Russian Active Measures

The KGB Anti-Fascist Campaign

The KGB documented two massive organized youth movements in Soviet Ukraine after Stalin, which challenged the very existence of the Komsomol, an official Soviet youth organization, and offered the venues for anti-Soviet activities in which thousands of Komsomol members participated in the 1960s–1980s. The hippie movement emerged first, followed by the punk “imitation” movement. At the beginning, the members of both movements had some cultural fixation with Western cultural products, mainly rock music and films, but by the 1980s their cultural practices evolved embracing neo-Nazi ideas, processes that were documented by the KGB. These practices became more prominent, and even radical, especially among Soviet imitators of Western punks.51 Moreover, in contrast to the Ukrainian followers of hippies who were older and more college educated, adopting American cultural practices of pacifism and non-violence, the Ukrainian punks were much younger, with only high school education, and they adopted more radical, violent, and sometimes explicitly neo-fascist models informed by the neo-fascist movements that emerged in Italy, Germany, and Britain after 1945.

In the fall of 1982, in their letters to Ukraine’s communist leaders, KGB officers persisted in their claims that Soviet Ukrainian youth exhibited clear affinity with neo-Nazi and fascist ideas. The KGB discovered numerous pictures of fascist swastika on sidewalks and the walls of public buildings and telephone booths in many Ukraine cities, including the city of Chernivtsi. In September 1982, the KGB established the identity of at least five former students of the local technical schools (all of them were between 17 and 19 years of age) who were engaged in those “neo-fascist” activities. The report stated that they all listened to American “beat-music worshipping American pop-idols,” which profoundly shaped their worldviews.52

In addition, the KGB report stressed that the Italian film San Babila—8 PM (in Italian: San Babila ore 20: un delitto inutile), a “film about the outrages of fascist youth [in Italy] [beschinstvakh fashistvuiushchei molodiozhi],” contributed to those young people’s interest in fascist ideology, symbols, and paraphernalia.53 This film was directed by Carlo Lizzani in 1976, and was included in the program of the Tenth Moscow International Film Festival in 1977. The idea of the film was inspired by violent events that took place at the Piazza San Babila in Milan in 1975. Groups of neo-fascists and anarchist communists became the protagonists for this film. Four Milanese boys were part of a neo-fascist group that subscribed to Benito Mussolini’s ideas of a new order, based on “squadrism.”54 The boys were fighting against the youth groups of communists and anarchists and frequently collided during the protests with violent outcomes. As the film portrays, one day the leader of the neo-fascist group asked Franco, the most insecure boy of the brigade, to perform a violent and demonstrative act against a randomly chosen communist boy, in order to redeem his “honor.” So one night at the Piazza San Babila, the boys met a couple of lovers, dressed in red (they were believed to be communists). The group’s state of madness drove the boys to chase the lovers and stab them. Franco was shocked and ran away from home, denouncing the assault to the police.

The KGB officer realized that the young Ukrainian imitators of Italian neo-fascism were especially influenced by the images of fashionable outfits and behavioral patterns of the young neo-fascist heroes from this Italian film.55 At home the young men listened to forbidden rock music broadcast by foreign radio stations, organized their meetings at a Chernivtsi downtown café, and publicly denounced the Soviet system and politics.56 Two of them, the leaders of that group, openly discussed the potential replacement of the Soviet political system that, in their view, was absolutely necessary, and a transfer of political power to a “military regime” that would manage the state through the fascist methods of political governing. The police discovered that these individuals displayed large images of a swastika in public. They were also suspected of another transgression: on 10 May 1981 someone burned the Soviet state banner, hanging on the façade of a public building in downtown Chernivtsi.57

Moreover, these individuals argued that the Soviet political system must be replaced by the strong authoritarian power of the fascist state because the Soviet state was nothing less than a “mafia state” and the rule of the Soviet Communist Party was a “mafia rule.” The police also learned that these references were widespread, and young neo-fascists embraced this terminology in all major Ukrainian cities. The depositions of those who were arrested were consistent, emphasizing the significant influence of the Italian film on them.58

