â„–2529311[Quote]
>Imperial and Pre-Soviet Foundations
Before 1917, Russian influence efforts were comparatively limited but conceptually important. Tsarist intelligence services monitored emigre communities, funded sympathetic newspapers abroad, and used the Russian Orthodox Church as a soft-power tool in Eastern Europe and parts of Western Europe. Church institutions were leveraged not only for religious influence but also for loyalty cultivation and intelligence gathering.
These early efforts established a pattern that would persist: embedding influence within trusted cultural institutions rather than confronting political systems directly.
â„–2529314[Quote]
Soviet Institutionalization: Active Measures and Front Organizations (1917-1950s)
After the Bolshevik Revolution, psychological operations became formalized under the doctrine of aktivnye meropriyatiya (active measures). The Cheka and its successors (OGPU, NKVD) viewed ideology as a weapon system.
Key Methods and Groups:
Comintern (Communist International): Used to coordinate ideological influence globally, including infiltration of Western labor unions, student groups, and intellectual circles.
Front organizations: Ostensibly independent peace, cultural, or religious groups covertly funded or guided by Soviet intelligence.
Church manipulation: Soviet authorities suppressed domestic religion while simultaneously exploiting Western churches by promoting "peace clergy" aligned with anti-Western narratives.
The aim was not mass conversion to communism, but erosion of trust in Western institutions and amplification of social tensions.
â„–2529318[Quote]
Cold War Peak: KGB Service A and Major Operations (1950s-1991)
The Cold War marked the most systematic and well-documented period of Soviet psychological operations. The KGB's Service A was explicitly tasked with foreign active measures.
Notable Operations and Campaigns:
Operation INFEKTION (1980s)
A disinformation campaign falsely claiming that HIV/AIDS was created by the U.S. military at Fort Detrick. The narrative was seeded in an Indian newspaper, amplified through sympathetic outlets, and eventually echoed in Western activist and academic circles.
World Peace Council
A Soviet-backed organization that promoted nuclear disarmament narratives heavily skewed against NATO while ignoring Soviet military actions. It successfully engaged Western churches, student groups, and educators under the banner of peace advocacy.
Civil Rights and Anti-War Movement Manipulation
Soviet intelligence covertly supported extremist factions within legitimate movements, not to advance civil rights per se, but to deepen polarization, provoke state overreaction, and fracture coalitions.
Educational Influence
Soviet efforts encouraged ideological relativism and skepticism toward Western historical narratives through academic exchanges, subsidized conferences, and selective publication support.
These operations emphasized plausible deniability and long time horizons. Confusion and division were considered successes even without measurable political change.
â„–2529321[Quote]
Post-Soviet Continuity and Ideological Shift (1991-2008)
Following the Soviet collapse, Russian intelligence services retained active-measures doctrine but abandoned universal ideology. Instead, influence operations embraced strategic nihilism, or the idea that no truth is absolute and all institutions are corrupt.
Characteristics:
Support for contradictory narratives simultaneously
Amplification of Western culture wars rather than introducing foreign ideology
Increased focus on media distrust and institutional cynicism
Western churches and schools became battlegrounds for moral panic narratives, often echoing existing domestic disputes rather than overtly pro-Russian messaging.
â„–2529323[Quote]
Modern Era: Digital Operations and Reflexive Control (2008-Present)
Modern Russian psychological operations leverage digital platforms to scale influence dramatically.
Key Actors and Structures:
Internet Research Agency (IRA)
A St. Petersburg-based organization that conducted coordinated social media influence campaigns targeting Western political, religious, and cultural communities.
GRU Unit 54777
Identified by Western intelligence agencies as responsible for psychological and information operations, including online propaganda and narrative manipulation.
State-aligned media ecosystems
Outlets and proxy platforms that launder narratives from fringe spaces into mainstream discourse.
Tactical Features:
Meme warfare, irony, and ambiguity
Vagueposting and contradictory messaging
Infiltration of church groups, parent associations, education debates, and activist spaces
Encouragement of epistemic collapse-where users disengage from the idea of objective truth altogether
The objective is no longer persuasion, but exhaustion: making participation in civic life feel futile.
â„–2529324[Quote]
Churches, Education, and Cultural Institutions as Targets
Churches are targeted not because of theology, but because they confer moral legitimacy. Education systems are targeted because they shape epistemology-how people determine what is true. By destabilizing these institutions, psychological operations undermine societal cohesion at its roots.
Modern campaigns often position themselves as defenders of tradition or critics of corruption, regardless of ideological direction, so long as the result is fragmentation.
â„–2529326[Quote]
Conclusion
Russian psychological operations exhibit extraordinary continuity across regimes and technologies. From forged documents and front organizations to memes and algorithmic amplification, the core strategy remains unchanged: destabilize societies internally by targeting trust, identity, and meaning.
Understanding these operations is not merely a matter of countering foreign influence-it is a prerequisite for preserving institutional resilience in an era where truth itself is contested.
â„–2529327[Quote]
>>2529308 (OP)Chinese psyops
>confuscious institutesconfusing people.
â„–2529333[Quote]
>>2529324>" Education systems are targeted because they shape epistemology-how people determine what is true."Do most zoomers think china is good or russia is good vs usa?
â„–2529342[Quote]
commiekikes were all jewish doe
â„–2529350[Quote]
>>2529333I don't think they have much of an opinion either way. Most education systems teach "woke" ideology, which is one of the 42 Communist Goals.
>>2529342yes
â„–2529364[Quote]
>>2529350While I admit that russia has a meme force, Chinas is far greater, in fact this is either a glownigger thread or a pro-chin thread that direct attention onto russia instead.
Also Trump never colluded with russians and the whole cia glownigger show about "russians spies in usa" was fake and gay. Israel has more spies and they get to get away.
â„–2529406[Quote]
>>2529342Nobody is denying that, pretty sure that's one of the reasons OP made this thread in the first place
â„–2529418[Quote]
Its shit no one cares about