Introduction
The Soviet regime had a serious image problem in the 1970s and ‘80s. While the communist propaganda apparatus was trying to present Soviet Russia as a normal peaceful state, in the United States and other free countries, people of Ukrainian, Jewish and Baltic origin were working together to expose the repressive and imperialist nature of the communist dictatorship. They picketed Soviet embassies, provided the press with names of prisoners in the Soviet Gulag and demanded freedom for the peoples of the Soviet empire.
The Politburo of the Soviet Communist Party assigned the KGB to solve this problem. The Soviet secret police and intelligence service had a long history of using disinformation to discredit political opponents. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Leonid Shabarshin, who formerly headed the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the KGB, explained to the Moscow newspaper Trud that one of the jobs of the KGB was disinformation for “compromising ‘anti-Soviets.’”
In Shebarshin's words, “during the Cold War the essence of our active measures was to inflict political and moral damage on our basic opponent, the United States . . . [so] we compromised political figures, organs of the press, and Americans whose activities were in some way unwelcome [to the Soviets].” The KGB veteran revealed that every “active measure” against the enemies of the Soviet Union abroad was submitted by KGB to the Politburo “and was implemented only with its permission. The results of the action were also reported to the Politburo.”
The KGB was given the important job of creating division in the anti-Soviet camp. English language propaganda books and pamphlets were prepared with KGB assistance for dissemination in the West. One such pamphlet complained that Ukrainian nationalists
arrange noisy demonstrations in support of the Israeli aggressors (as has happened in West Germany), while the Zionist chieftains declare their ‘firm intention to continue close cooperation’ with the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] killers. Therefore, both partners in this wicked marriage publicly admit the real nature of the sinister alliance between Zionists and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists.
To the Soviets, those who opposed them would only do so on orders of the CIA. The pamphlet went on “The malignant partnership of the Magen David [Star of David] and the nationalist trident [the Ukrainian national emblem], fostered by the CIA, has long become a reality.”
The Soviets used foreign communists to spread the disinformation.One of them, Michael Hanusiak, a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), visited Ukraine in the early 1970s, where the KGB provided him with information on Ukrainians who were supposedly Nazi war criminals.
Soviet attempts to discredit Jews
During World War II, as a young communist, Hanusiak looked to Michael Tkach as his friend and mentor. Tkach was the head of the Ukrainian section of the International Workers Order, a communist front, and was editor of the communist newspaper Ukrainian Daily News, based in New York. He was also an agent of the NKVD, subsequently known as KGB, spying against the United States. Later Hanusiak replaced Tkach as the editor of The Ukrainian News. It was no longer a daily but continued to publish Soviet propaganda in New York.
In 1993 Hanusiak celebrated his 80th birthday. Gus Hall, head of the CPUSA, wrote him, “On this special occasion we want to congratulate you on your many years of outstanding contributions in the leadership of the Communist Party, USA, as well as other progressive organiz
