The Communist Collapse: Twenty Years On

FrontPageMagazine ^ | September 9, 2009 | By Jamie Glazov

[JACKRUSSELL]

How and why the surviving heirs of the Soviet monster are alive and well.

Twenty years ago, the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe began to fall one by one -- so quickly that the coming months will be very dense with 20th anniversaries of great historic events. That was the final battle of the Cold War, where the Iron Curtain was finally broken, and the monstrous Soviet Empire ruined. Freedom triumphed in Europe at last. Or so it seemed. For the next twenty years have shown that that victory was not as final as many hoped during that momentous autumn of 1989. Once more, we are threatened by the surviving heirs of the Soviet monster -- from the KGB regime in Russia to Middle Eastern terrorists, to the leftist collaborators in the West.

How did the communists wriggle out of what appeared to be their historic defeat? The answer to that question may very well be found in Soviet secret archives, which show the 1989 events in a profoundly new light.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Pavel Stroilov, a Russian exile in London, who has smuggled thousands of secret documents of that period out of Russia. In a series of anniversary interviews, we are going to re-examine the events of 1989.

FP: Pavel Stroilov, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Let’s begin with the first domino: Poland.

The Mazowiecki Government, the first non-communist government, took office on August 24, 1989.

What can you tell us?

Stroilov: The establishment of the Mazowiecki Government is sometimes seen as the final victory over Poland’s communist regime; but unfortunately, the reality was more complicated. That government was created by a compromise between the communists and the anti-communists, the so-called Roundtable agreements. Poland’s presidency was reserved for the Communist dictator, Gen. Jaruselski......

[wintertime]

Communism alive and well and full of hope and change.

Marxism is our nation's **most** urgent and serious threat. Schools are the Marxist's most powerful weapon against freedom.

Unfortunately, I believe few conservatives recognize that there is a threat to a freedom from the Marxists within, or that Marxists exist. They still see these people as part of the Democratic Party loyal opposition. Also...They don't see that government schools must be eliminated and are blind to the Marxist indoctrination that is part of the woof and weave of these SINOs ( “schools” in name only).

[ETL]

"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html

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From National Public Radio (NPR):
August 29, 2006
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764
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Venezuela Set to Develop Nuclear Power With Russia
September 29, 2008
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429441,00.html
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Venezuela's Chavez welcomes Russian warships
Nov 25, 2008
LA GUAIRA, Venezuela – Russian warships arrived off Venezuela's coast Tuesday in a show of strength aimed at the United States as Moscow seeks to expand its influence in Latin America. The deployment is the first of its kind in the Caribbean since the Cold War and was timed to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22Venezuela%27s+Chavez+welcomes+Russian+warships%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=moz2

More Yahoo search results for Russia and Venezuela connections:
http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0geu_X30pZJCJEAfCtXNyoA?p=Russia+Venezuela+bombers+tanks+arms&y=Search&fr=404_news
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From the Russian News and Information Agency:
July 27, 2006
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
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"'The Black Book of Communism,'; a scholarly accounting of communism’s crimes, counts about 94 million murdered by the supposed champions of the common man (20 million for the Soviets alone), and some say that number is too low."

Forgetting the Evils of Communism: The amnesia bites a little deeper
By Jonah Goldberg, August 2008:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmY0MjI1MDgyYjg1M2UwNDMzMTk2Mjk5YTk0ZTdlMWE=
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[GeronL]

Communism and facism are growing around the world, freedom is dying.

[JACKRUSSELL]

"Basically, the strategy was to split the opposition, to provoke feuds, to isolate each faction, and then to corrupt and manipulate it to the benefit of the regime."

I believe this is what our country's Marxists have done to the Republican party.

Some people are slowly starting to snap out of their trances and see what is really going on - I just wish many more would. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

[wintertime]

It breaks my heart to see it.

The conservatives I know are fully aware of the various legislative issues but if I speak about Marxism on communism threatening our nation, they are clearly lost and have no idea what I am talking about. Gee! I even see it here on Free Republic.

Nearly everyone I know who is conservative sends their children into the Marxist indoctrination camps.

[occamrzr06]

I was going to say, the Communist movement is alive and well right here at home, but it’s already been said.

I cannot beleive BOR, just last night said, we aren’t worried about Communism....Beck almost fell off his chair.

What a pinhead. Or an Idjut!

[kabumpo]

How could the Poles et al have been so stupid after living in that s**t for so long —
the problem is that there was no de-communisation the way there was de-nazification in Germany after WWII.

So few in this country, even on the right, are able to grasp what communism is.

[IDFbunny]

What I don’t understand is that right after the collapse there was immediately rich barons. I was naive to believe all people, in theory, would have an equal share of everything. In the very least have squatters rights to their space.

[Borges]

Hyperbole isn’t going to win over as many people as you’d like. I went to public school and so did just about everyone I know. Not a single one of them are Marixsts and many are staunch conservatives.