SOVIET SPECIAL SERVICES COMMUNICATION STRATEGY DURING «GORBACHEV PERESTROIKA» PERIOD (1985–1991) IN HISTORICAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

Abstract

The article is devoted to the historiographical analysis of studies that highlight the evolution of Soviet special services communication strategy in 1985–1991. Chronologically it covers a period of more than 30 years, geographically – encompasses works of national scientists and specialists from post-Soviet countries as well as Western researchers.
The paper analyzes both historical researches and achievements in the field of social communications, PR, works of political scientists, journalists, and publicists, which are in fact interdisciplinary.
It has been established that the source base of the given studies is wide and heterogeneous. The vast majority of them are open source materials – articles in print media, comments, interviews and public speeches of KGB representatives in addition to TV and radio broadcasts with their participation. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the source base has been expanded with a huge array of previously unknown archival documents that shed light on various aspects of the KGB’s functioning.
In the historiography of the formation of Soviet special services communication strategy in 1985–1991 the study of its factors and components is divided into three periods. The first one covered directly «Gorbachev perestroika» period while the following periods began already after 1991.
The significant dates of each of these time periods coincide with the anniversaries of the USSR collapse when further rethinking of the causes, consequences, assessments of this process, and successive stages of archival documents declassification took place. The vast majority of such researches have been published after Ukraine gained independence, therefore the given periods differ in scope and degree of issue disclosure.