In the Last Decades of Soviet Power, the KGB Used Movies and Books to Change Its Image and Win Support for the Organs, Mayofis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 4 – Russian support today for the security services did not come out of nowhere in Putin’s time but rather was the result of the massive effort by the KGB in the final years of Soviet power to recast the organs not as the feared representatives of the Stalinist state but as the defenders of the country and its population.

            That is the conclusion Maria Mayofis, a Russian historian of culture now teaching an Amherst College in the United States, draws in a detailed new article for the Important Stories portal (istories.media/opinions/2026/08/04/nash-otvet-bondu-kak-kgb-menyal-svoi-obraz-s-pomoshchyu-kino-i-knig/).

              She says that according to documents from the Lithuanian Special archive analyzed in 2017, this secret plan to redefine the image of the KGB was outlined as early as 1963, a decision she suggests was prompted by the fact that by the late 1950s, the very word “chekist” had become almost a term of abuse.  

              The KGB supported the production of books and movies, Mayofis says, “to explain to the mass viewer and reader what the KGB did, to show that work in it was important and honorable, to show who in the modern world is dangerous and why, and to convince people that only state security can eliminate such dangers.”

              Exploiting Russian interest in Western entertainment figures, like James Bond, the KGB operatives sough to present “the Soviet intelligence officer is primarily an intellectual: his weapon is not a physical force or technical innovations like Bond, but rather analysis, memory, endurance, composure, multiplied by personal courage.”

              But beneath all this was the message that Russian security services were not only essential to the survival of the country but were always right, even when the political leadership of the country ignored them as Stalin ignored warnings from Soviet agents that Germany was about to attack the USSR.

              That this image has survived helps to explain Putin’s power, especially now when representatives of the security services like him are in the top positions of the Russian government.