Did Communism Fake Its Own Death in 1991?

American Thinker ^ | January 16, 2010 | Jason McNew

[neverdem]

In a bizarre 1984 book, ex-KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn predicted the liberalization of the Soviet Bloc and claimed that it would be a strategic deception. Let's examine the facts.

In his spy book Wedge, Mark Riebling claims that "of Golitsyn's falsifiable predictions, 139 out of 148 were fulfilled by the end of 1993 -- an accuracy rate of 94 percent" [1]. Riebling's statistic, compiled from Golitsyn's 1984 book New Lies for Old, has been used in several other books and articles (including here at AT) since Wedge was first published in 1994.

New Lies for Old is not light reading, and all of Golitsyn's predictions appear in the last two chapters, some 327 pages in. Golitsyn began drafting the manuscript in 1968 [3], completed it in 1980 [9], cleared the CIA in 1982 [2], and then finalized and published it in 1984 with seven additional pages [10].

Golitsyn published his second book, The Perestroika Deception, after the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991. This book contained further analysis of the liberalization, in addition to previously classified memoranda submitted by Golitsyn to the CIA. The two books must be read together to get a complete picture of Golitsyn's thesis.

Despite taking 22 years to write and publish New Lies for Old, Golitsyn nonetheless asserted that "the substance of the argument has changed little since 1968" [4]. Put simply, Golitsyn's argument was that beginning in about 1960, the Soviet Union embarked on a strategy of massive long-range strategic deception which would span several decades and result in the destruction of Western capitalism and the erection of a communist world government. Throughout his works, he refers to this future event as "convergence" [5]. On page 339 appears a series of Goltisyn's predictions:

The "liberalization" 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.  An ostensible separation of powers between the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary might be introduced.  The Supreme Soviet would be given greater apparent power, and the president of the Soviet Union and the first secretary of the party might well be separated.  The KGB would be "reformed."  Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to return, and some would take up positions of leadership in government.

Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government or allowed to teach aboard.  The creative arts and cultural and scientific organizations, such as the writers' unions and Academy of Sciences, would become apparently more independent, as would the trade unions.  Political clubs would be opened to nonmembers of the communist party.  Leading dissidents might form one or more alternative political parties

There would be greater freedom for Soviet citizens to travel.  Western and Unitized Nations observers would be invited to the Soviet Union to witness the reforms in action.

Golitsyn concluded that "the deceptive liberalization will be accepted as genuine and spontaneous and will be blown up out of all proportion by the media" [11].

These fifteen predictions are from just one page and most foretelling of events then ten years away. I chose to cite this particular page because many of the readers here at AT would be able to readily identify these claims empirically as true or not true. Of particular note are Golitsyn's predictions of separate legislative, executive, and judicial powers -- Americans would naturally embrace such a move by the Soviets wholeheartedly (and without asking questions). Making such claims about the Soviet Union in 1980 was no less absurd than would be making similar claims about North Korea today.

Foretelling the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, Golitsyn wrote:

One cannot exclude that at the next party congress or earlier, Andropov will be replaced by a younger leader with a more liberal image who will continue the so called "liberalization" more intensively [6].

In a July 1984 memo to the CIA, Golitsyn writes: 

The Soviet strategists may replace the old leader, Konstantin Chernenko, who is actually only a figurehead, with a younger Soviet leader who was chosen some time ago as his successor -- namely, Comrade Gorbachev. One of Gorbachev's primary tasks will be to carry out the so-called liberalization [12].

Comrade Gorbachev took office as leader of the Soviet Union the following year.

Golitsyn also gave clues on the eventual replacement of Boris Yeltsin, describing the Chechnyan crisis "not as a likely cause of a military coup, but as a possible planned prelude to a change of government" [13]. Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly on New Year's Eve in 1999, installing then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to the Russian presidency. Putin was elected just months later, riding a wave of Russian nationalist sentiment stemming from renewed hostilities in Chechnya.

Critics will rightfully point out that the timeframes in Golitsyn's books are wrong -- he postulated the emergence of a radical left U.S. government around 1992 and "convergence" by about 2000 [14], and he states throughout his works that NATO would be dissolved, causing U.S. forces to leave Europe. He also predicted a military alliance between the U.S. and China [7]. Taken as a complete work, however, Golitsyn got most of it right.

So how did Golitsyn do it? He explains it this way:

The assessment has been based partly on secret information available only to an insider; partly on an intimate understanding of how the communist strategist thinks and acts; partly on knowledge of political readjustments, the use of strategic disinformation, and the extent of KGB penetrations of, and influence on, Western governments; and partly on research and analysis, using the new methodology, of open records of Soviet and communist developments over the last 20 years [8].

There is other evidence that corroborates Golitsyn's thesis. In his 1982 book We Will Bury You, Czech defector Jan Sejna also claimed the Berlin Wall would be torn down and the Warsaw Pact dissolved for reasons of deception [15]. Additionally, there are the 1992 and 2005 Mitrokhin Archives. More recently, weird 25-year-old videos of another KGB defector detailing a decades-long process of purposeful U.S. demoralization by Soviet intelligence services have appeared on You Tube.

Jeff Nyquist, an independent writer and the author of the worst-selling book Origins of the Fourth World War, seems to be the only Western journalist who not only noticed but paid much attention to Golitsyn. Nyquist has written hundreds of articles discussing both Golitsyn's thesis and the slow moral and economic decay of America. Nyquist and Golitsyn both dedicated books to J.J. Angleton, who in 1954 founded the CIA's counterintelligence division.

