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Posted on 01/19/2003 5:09:33 PM PST by TheMilkMan
Confusion and euphoria about changes in the Soviet Union have given birth to many misconceptions and fallacies about Gorbachev and 'perestroika'. Even if bankrupt Western methods of analysis cannot be held responsible for all these fallacies, they still fail to provide serious correctives to them.
THE FIRST FALLACY: The origin of 'perestroika'
This is the belief that 'perestroika' was a consequence of President Regan's military pressure on the USSR and the potency of the American capitalist example. Believers in this fallacy, who insist that the West 'won the Cold War', do not suspect that 'perestroika' and its timing are the product of long-range strategy, planning and long-term preparation. [In Sun Tzu's terms, they have become arrogant].
THE SECOND FALLACY: The domestic character of perestroika
This is the belief that 'perestroika' is a purely domestic attempt to correct repressive practices, to revitalize the flagging Soviet economy and to adapt the Soviet Union to the necessities and norms of the modern world. Believer do not suspect the Soviet intent to expand 'perestroika' beyond the borders of the Communist world and to achieve the world victory of Communism through 'restructuring'.
THE THIRD FALLACY: Western-style democracy in the Soviet Union
Believers think that Gorbachev is trying to introduce Western-style democracy. They do not realize that he is extending 'Communist democracy' - that is to say, a new more mature phase of socialism in which only the appearance of Western-style democracy is created and maintained.
THE FOURTH FALLACY: The decline of ideology
Believers think ideology is dying or already dead and that Gorbachev has abandoned the class struggle and taken the 'capitalist road'. They do not realize that perestroika is an expression of ideological strategy and a practical means of reviving ideology. It is not the abandonment of class struggle but a finesse to secure the defeat of capitalist democracies by the use of capitalist weapons.
The class struggle will yet have its bloody feasts.
The Western elite believe they are helping the cause of democracy. In fact they are financing their own demise and digging their own graves. The tragedy is that they will probably not see it until it is too late.
THE FIFTH FALLACY: The ideological victory of capitalism
Believers think that the West has won the war of ideologies. The irony is that, through 'perestroika', the Soviets have captured the strategic and political initiative on the global stage and have begun to carry out their long-nurtured designs against the West which threaten its survival.
THE SIXTH FALLACY: That the Cold War is over
Believes think that the Soviet Union is no longer dangerous and that the Cold War is over (21). They take the deadly flirtation for the romantic marriage. The West perceives the Cold War to be over, and Communism to be dead; but from the Soviet side the Cold War will accelerate and become more deadly, especially for the political right which is being targeted as never before with the intention that it should suffer total obliteration.
THE SEVENTH FALLACY: 'Perestroika' is a blessing for the West
Believers think that perestroika serves Western interests and that Gorbachev should be helped. In the United States, even a learned man like Jeremy J. Stone, President of the Federation of American Scientists, has fallen for this fallacy. In a recent article in The New York Times entitled 'Let's Do All We Can for Gorbachev', he called on Americans to help the Soviets because 'Mr Gorbachev is, from our viewpoint, the best General Secretary we could dream of seeing'.
Believers in Western Europe go even further, advocating a new Marshall Plan to restore the economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It was one thing to restore war-ravaged economies of Western Europe, West Germany and Japan, to shield them from Stalin's armies and to nurture their democratic systems. It is quite another to provide massive economic aid to the ideological enemies and gravediggers of Western democracies at the very time when they are launching and consolidating their strategic, political offensive against the West.
THE EIGHT FALLACY: Fear of 'perestroika's' failure and the fall of Gorbachev
Those who lionize Gorbachev express exaggerated concern for his survival and the success of 'perestroika', which they see as the best hope for the West. They fear that Gorbachev's departure would lead to a crackdown on 'reformers', rebellion and possible anarchy in the Soviet Union. They would do better to focus on solving their own problems and preserving their societies from Gorbachev's 'restructuring'.
THE NINTH FALLACY: A declining need for American military-political alliances
Believers think that the Soviet Union is becoming more peaceful, the Gorbachev can be trusted and the America's political and military alliances are superfluous. They need to be awakened to the dangers of the Soviet strategy of 'perestroika' which demand as never before the maintenance and strengthening of these alliances.
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Good riddance.
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
Is this a slam at the idiots who still proclaim the imminent danger of a resurgent CCCP? Or do you concur?
The Western response to 'perestroika' has been no less faulty than Western analysis of it. The over-hasty acceptance of and support for 'perestroika', overlooking its aggressive anti-Western design, has led the West into a crisis.
Western policymakers have failed to grasp that Soviet reformed 'socialism with a human face' is a more formidable threat than grotesque Stalinist brutality. They do not see that it is part of the drive for world Communist victory and that it will make that victory easier. Western policymakers are trying to seek short-term insignificant gains while Gorbachev has seized the political initiative and is laying the groundwork for victory over the loner term. Western support for Soviet 'perestroika' does not provide a sound basis for a better and more durable relationship with the Soviet Union: it merely provides the Soviets with wider opportunities to carry out their strategy. That is the motive behind their willingness to negotiate new agreements on nuclear, conventional and chemical weapons.
In short, the American embrace of Gorbachev and perestroika which President Regan and Prime Minister Thatcher have initiated is a grave strategic blunder, akin to the blunder of President Nixon's embrace with Communist China. The main difference between the two blunders is that time is now running out. In his predictions made in 1967, Sakharov said that 'restructuring', disarmament, socialist convergence and the creation of a World Government could be complete by the year 2000. His time table may have slipped a bit but, given Western ignorance of Soviet strategy and the West's erroneous response to Gorbachev, the worst may happen.
To ensure that it does not, the West needs new policies which do not assist Soviet aggressive and revolutionary designs but which counter them. The West learned how to deal with and counteract the repressive but politically active totalitarianism of Stalin. Now it must learn to counteract the reformed but politically active totalitarianism of Gorbachev. It is a new challenge, a form of undeclared Cold War which the West is facing. President Regan's policy of 'trust, but check' is not enough - lacking as it does any appreciation of the essence, objectives, deceptiveness, dangers, strengths and weaknesses of Soviet strategy. It is of paramount importance for the United States to remain strong, not only militarily, but economically and politically. American political, economic and military cooperation with her allies must be reinforced to meet the new form of Soviet threat.
Gorby's double program of "Glasnost" (openness) and "Perestroika" (reconstruction) were just desperate band-aids on the arterial hemorraging of the Soviet Union. Neither kept the empire alive, and if anything hastened its collapse.
During the Yeltsin years Gorby went into hibernation - either at his 4-room beach house south of Yalta or at his academic retreat in his western-funded "Gorbachev Institute" in Moscow. His influence is zip inside Russia, though he still has pull in Germany - enough to get his dying wife treated there. Even the word "perestroika" is frowned on - goverment and journalism preferring the russified english word "rekonstruktsiya".
During the days of Yeltsin Russia sank so low - its economy eclipsed by Denmark's - that one joke had Boris Nikolaevich stating "America... wanted to bring Russia to her knees... but they decided this was too expensive... and left her laying on her back."
Vladimir Putin may still be a bit of a cipher, but he has managed to pull Russia back from complete anarchy. A power vacuum that large with Islam to the south and China to the east would not help the US. The Soviet conspiracy you allude to, however, is not very likely. Though Russia might still pine for the center of the world stage, with its old military and scientific prowess, no one wants to go back to standing in line for cheap shoes.
. . .yes and Capitalism requires moral human beings to sustain it. . .communism destroys the moral. A successful Capitalism cannot happen overnight in a country whose moral base has been so undermined.
Hard to disagree with that.
America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)
. . .yes, and no fallacy can replace that reality. . .
. . .'people of the lie' - they never stop. . .
Reagan Whooped Sissy Socialist A$$
Regan
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