [[subversion]]: active measures to weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly [[NATO]], to sow discord among allies, to weaken the [[United States]] in the eyes of the people of [[Europe]], [[Asia]], [[Africa]], [[Latin America]], and thus to prepare ground in case the war really occurs.<ref name="Kalugin">{{cite web |url=http://www3.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/21/interviews/kalugin/ |title=Inside the KGB: An interview with retired KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin |date=1998 |website=CNN |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070627183623/http://www3.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/21/interviews/kalugin/ |archive-date=June 27, 2007}}</ref></blockquote>

According to the [[Mitrokhin Archive]]s, active measures was taught in the [[Academy of Foreign Intelligence|Andropov Institute]] of the KGB situated at [[Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)|Foreign Intelligence Service]] (SVR) headquarters in [[Yasenevo District]] of Moscow. The head of the "active measures department" was [[Yuri Modin]], former controller of the [[Cambridge Five]] spy ring.<ref name="Mitrokhin" />