Introduction. The global geopolitical confrontation of the Cold War (mid-1940s – late 1980s) unfolded primarily as a war of ideologies. Academic institutes and think tanks played a key role in the production of scientifically grounded ideological knowledge during this historical period. The USSR and the USA, as the two poles of confrontation, employed different institutional mechanisms for organizing humanities research. This study examines the role of Soviet and American “thought factories”. The relevance of the article stems from its analysis of the global confrontation model, in which meanings and narratives have become a key element of ideological struggle, and the expert-analytical community ‒ its key actor. Purpose ‒ to conduct a comparative analysis of the institutional models for the production of ideological knowledge in the humanities during the Cold War, using the USSR and the USA as case studies. Materials and methods. The article is based on the comparative historical method, employing tools of institutional and discourse analysis. The source base comprises published documents from the collections of Russian state archive of socio-political history, Russian state archive of contemporary history, Russian state archive of literature and art. Memoirs of key participants (G. Arbatov, R. Pipes, M. Olbrait, P. Nitze), as well as official publications of U.S. foreign policy agencies, were also utilized. The historiographic review draws on the works of Russian and international scholars (A. Fateev, R. Magnusdottir, F. Saunders, D. Engerman, E. Berman, and others). Results and discussion. The study reveals fundamental differences in the institutional organization of ideological knowledge production in the USSR and the USA. The Soviet model was a centralized “ideological concern” headed by the Academy of Sciences. The American model, by contrast, was based on a decentralized, competitive network of formally independent actors ‒ think tanks, private foundations, university research centers, and cultural organizations‒operating according to the laws of the “marketplace of ideas”. However, despite differences in organizational design, both systems demonstrate functional similarities.Conclusion. The comparative analysis demonstrates that during the Cold War, both the USSR and the USA developed highly effective institutional ecosystems for the production of ideological knowledge. Understanding these historical mechanisms allows us to identify the continuity of strategies and tools in contemporary “war of meanings”.