Replies

Welcome to FR, and thanks for a provocative first thread. It's odd, but a lot of people have always said I look like you.

Major Golitsyn of the KGB defected in Dec. 1961, and proved a difficult character to debrief. But as early as 1963, he was warning of a long-term Soviet-planned mass deception (although not quite what he wrote in 1989): Golitsyn.

Welcome to FR, and thanks for a provocative first thread.

Thank you for your welcome and thanks for the link, lots of stuff to read on up.

What I have noticed thus far, is a couple of posts where FReepers struwwelpeter and WOSG state that Perestroika was a 'bandage' to save Communism and the USSR. Is that not what Golitsyn suggested in this article from March of 1989? Does this show Golitsyn was correct in that aspect and if so, what does that say of his other analysis?

This particular article comes down to whether or not you believe Golitsyn. Two different CIA psychiatrists diagnosed him as paranoid, but that could have been because of the seemingly far-fetched things he was saying. Any search on Golitsyn will show two very polarized groups; those that point out the damage he did with other supplied information, and those (like CIA director, James Jesus Angleton) who believed him completely. There's evidence to support either side. Here's what Golitsyn was saying back in 1963:

"...Papich learned the details of what Golitsyn called the Soviets' "long-range plan."

Greatly simplified, this plan called for massive political warfare, buttressed by secret intelligence deceptions. At the 20th Communist World Congress, in 1959, the USA had been designated the Main Enemy, but at the same time it had been decided to try a new approach. There was to be a thaw in relations, and a return to Leninist deceptions like the Trust and the New Economic Program (NEP), which had once convinced the U.S. that the Soviets were reforming. The KGB was to be reorganized to project an image of disunity and weakness in the communist world. By playing up false splits between communist nations, the Soviets would hope to divide and confuse the West, ultimately weakening it. Over the short term, the objective was economic aid to the communist world; over the long term, the objective was to end the Cold War, which would cause the U.S. to disarm."