They learned this from the AIDs propaganda campaigns in the 80s where they were successfully able to setup and control a narrative to change public discourse.
This was the next logical step and you see it with Trayvon Martin and George Floyd. Capitalizing on an issue and distorting it into rage bait to change the culture in society..
Soviets invented it
Pavlik Morozov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlik_Morozov
In the mid-1980s, Yuri Druzhnikov, a dissident writer expelled from the Soviet Writers’ Union, performed an investigation, met with surviving eyewitnesses, and wrote a documentary exposé about Pavlik. Originally circulated through the samizdat, it was published in Russian in the UK in 1988 and soon thereafter translated into several languages. The first English translation appeared in 1996 under the title Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov. Druzhnikov disputes every aspect of the Soviet propaganda version of Pavlik’s life. For example, different sources in Soviet literature list different ages for Pavlik at death and show photographs of different boys. Pavlik was not a Pioneer when he was killed. According to the Soviet version, Pavlik’s grandfather was responsible for his murder; according to Druzhnikov, the grandfather was heartbroken about the death of Pavlik, organized a search when the boy went missing, and maintained his innocence during the trial. While not saying it outright, Druzhnikov hints that Pavlik was killed by a GPU officer, whom Druzhnikov met while doing his research.
Another of the fun things you can do when your side has full media supremacy.
"Never let a crisis go to waste."