1923 saw a major milestone in the institutionalisation of deception as a tool of Soviet statecraft, when the deputy chairman of the State Political Directorate (GPU) (the predecessor of the KGB), Jozef Unszlicht, called for the establishment of “a special disinformation office to conduct active intelligence operations”.
In his book, Disinformation, Ion Mihai Pacepa claims that Joseph Stalin was responsible for coining the term disinformation - or dezinformatsiya in Russian - adding that he gave it a French-sounding moniker in order to make it appear it was a technique actually being used by the West - meaning that even the etymology of the word disinformation itself is rooted in deception. Later on, the term was defined in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia as “false information with the intention to deceive public opinion”.
Note: This was not the birth of Soviet disinformation use, rather the institutionalisation of it. For example, in the 18th century, Russian minister Grigory Potemkin allegedly ordered the construction of elaborate fake villages along Catherine the Great’s route through Crimea to give the impression of prosperity and progress (although, ironically, even this allegation is thought to be disinformation).
Soviet disinformation tactics would later evolve into “Active Measures”, which were covert influence operations aimed at advancing Moscow’s strategic objectives without straying into active conflict - an early form of greyzone warfare. The measures, primarily the responsibility of the KGB’s Service A, looked to discredit Western institutions, exacerbate social divisions, and bolster Soviet legitimacy.
One example. Operation DENVER (sometimes mistakenly referred to as Operation INFEKTION), saw the KGB push false accusations that the US military had engineered HIV at Fort Detrick as part of a biological weapons testing programme. The agency planted the story in a small Indian newspaper called The Patriot in 1983, and then amplified it through Soviet-controlled or influenced media outlets in Africa, using repetition and secondary sourcing to create the illusion of independent collaboration.
The impact of the operation was far-reaching. It influenced elite politics, with then-South African President Thabo Mbeki’s government (1999-2008) adopting denialist policies in part due to questions over the virus’s origin and treatment efficiency. As a result, South Africa delayed introducing antiretroviral therapy, which is believed to have led to over 330,000 preventable deaths between 2000 and 2005. The impact persists in South African citizens, with the conspiracy theory associated with a failure to test for HIV or use condoms.
Other operations targeted Western alliances and civil movements. Soviet agents forged U.S. government cables suggesting Washington supported apartheid regimes, fabricated NATO war plans to stoke anti-militarist sentiment in Europe, and funded peace and anti-nuclear groups to weaken public support for NATO’s missile deployments. The World Peace Council and several cultural fronts served as soft-power vehicles to promote Soviet foreign policy under the guise of humanitarianism.
The KGB also planted false documents and letters to inflame racial and social tensions in the U.S., such as fake Ku Klux Klan threats sent to African and Asian embassies, designed to portray America as institutionally racist. In Latin America and Africa, Soviet disinformation framed local conflicts as evidence of Western neo-colonialism, positioning the USSR as a partner of “liberation movements.”
The operations all followed a similar process: creation, placement, amplification, and authentication - laundering falsehoods through legitimate channels so they became “truth” through repetition. The ultimate objective was rarely to convince everyone, but to confuse enough people to tangibly weaken trust in Western institutions, governments, media, and alliances.
The characteristics - plausible deniability, emotional appeal, and strategic amplification - of the Soviet Union’s Cold War active measures laid the foundation for today’s Russian disinformation tactics. However, with the force multiplier of the internet, they are now orders of magnitude more efficient and effective.