Request from the Moldavian Communist Party to send KGB officers to Moldavia in light of the “intensification of subversive activities directed against the republic by the special services and ideological centers of the Western countries,” of Israel, and of Romania. Travelers coming from Romania were deemed particularly dangerous because of their efforts “to inculcate our citizens with a nationalist spirit.” A “considerable part of them” smuggled in “materials and literature that are dangerous from the political perspective” while others “propagated the separate course of the Romanian leadership, the idea of breaking off the former Bessarabia from the USSR and uniting it with Romania.”

The Moldavian Communist Party discusses a decision by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee approving measures for "improving ideological work in the republic," i.e. combating Romanian propaganda which undermined the separate ethnic and political identity of MoldThe MCP instructed a variety of institutions to cooperate in strictly regulating and reducing the entry of Romanian publications, broadcasts, information, and tourism into the republic; to create a propaganda base within the republic that would include increase numbers of publications and broadcasts, and new radio and television broadcast facilities; and to launch a new ideological offensive to combat Romanian influence.

Moldavian leader Bodiul calls upon the central authorities in Moscow to respond to Romanian propaganda which stated that there was no separate Moldavian ethnic or political identity. He advocates the generation of publications to “objectively expose” Romanian and bourgeois interpretations “from a class position and in the interests of the socialist community of nations;” and requests assistance in preparing "in the Moldavian language, Russian and in a series of foreign languages a series of historical studies (monographs, brochures, atlases, etc.) and articles in central periodicals, on the radio and television broadcasts that bring to the attention of wider public opinion—Soviet and foreign—the truth about the Moldavian people, about its authentic history and about the true reality of its contemporary life."

Song Jin-hwa and Byakov discuss the North Korean government's recent prohibition on private trade in cereal products and the situation in the Union of Korean Writers.

In this September 1986 excerpt, Gorbachev receives a report from KGB chief Chebrikov that he had requested on “what kinds of people are serving sentences for crimes, which Western propaganda calls political.” Obviously following Gorbachev’s lead, Chebrikov proposes to alleviate the prison sentences of two-thirds of the 240 persons he lists under this category; but, in response to a question from Gromyko, he notes two cases where the guilty parties had already received a sentence that could not be reduced—execution for espionage.

Kim Il Sung and Puzanov discuss aid to North Vietnam and the merger of several DPRK ministries.

Materials provided by former KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin to CWIHP, following the publication of the Working Paper No. 40, "The KGB in Afghanistan." As with all Mitrokhin’s notes, his compilation on Soviet “active measures” in South and Southwest Asia is based on other smuggled-out notes and was prepared especially for CWIHP. Please read the Notes on Sources for information on the nature and limitations of these documents.

In this note Mitrokhin describes events which took place at Moscow State University (MGU) in November 1956. Three students from the faculty of geography, Varuschenko, Nedobezhkin and Nosov, openly criticized actions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Komsomol). According to Mitrokhin, they claimed that the committee did not represent the youth’s interests, that the leaders of Komsomol were corrupted by the Communist Party, and that there was an absence of activities. The students stated that the Central Committee required fundamental reform in order to keep students united and active in political life.
According to Mitrokhin, most students from all MGU faculties agreed with the statements made by the activists from the faculty of geography. They demanded to elect Varuschenko to the executive board of the Central Committee and also proposed to organize an independent organization to discuss issues that concerned most youths. That month Varuschenko was elected to the Central Committee and the Independent Club of Geographers was founded.
Mitrokhin states that the KGB was extremely concerned about these circumstances. The administration feared that they had lost control over the youth. The KGB stated that the reason for this opposition was foreign propaganda brought to the Soviet Union by foreign students. As a result, the KGB quickly disbanded the new club and the new executive board of the Central Committee. Varuschenko was expelled from the university.

In this folder Mitrokhin specifically focuses on Alexander Ginsburg’s anti-Soviet activities in the 1970s. The note recounts that Ginsburg was a repeat offender for promoting opposition to the Soviet regime and the head of the Russian Social Fund and Solzhenitsyn Fund. His position allowed him to receive financial and material aid from different foreign institutions–something that was prohibited by Soviet law. Ginsburg had been supplying these funds to many organizations promoting anti-socialist propaganda (including Ukrainian nationalist clubs, Jewish extremists, and Orthodox activists). According to Mitrokhin, Ginsburg received 270,000 rubles of foreign aid in the 1970s.

Mitrokhin reports that the KGB believed that in 1976 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) ordered Ginsburg to unite all anti-Soviet adherents to actively and publicly support the Helsinki Accords. He also had been passing on important information about major anti-Soviet activities held in the Soviet Union to American correspondents Thomas Kent, Alfred Short, and others.

As Mitrokhin reports, in 1979 the CIA exchanged Ginsburg for two Soviet spies. After the exchange, Alexander Ginzburg was tried, but was not convicted because all witnesses refused to give evidence.

Report for the First Secretary of the Moldavian Communist Party on actions taken to prevent Romanian press from reaching the population of the Moldavian Socialist Soviet Republic. The fact that press from Romania made its way into the population at large is blamed for the inability of the Propaganda Department to control the information about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.