The Soviet State Security’s Political and Power Resources. KGB Structures, Practices and Methods in the Last Decade of the Soviet Union
Final Report Abstract
The aim of the project was to investigate the methods and practices of social control exercised by the Soviet Committee for State Security (KGB) in the post-Stalinist era, using the declassified archives in the former Soviet republics (Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, and Latvia). The transition from mass terror to mass social control and the related reform of state security agencies after 1953 signified a shift towards more targeted repression and more flexible instruments of coercion, as well as a return to the early Soviet theory of re-education of politically deviant individuals and groups. This led to the emergence of the broadly interpreted concept of profilaktika as the primary means of preventing and correcting ideological deviations by the KGB. As demonstrated by the study of the KGB’s control structures over key Soviet institutions (industrial, educational, religious, etc.), profilaktika entailed a multitude of external actors, including Party and Soviet bodies, public organizations, labor collectives, and voluntary structures such as people’s squads and comrades’ courts. Most importantly, public (overt) profilaktika promoted extensive media involvement and had the capacity to target indefinitely large groups. Concurrently, the concept of “propaganda support for operational activities,” which was linked to profilaktika, implied the hitherto unexplored systematic entanglement of the secret police in the creation and revision of artistic works, books, pamphlets, feature and documentary films aimed at discrediting undesirable persons or phenomena, such as nationalism and religion. The project’s findings indicate that the role of the KGB extended far beyond the conventional powers of the secret police, for it functioned not only as a punitive agency but also as a channel for both individual and social re-education. It orchestrated and coordinated mass public campaigns, and served as a covert censor or producer of cultural content, yet all of these multifaceted operations were interconnected parts of its operational endeavors. The project, therefore, sought to elucidate the intricate relationship between repression, profilaktika, and the concomitant indoctrination. One of the most compelling illustrations of this multi-level interaction, as substantiated by archival evidence, is the KGB’s long-term fight against the Ukrainian national movement. This struggle, waged by the secret police against representatives of several generations of Ukrainian dissidents, serves as a lens through which the KGB’s pervasive influence over Soviet mass institutions can be discerned. A comprehensive examination of KGB operations along the “national line” sheds light on the systemic underpinnings of the formalized penetration into Soviet social structures. This research reveals the intricate mechanisms by which various Soviet bodies were both controlled, i.e., institutionalized surveillance, and utilized as instruments of control, i.e., the exertion of operatively defined influence. Furthermore, this study elucidates the KGB’s perspective on and utilization of social re-education and mass propaganda as operational tools. For decades, state security agencies waged overt and covert, operational and propaganda battles against those who advocated Ukraine’s cultural or political emancipation, and it was this multi-channel system of correcting public behavior and introducing ideological narratives that perpetuated negative public perceptions of Ukrainian nationalism. The results of this project have been presented to the public in the form of monographs, chapters in edited volumes, and articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Publications
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“Transformations of the Soviet State Security Bodies in Post-Soviet Russia,” in Memory of Nations: Democratic Transition Guide (Prague: CEVRO, z.s.), 7–17. ISBN 978-80- 86816-01-2.
Lezina, Evgenia
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“Desmantelamiento del Aparato de Seguridad Estatal. Transformaciones de Los Cuerpos de Seguridad Del Estado Soviético en la Rusia Postsoviética,” in Memoria de Naciones: Guía de Transición Democrática – La Experiencia Rusa (Prague: CEVRO, z.s.), 7–16. ISBN 978-80-86816-01-2.
Lezina, Evgenia
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ezina, Evgenia. “The Soviet State Security and the Regime of Secrecy: Guarding State Secrets and Political Control of Industrial Enterprises and Institutions in the Post-Stalin Era,” Securitas Imperii 37, no. 2: 38–69. ISSN 1804-1612.
Lezina, Evgenia
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“Kak otkaz ot liustratsii privel k vozrozhdeniiu diktatury v Rossii” [How the Rejection of Lustration Led to the Revival of Dictatorship in Russia], The Insider Russia, 17.12.2021
Lezina, Evgenia
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Die Angst regiert. Geheimdienste in Russland,” Die Politische Meinung, no. 577 (November/Dezember): 33–38. ISSN 0032-3446.
Lezina, Evgenia
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“Dogma versus Progress. KGB Technological and Scientific (In-)capacities from the 1960s to the 1980s,” in Intelligence Agencies, Technology and Knowledge Production: Data Processing and Information Transfer in Secret Services during the Cold War, edited by Rüdiger Bergien, Debora Gerstenberger and Constantin Goschler (London: Routledge), 37–64. ISBN 978-0-367-70639-5.
Lezina, Evgenia
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10 From Mass Terror to Mass Social Control: The Soviet Secret Police’s New Roles and Functions in the Early Post-Stalin Era. Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev, 263-298. University of Toronto Press.
Lezina, Evgenia
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Der Abfall der Sonderdienste.“ Wie die Tschekisten Demokratisierung überstanden,” Dekoder Specials „Der Anfang der Geschichte,“ 28.4.2023.
Lezina, Evgenia
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XX vek: prorabotka proshlogo. Praktiki perekhodnogo pravosudiia i politika pamiati v byvshikh diktaturakh. Germania, Rossia, strany Tsentral’noi i Vostochnoi Evropy [XX Century: Working Through the Past. Transitional Justice Practices and the Politics of Memory in Former Dictatorships. Germany, Russia, Countries of Central and Eastern Europe] (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2021, 2nd edition – 2023). 1st ed.: ISBN 978-5-4448-1582-3, 2nd ed.: ISBN 978-5-4448-2134-3.
Lezina, Evgenia
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“Tsel’iu KGB bylo priravniat’ ukrainskoe natsionalnoe dvizheniie k fashizmu" [The Goal of the KGB Was to Equate the Ukrainian National Movement with Fascism), Republic.ru, 15.01.2023.
Lezina, Evgenia
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“Bez demokratii i otvetstvennosti: posledstviia otkaza Rossii ot demokratizatsii i iuridicheski-pravovogo otveta na prestupleniia sovetskogo perioda” [Without Democracy and Accountability: The Consequences of Russia’s Refusal to Democratize and to Give a Legal and Judicial Response to the Crimes of the Soviet Era], in: Historian in the Face of Catastrophe. Third Readings in Memory of Arseny Roginsky (Berlin: Zukunft Memorial e.V.,), 111–135.
Lezina, Evgenia
