Concept
Front organization
Related concepts (12)
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ˌsiː.aɪˈeɪ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) and conducting covert action through its Directorate of Operations.
Fellow traveller
The term fellow traveller (also fellow traveler) identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that organization. In the early history of the Soviet Union, the Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman Anatoly Lunacharsky coined the term poputchik ('one who travels the same path') and later it was popularized by Leon Trotsky to identify the vacillating intellectual supporters of the Bolshevik government.
Communist front
A communist front is a political organization identified as a front organization under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not party members but who often followed the party line and were called fellow travellers. Vladimir Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, What Is to Be Done? Since the party was illegal in Russia, he proposed to reach the masses through "a large number of other organizations intended for wide membership and, which, therefore, can be as loose and as public as possible".
Media manipulation
Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, manipulation, outright deception (disinformation), rhetorical and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding them out, by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or by simply diverting attention elsewhere.
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is the practice of hiding the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from, and is supported by, grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial backers. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word "grassroots".
Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping (; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has been serving as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (since 2012), chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC, since 2012) and the president of the People's Republic of China (PRC, since 2013). He is the fifth paramount leader of the PRC since its foundation in 1949. The son of Chinese Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, Xi was exiled to rural Yanchuan County as a teenager following his father's purge during the Cultural Revolution.
KGB
The Committee for State Security (CSS) (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB), kəmjɪˈtjet ɡəsʊˈdarstvjɪn(ː)əj bjɪzɐˈpasnəsjtjɪ) was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 13 March 1954 until 3 December 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, it was attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", carrying out internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police functions.
Disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It should not be confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. "Fake news" has sometimes been categorized as a type of disinformation, but scholars have advised not using these two terms interchangeably or using "fake news" altogether in academic writing since politicians have weaponized it to describe any unfavorable news coverage or information.
Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.
Vladimir Putin
'Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin' (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012. Putin has held continuous positions as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012. Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel before resigning in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg.