Posted on 08/17/2006 6:07:20 PM PDT by brain bleeds red
Even if one rejects Golitsyn's overall thesis -- viz., that Gorbachev's changes comprised a long-term strategic deception -- one must still acknowledge that Golitsyn was the only analyst whose crystal ball was functioning during the key period of the late 20th century.
When the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989, the CIA was chastised for failing to foresee the change. "For a generation, the Central Intelligence Agency told successive presidents everything they needed to know about the Soviet Union," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "except that it was about to fall apart."
Sovietologists both inside and outside CIA were indeed baffled, for their traditional method of analysis had yielded virtually no clues as to what Gorbachev would do. When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in February 1985, after the death of Konstantin Chernenko, analysts like Roy Medvedev preoccupied themselves with trivial details in the Soviet press, and gained no larger view. "The black mourning frame printed around the second page where the deceased leader's picture was run] looked rather narrow," Medvedev observed. "It was still, however, a millimeter broader than the frames used for the second-page announcements of the death of senior Politburo members like Marshal Ustinov, who had died a few months previously." There was nothing in the measurement of picture frames to suggest liberalization in the USSR; therefore, no one suggested it.
CIA's leadership acknowledged that fell short in predicting Gorbachev's reforms, but could provide no real excuse. "Who would have thought that just five years ago we would stand where we are today?" Acting Director Robert Gates told Congress in late 1991. "Talk about humbling experiences." Gates could have said: Our reporting was poor because our Moscow network was rolled up, coincidentally or not, precisely as Gorbachev was coming into power. Gates did not say this, however. Instead, he suggested that "We're here to help you think through the problem rather than give you some kind of crystal ball prediction." This anti-prediction line was echoed by the Agency's deputy director, Robert Kerr, who told Congress: "Our business is to provide enough understanding of the issue ... to say here are some possible outcomes.... And I think that's the role of intelligence, not to predict outcomes in clear, neat ways. Because that's not doable."
Yet someone had predicted glasnost and perestroika, in detail, even before Gorbachev came to power. This person's analysis of events in the communist world had even been provided to the Agency on a regular basis.
In 1982, KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn had submitted a top-secret manuscript to CIA. In it, he foresaw that leadership of the USSR would by 1986 "or earlier" fall to "a younger man with a more liberal image," who would initiate "changes that would have been beyond the imagination of Marx or the practical reach of Lenin and unthinkable to Stalin."
The coming liberalization, Golitsyn said, "would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the Communist Party's role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed.... The KGB would be reformed. Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to take up positions in the government; Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government. Political dubs would be opened to nonmembers of the Communist Party. Leading dissidents might form one or more alternative political Censorship would be relaxed; controversial plays, films, and art would be published, performed, and exhibited."
Golitsyn provided an entire chapter of such predictions, containing 194 distinct auguries. Of these, 46 were not soon falsifiable (it was too early to tell, e.g., whether Russian economic ministries would be dissolved); another 9 predictions (e.g., of a prominent Yugoslavian role in East-Bloc liberalization) seemed clearly wrong. Yet of Golitsyn's falsifiable predictions, 139 out of 148 were fulfilled by the end of 1993 -- an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent. Among events correctly foreseen: "the return to power of Dubcek and his associates" in Czechoslovakia; the reemergence of Solidarity" and the formation of a "coalition government" in Poland; a newly "independent" regime in Romania; "economic reforms" in the USSR; and a Soviet repudiation of the Afghanistan invasion. -Golitsyn even envisioned that, with the "easing of immigration controls" by East Germany, "pressure could well grow for the solution of the German problem [by] some form of confederation between East and West," with the result that "demolition of the Berlin Wall might even be contemplated."
Golitsyn received CIA's permission to publish his manuscript in book form, and did so in 1984. But at time his predictions were made, Sovietologists had little use for Golitsyn or his "new methodology for the study of the communist world." John C. Campbell, reviewing Golitsyn's book in Foreign Affairs, politely recommended that it "be taken with several grains of salt." Other critics complained that Golitsyn's analysis "strained credulity" and was "totally inaccurate," or became so exercised as to accuse him of being the "demented" proponent of "cosmic theories." The University of North Carolina's James R. Kuhlman declared that Golitsyn's new methodology would "not withstand rigorous examination. Oxford historian R.W. Johnson dismissed Golitsyn's views as "nonsense." British journalist Tom Mangold even went so far as to say, in 1990 -- well after Golitsyn's prescience had become clear -- that "As a crystal-ball gazer, Golitsyn has been unimpressive." Mangold reached this conclusion by listing six of Golitsyn's apparently incorrect predictions and ignoring the 139 correct ones.
