The following is the translation of a declassified Top Secret paper written by KGB Chairman Yuriy Andropov and Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU: “Concerning measures in connection with the anti-Soviet aspirations in the activities of Amnesty International,” dated 7 June 1977.
Top Secret
SPECIAL FOLDER
On activities related to anti-Soviet aspirations in the activities of Amnesty International
Information received by the KGB indicates that in recent years there has been a noticeable increase in subversive activity against the USSR by the non-government organization “Amnesty International,” which has national sections and representatives in 75 countries around the world. Amnesty’s headquarters is located in London. Among its members are lawyers, members of parliament and public figures, and representatives of business circles.
In the eyes of the world community, Amnesty International is trying to create the impression of itself as a public force that acts openly, impartially, and objectively, and relies solely on budget revenues that come from membership dues, donations, and fees. However, information available to the KGB indicates that one of the funding sources for the organization is the US CIA, which is trying to give its activities an anti-Soviet focus.
“Amnesty International” “protects” and demands the release of persons convicted for “political convictions,” while appealing to government bodies, individual officials, newspaper editors, and public organizations. In addition, it sends its emissaries to study the situation of the convicted persons in situ.
Amnesty’s emissaries that are sent to the Soviet Union provide material assistance and moral support to “defendants” and illegally collect and export slanderous information. The organization also attempts to involve citizens of the USSR and other socialist countries in its activities. According to Amnesty, its national sections “look after” about 350 persons convicted in accordance with Soviet legislation for especially dangerous state crimes, antisocial religious activity, and crimes against government order. Amnesty publishes the so-called “Chronicle of Current Events” in English, and has published a “report on prisoners of conscience in the USSR” that sheds slanderous light on the conditions of detention of convicts in prison facilities. The organization widely practices holding inflammatory demonstrations near the buildings of Soviet institutions and diplomatic missions abroad.
Considering Amnesty International as a bourgeois ideological center that causes political damage to our state by discrediting Soviet legislation and the legal system, the KGB carries out measures to identify the connections of Amnesty with the special services of imperialist states. For this purpose, information is collected on the plans and activities of Amnesty International for the expeditious suppression of its anti-Soviet actions, and the actions of emissaries of this organization visiting the USSR through various channels are monitored. At the same time, the KGB takes steps to prevent attempts to penetrate the territory of the USSR by established activists and functionaries of Amnesty.
Considering the subversive nature of the activities of Amnesty International, in our opinion, it would be advisable to recommend that Soviet institutions and public organizations adhere to the tactic of completely ignoring it in official contacts with foreign non-government circles.
Taking into account the fact that prominent liberal figures of the West are among the Amnesty activists, the question of establishing and maintaining contacts with some of them should be decided individually, in view of the real possibilities and prospects of exerting a beneficial influence on them and on the activities of Amnesty in general.
It also seems advisable to refrain from publishing any materials about the activities of Amnesty International in the Soviet press, so as not to give the enemy the opportunity to draw us into an unwanted discussion.
We request you give this consideration.
Yu. Andropov A. Gromyko
© 2025 by Michael Estes and TranslatingHistory.org
Translating History 