The KGB Campaign against the Punks

In Soviet Ukraine, the KGB campaign against young neo-fascists converged with the old ideological campaign against the corrupt influences of Western popular music. This campaign was conceived in the 1960s as a struggle against the “beat music” of the Beatles and Rolling Stones and their hippie imitators, being reconceptualised as a campaign against “fascist punks” and reaching its peak in 1980–1981. To some extent, this campaign was a reaction to information published in Soviet central periodicals, where British punks were presented as neo-fascists and “skinheads.” In this light, the connection between Western music, the punk movement, and fascist symbols established by the KGB became more transparent. They all were to be prohibited from mass consumption in the Soviet Union.

According to Soviet music critics, the description of punks as fascists offered in Soviet periodicals confused and disoriented thousands of communist ideologists in provincial cities of Soviet Ukraine:

The only thing anyone knew about punks was that they were “fascists” because that’s how our British-based correspondents had described them for us. Several angry feature articles appeared in the summer and fall of 1977 with lurid descriptions of their unsavoury appearance and disgraceful manners, including one that quoted sympathetically a diatribe from the Daily Telegraph. To illustrate all this, a few photos of “monsters” with swastikas were printed … The image of punks as Nazis was established very effectively, and in our country, as you should understand, the swastika will never receive a positive reaction, even purely for shock value.59

Indeed, Soviet propagandists shaped the views of KGB officials and Komsomol activists who believed that punks and fascists were the same. All Komsomol functionaries and those who ran discotheques in Soviet Ukraine received a special notice warning against the punk ideology. The warning included Russian translations of phrases employed by British punks. This information was reprinted in many publications by Ukrainian journalists who covered this anti-punk campaign. In their texts, they quoted the punk slogans: “Live only for today! Do not think about tomorrow! Do not give a damn about all these spiritual crutches of religion, utopia, and politics! Forget about this. Enjoy your day. You are young, and do not be in a hurry to become a new young corpse” [sic!]. Unfailingly, they emphasized the anti-human essence of “fascist punk music” that allegedly embodied “bestial cynicism and meanness,” undermining the Soviet youth’s moral principles.60

The first public scandal that involved both “fascist music” and the display of fascist symbols took place in the city of Dnipropetrovsk in the fall of 1982. The city police arrested two college students, Ihor Keivan and Oleksandr Plastun who owned record collections of Western music and whose public behavior was described as “neo-Nazi.” These students were dressed in T-shirts with the images of American and Australian rock bands “Kiss” and “AC/DC,” which attracted the attention of policemen who interpreted these images as “fascist.” After Keivan’s and Plastun’s arrest, their “fascist” record collections were confiscated, and the information about these students’ anti-Soviet behavior was sent to their colleges.

In December of 1982, the entire city of Dnipropetrovsk and the Dnipropetrovsk oblast were shaken by police raids and searches, part of the anti-fascist and anti-punk campaign. The Dnipropetrovsk City Party Committee approached Nadezhda A. Sarana, an experienced Communist and a member of the anti-fascist resistance group during the Second World War, and asked her to write a letter about the dangers of the local fascist punks’ fashion statements. On 22 December 1982, the communist functionaries staged an open public meeting with participation of all communist and Komsomol activists in Dnipropetrovsk’s downtown. During this event, they publicly endorsed Sarana’s letter against the punks and declared war against the punk movement in Soviet Ukraine. Under KGB pressure, local ideologists organized a show trial of Keivan, Plastun, and another young punk, Vadym Shmeliov, that was held in January of 1983. All three were expelled from the Komsomol and their colleges. KGB officers were outraged when they learned that Keivan and Plastun interpreted this punishment as a violation of their human rights. This case established the precedent and routine practices of Komsomol cells in the region to purge those members who were suspected of enthusiasm for the forbidden music.61