The present moral and economic bankruptcy emanating from Washington, D.C. and plaguing America portends something far more dangerous than the unintended consequences of electing so many ideological flunkies with bad educations and misguided ideals. The purpose of warfare is not to kill and maim your enemy; it is his social, economic, political, and religious reorientation. Somewhere Sun Tzu is smiling, and it isn't at America.

Jason McNew is a 36-year-old IT professional. He can be contacted at jasond@mcnew.org.

[rfp1234]

...the destruction of Western capitalism and the erection of a communist world government.

Obambi and the Neocommies are suffering from major erectile dysfunction.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I wouldn’t say that, they’ve been raping us pretty good.

[genetic homophobe]

yes.

[Wingy]

BFL

[PhilDragoo]

[Blind Eye Jones]

Like the Trojan War the Communists retreated leaving a horse. That horse is called the university.

[SpaceBar]

And if tomorrow the Chinese Politburo decided to end its flirtation with a limitied free market system because it wasn’t beneficial to the State, it would be abolished with lightning fast swiftness and brutality. And that would be the end of that.

[Boucheau]

A little truth seeps in.

What’s happening to us is clearly the rotten fruit of decades of communist subversion.

And Americans march on, into oblivion, none the wiser. Well, almost none.

THANK YOU for posting this.

More, please.

We need to wake people up.

Obamacare is not about health care, and Cap ‘n Trade has absolutely NOTHING to do with the environment.

[Eagles6]

save

[Smokin' Joe]

Exactly. The best thing that could happen for the communists was for Communism to be declared “dead”. Then they could not only proceed unhindered, but attack anyone who called them on it as ‘fringe elements’, whackos, or ‘conspiracy theorists’. Any of that sound familliar?

[fieldmarshaldj]

That doesn’t look like Downtown Nairobi to me.

[nina0113]

later

[SpaceBar]

The remarkable part is the complete transformation of the democrat party into the true Communist Party of America, although some other group officially holds that title to deflect suspicion away from the true standard bearers. While Europe openly recognizes their communists, ours hide like cockroaches behind the "D" label and vehemently deny their true affiliations when confronted.

[Sal]

bump to find in the AM.

[JasonC]

Nope, it actually died. Stone cold dead. Misinformation ahead of time just tried to make their impending collapse a little less embarrassing. The folks who couldn't make a decent pair of shoes couldn't scheme their way to world power either. It is a fantasy.

[CowboyJay]

Yes, and no.

Don’t know how much if any of this was actually ‘planned’ by the Russkies. Just more kind of worked out this way, IMO.

The Iron Curtain came down. Communism just wasn’t as ‘scary’ to the West anymore. Some western reforms worked their way in, and some socialist ideals spilled out along with immigrants from the old Soviet Bloc. Some Russians got impatient with market reforms. That seemed to trigger a reactionary backlash that opened the door for Putin.

Russian Bolshevism is dead, though. No pretense of social justice left. Marx is rotting in his grave. At this point, Russia is really more fascist if even that. Hard to discern any utopian rhetoric coming out of Putin. More just plain despotic and authoritarian.

Here in the West, we have some bizarre ‘3rd way’ going on. Anti-nationalist. Odd mixture of utopian internationalist zeal crossbred with the worst elements of socialism and capitalism. Really I think it’s just a dog-and-pony show to keep the masses from rioting while the elites try their hand at reverse class warfare.

The reality of what we have going on isn’t all that different from Russia, really. Consent of the governed? Moral authority? Dead. Artifacts of the previous millenium.

We’re all Banana Republicans now.

[petro45acp]

Maskirovka is alive and well...

Add this to the current ideology of aggression (islam), and lead becomes the investment metal of choice.

ruefully

[bruinbirdman]

"That horse is called the university."

Who is the old Wellesley professor who bragged that Hillary Rodham came in a Goldwater Republican and left an Alinsky Commie?

yitbos

[Smokin' Joe]

That was the decption of the New Left in the '60s and '70s, when they hid behind the 'radicals' of the SDS and Weather Underground, trying to appear harmless by comparison and seeming in contrast to be far closer to harmless normalcy. When conservatives pointed out the threat then and subsequently, they were branded as 'extremists', and not even used by the more 'moderate' right to balance the equation, but chucked under the bus. People who have steadfastly claimed that there should be no 'special rights' for any group have been branded as "racists", who did not agree with military aid except to stop Communism as "war mongers", or in some cases smeared otherwise because of their lack of support for military intervention or aid to specific countries. In the meantime, the New Left used their lever, partly from the War on Poverty, partly from Liberal White Guilt, and pushed the direction of American Politics and the sense of what was just farther from the Constitutional ideals, away from equal protection for all citizens under the law, and still use it, now to promote the idea of Amnesty for illegal aliens.

Add in the crippling of the American Psyche by wussifying the population through intense social campaigns, and the destruction of American Industry through a combination of crippling taxation and demands, both environmental and otherwise, and the flow of wealth has been out of this country into communist countries and their sympathizers, while at home we do not develop the carreer oriented persons who would have carried the next industrial generation forward. There is a brain drain by default; there is no compelling reason to learn the skills needed to operate a mine or prospect for minerals, because it is incredibly difficult to develop any resources you find. As such, we become increasingly dependent on trade ties which bleed us to the benefit of those who harbor very different idealogies.

At least the Democrats of my youth still could be credibly believed to love America, even if they differed in how they thought our problems should be handled. Not so any more.

[bruinbirdman]

"The remarkable part is the complete transformation of the democrat party into the true Communist Party of America,"

It is now to a point where the Democrats don't shrink from the socialist label.

Republicans fear to use the socialist label because the Democrat Socialists will respond, "What do you think Medicare is?" "What do you think Bush's prescription medicine bill was?"

yitbos