Golitsyn's analysis was as little appreciated within CIA as it was in the outside world. "Unfortunate is the only term for this book," an Agency reader noted in an official 1985 review. A CIA analyst took Golitsyn to task for making "unsupported allegations without sufficient (or sometimes any) evidence," and for this reason would be "embarrassed to recommend the whole." Golitsyn's case, other words, was deductive: He had no "hard evidence," no transcript of a secret meeting in which Gorbachev said the would do all these things. Perhaps most fundamentally, as the philosopher William James once noted, "we tend to disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use." Who had any use, in the end, for Golitsyn's belief that the coming glasnost and perestroika would merely constitute the "final phase" of a long-term KGB strategy to "dominate the world"?
Bookmark to read tomorrow.
==I'd love to hear your real-life examples of Russian anti-Americanism.
Who ever said the Russia people are anti-American? It's the continuing Soviets (Putin and his KGB Commies) who are anti-American. The Russian people suffer under these dictocrats just like they did in Soviet times.
Well, here's your problem. You've never been there yet purport to know the russian people's minds and souls. They are not suffering; they are busy getting out from under the damage caused by 70 years of shooting themselves in the feet with machineguns from communism.
I have been there, I know a lot of Russians. They are not downtrodden and oppressed. Maybe not the nicest of people on the planet but suffering? No.
They remind me a lot of how it must have been to be an american around 1800 or so. Their nation is still new and they still are feeling their way into party politics and other stuff. BUT .....
They have a 13% tax rate (lower than ours), they are all enterprising little buggers and more than anything they want to make money. They are dealing with inflation (more money in the system) and have a lot of work to do on customer service (makes NY look pretty good).
If you really want to look at injustice and problems inside that country ... look at the women. It's a man's workd there and they KNOW it.
I think the Russians (and the government) have figured out that conquering other nations does not have the appropriate cost/benefit analysis. Selling them resources, second line military equipment and tourism makes them a lot more money than conquest. Besides .. 140 million people in the largest country on earth next to 1.3 billion makes them pay a lot more attention that way.
Russia is going to be a world power again ... in about 30 years after their industries and resource extraction systems are working well. If you need to worry about them; they are like Switzerland with a bad attitude. They will sell anyone weapons and are not that interested in taking sides. The swiss just do banking for bad guys.
I'm still waiting for your answer, who is this fake Pole from California?
Thanks to your debunking as well Romanov, and thanks GarySpFc.
Thanks Lizol. Nobody responded, but you at least gave it a shot. Perhaps one of these days I will create my own thread re: Golitsyn and invite you guys to comment on his projections/predictions re: Eastern Europe. Even if Golitsyn turns out to have been 100% wrong, I think it is a great way to understand the events that led up to modern day E. Europe (especially in regards to why high-level Commies were never tried, purged and/or jailed...and what these people are up to today). Thanks again for giving it a try...
All the best to you and yours--GGG
==I'm still waiting for your answer, who is this fake Pole from California?
It's not me. Although, I am told I have a bit of Bohemian in me from my father's side. Does that count???
Romanov slapped accusation and “playing dead” now. This is all about his credibility to comment anything… I don’t mean Golytsin in particular, I did not read it myself, however I think that if he made many predictions then naturally some become true some not.
Romanov has a job that keeps him busy and not glued to FR. Regarding the "accusation" why don't you figure out who the Lzhi-Polyak is....
Romanov... Be a man for once in your life... Show us who he is and how you learned that he is from California.
If there was any doubt as to Romanov's vocation, this post dispels it.
"Name some industries that have been completely "renationalized"? Not too many in Russia."
Another brazen lie from Romanov -
"Gazprom provides about 20% of earnings to the federal budget and supplies gas to generate around 50% of electricity in Russia. On 5th July 2006 The Lower House of the Russian parliament passed a bill making Gazprom Russia's sole exporter of natural gas."
"None of the Golysinites have been to Russia"
Another brazen lie from the RWC.
"It says that the Russians realized they couldn't defeat us militarily and so decided to defeat us by trickery and deceit."
They have always used deceit because Russians are morally bankrupt and they believe that success is zero sum game.
The CIA blew it in the 20's and 30's when they said there was no need to spy on Russia - meanwhile they and Hitler conspired to build the biggest and best armies in the world.
What I can't understand, Spanalot, is why they are trying so hard to convince others and myself that Golitsyn was a total fraud.
Either they are so deluded of their opinions, as their burnished "military" credentials speak for them, or they have more sinister motives...
"Either they are so deluded of their opinions"
They? I'm not sure about that.
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