This anti-punk campaign especially affected the Ukrainian fans of heavy metal music.62 In 1983, the Dnipropetrovsk police arrested ten students from a local vocational school on charges of “hooliganism.” The police discovered images of the Nazi era and of the American Ku Klux Klan in their possession. As it turned out, Serhii Onushev, Oleksandr Rvachenko, and their friends made white robes and put the letters KKK on them, impersonating their membership in this American organization.63 Serhii Onushev was identified as the leader of this group, who listened to the tapes that included the music of the bands that “belonged to the pro-fascist movement—Kiss, Nazareth, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath.”64 Local ideologists established a direct connection between this music and the fascist inclinations of Onushev’s group. According to them, the musicians of Kiss represented a group of four hooligans, who chose SS and Nazi symbols as the emblems of their band, tearing apart live chickens and vomiting during their performances. They emphasized that, for Soviet students, they had become idols and “trendsetters” in popular culture, inspiring young Soviet people to commit inhuman fascist acts.65

The case of Dmitrii Frolin, a student of the Department of Philology at Dnipropetrovsk University, became another sensational case that attracted the attention of local journalists. As a result of the anti-punk and anti-fascist campaign, Frolin was arrested in 1983 and expelled from both the Komsomol and the university in 1985 for “propaganda of fascism.” Local ideologists pointed out that Frolin’s activities were the direct result of “intensive listening” to the music by “fascist bands,” such as Kiss and AC/DC: “Over his bed, Frolin put a fascist cross and a poster with the faces of the members of the band Kiss, distorted in non-human grimaces with ugly make up (Frolin paid forty rubles for this Kiss poster on the ‘black market’). In addition, he had a variety of audio tapes with the music of Kiss and AC/DC. Just press a button of his tape recorder and you will hear this music.”66 A journalist called the audience to consider the ideological implications of these activities:

They, the musicians of AC/DC, call themselves the devil’s children. Their song “Back in Black” became an anthem of the American Nazi Party. During a Komsomol meeting, Dmitrii justified his behavior by saying: “I do not consider myself collecting such things a crime. This is just mere collecting. It does not matter what the subject of this collection is. These items reflect a certain period in the history of these people. I consider listening to my favorite music and collecting music records part of my private life. And I have a right to protect my privacy, according to Soviet and international laws.”67

In December of 1983, a local youth periodical published the results of a sociological analysis of ideological maturity among Dnipropetrovsk youth, compiled by the Komsomol scholars. According to their findings, special Komsomol raids discovered images of the American band Kiss in many student dorms at Dnipropetrovsk colleges. One could easily observe the SS symbols and Nazi signs on these images. The analysis also included a concern pertaining to the visual appearance of young people, stating that the majority of the student population in Dnipropetrovsk were wearing T-shirts that had images of the U.S. military insignia and ones that glorify capitalist countries hostile to the Soviet Union. Apparently, they purchased these T-shirts on the black market, wearing them even during their classes.68

According to KGB officers, the “youth culture of fascist music” was shaped by the idealization of Hitler and Ukrainian nationalist leaders, such as Stepan Bandera, who were active during the Second World War. In 1983 and 1984, the police arrested the members of a “fascist Banderovite group,” students at the Dnipropetrovsk Agricultural Institute. These students, Konstantin Shipunov and his five followers, listened to “fascist rock music,” organized their own party, and popularized the ideas of Nazi leaders and Ukrainian nationalist politicians. They criticized the Russification of cultural life in Ukraine, advocated Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, and insisted on protecting the national rights of all Ukrainian patriots.69

