Get your KGB terminology right
A Soviet KGB lexicon, translated and declassified by the British, has the terms. Part 1 of a series.
KGB terms like “disinformation” and so many more have become so widely abused that they have lost their meaning.
For years, I’ve been sitting on a hard copy of a declassified 141-page British secret service publication, “Lexicon of KGB Terms,” issued on January 5, 1996. It was classified “UK TOP SECRET” classification and later declassified.
During a move, I rediscovered the document and, not finding it anywhere online except a reference in an article that I’d written years ago, I thought it necessary to share it.
This publication matches up well with separate KGB defector accounts and intelligence products over the years. I knew several of the defectors personally, as well as several US intelligence figures who provided unclassified reports, so I am confident of the Lexicon’s accuracy.
As I continue to serialize my 1987 notes from Czechoslovak StB defector Ladislav Bittman’s graduate course on disinformation and journalism, I will serialize the entire “Lexicon of KGB Terms.” At the end, I will provide a PDF of the entire document.
The British obtained the Lexicon, originally published in Russian by the Red Banner Institute of the KGB First Chief Directorate – the KGB foreign intelligence branch - from “a former KGB officer of proven reliability, with direct but partial access.”
Russia’s present SVR External Intelligence Service is the old KGB First Chief Directorate, which was spun out of the KGB in 1991 shortly before the Soviet collapse.
London shared copies of the Lexicon with NATO allies. The British declassified the document, which I received long ago from a source through the intelligence service of Italy, which also had declassified the publication.
Today we’ll begin with all the KGB entries beginning with the first 32 of 72 entries starting with the letter “A.”
The order of entries is in the Russian original, with transliterations in English of the Russian terms, followed by translations of the KGB definitions. So the alphabetization will follow the Russian alphabet, transliterated into English as A, B, V, G, D, Zh, and so on.
But first, the official British introduction.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Big Intel by J Michael Waller to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.