Active measures
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"Active Measures" was a program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which attempted to further Soviet foreign policy goals through clandestine operations conducted by the KGB (Committee for State Security). Methods such as disinformation, propaganda, counterfeiting official documents, and training false defectors were used to confuse and to destabilize foreign governments, especially those potentially hostile to the Soviet regime.
The program further established and backed international front organizations (e.g. the World Peace Council); foreign communist, socialist and opposition parties; wars of national liberation in the Third World; and underground, revolutionary, insurgency, criminal, and terrorist groups. The intelligence agencies of Eastern European and other communist states also contributed to the program, providing operatives and intelligence for assassinations and other types of deniable covert operations.
In extreme cases, active measures can include wet work: assassination. (This term, a translation of the Russian expression used by the KGB) reflects the fact that an assassin's hands may get wet, depending on the choice of weapon: with a dagger, probably; with a gun, possibly: with poison, probably not. The term has become popular with makers of action movies: that is, violence movies.
The Western media encouraged the idea of clandestine Soviet operations. The book Manufacturing Consent explains how the media in the United States pushed the idea that the KGB subcontracted the Bulgarian KGB to attempt the assassination of Pope John Paul II.