The criminal cases of Ukrainian “fascist” heavy metal fans reveal interesting connections among various forms of cultural consumption in Soviet Ukraine in 1982–1984. The arrested members of Onushev’s and Shipunov’s groups confessed that they were inspired by the images of “clean, intelligent and civilized” Nazi officers portrayed in the Soviet TV series Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973). Based on the novel by Yulian Semenov, a famous Soviet writer of mystery and spy novels, this TV series narrated the story of Shtirlitz (Viacheslav Tikhonov), a Soviet agent posing as a high-ranking Nazi officer in Hitlerite Germany in the spring of 1945, during the final months of the Second World War. Like Carlo Lizzani’s film about Milanese fascists, this film became a real blockbuster during the 1970s and early 1980s in the USSR, romanticized in the imaginations of many “fascist” heavy metal fans and local “punks” who tried to emulate the dress code and behavior of Shtirlitz and other Nazi characters from this Soviet film.70

As early as December of 1983, the secretary of the Dnipropetrovsk regional Komsomol committee O. Fedoseev reported to the Komsomol Central Committee in Kyiv that in February–March of 1983, local ideologists encountered the rise of the punk movement in the city of Dnipropetrovsk, but they successfully mobilized all activists and “Soviet patriots,” organizing special counter-propaganda events all over the city and the Dnipropetrovsk oblast. As a result, they managed to curtail this “fascist movement.” The Dnipropetrovsk oblast Komsomol organization developed political measures on “how to fight fascist punks,” which became a model for the entire republic. The KGB administration approved those measures.71

However, between 1982 and 1985, the KGB and the police identified twenty new groups of neo-fascists/punks in Ukraine who had hundreds of followers. Arrested by the police and interrogated by the KGB, the members of these groups employed various fascist symbols and paraphernalia, painted their faces “in punk fashion,” and shaved their temples.72 Only a few of them, however, had anything to do with the Nazi ideology or fascism.

Conclusion

The KGB’s anti-hippie, anti-fascist, and anti-punk campaigns in Soviet Ukraine were intended to weaken young Ukrainians’ fascination with the products of Western (especially American) popular culture, such as films and pop music, and their idealization of Western neo-fascist images and culture. However, the results of these campaigns were contrary to what had been expected. The campaigns contributed to the immense popularity of forbidden Western cultural products among young consumers. Ironically, these campaigns amplified the interest in Western culture among the transgressors’ ideological supervisors who were supposed to erase it from the imagination of the Soviet youth.

Yet, there was another surprising and dangerous outcome of the anti-punk campaign in Soviet Ukraine, accentuated by KGB officers and local propagandists. During 1982–1984, the KGB active measures targeting “fascist punks” and the authorities’ hostile and coercive actions against disobedient youth encouraged young people to think about the state in political terms, and to openly criticize the Soviet political system, identifying it as a mafia state.73 Since 1967 and the anti-hippie campaigns in Soviet Ukraine, the KGB feared the potential “politicization” of cultural consumption by local youth. The drastic difference between the peaceful and relatively a-political Soviet hippies’ behavior and that of the Ukrainian “fascist punks” inspired by Italian films and Anglo-American rock music exacerbated the KGB’s fear. The political behavior of young Komsomol members became a dangerous cultural phenomenon. Their political programs, adopting neo-fascist cultural practices, challenged the Soviet political system that had to be replaced by a “more efficient, honest and stable” authoritarian system. Worse, many Ukrainian punks demanded the “liberation of Ukraine from Russian exploitation.”74 The cultural trends among young Soviet Ukrainians analyzed in this study—the mixture of popular culture and political nationalism—survived the KGB persecution, foreshadowing the distinct signs of revival in post-Soviet contemporary Ukraine.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Irina M. Kozintseva, the inspiration and the love of my entire life. Without a sabbatical leave from Ball State University, its material and moral support, I would never have finished my archival explorations in Kyiv and Dnipro during my research trip to Ukraine in 2019. My words of gratitude also go to Olga Bertelsen who invited me to share my research findings with her colleagues in Florence, Italy, and improved my text tremendously by her thoughtful suggestions and comments. Finally, I would like to thank the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., for two research grants in 2018–2019 that allowed me to complete this manuscript, a part of my more ambitious book project.

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