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.

[Terpfen]

No, it didn’t.

We simply failed to do anything about the useful idiots.

[Thunder90]

Russia/Soviet/Coldwar2 PING!!!

To be added to or removed from this list, please FReepmail me...

[Yardstick]

So let’s say I know a couple whose marriage is on the rocks and I claim that they have a strategy to put it back together. I predict we will see them spend more time apart, use different checking accounts, and spend time with the kids individually rather than as a couple. All designed to reduce friction between them and allow the relationship to revive itself.

But instead of carrying out this strategy, the bottom falls out and they get a divorce. So now they’re living apart, they’re using their own checking accounts, and they alternate custody of the kids.

Have I been proven correct? Is their marriage on track to be a world beater? Are they carrying out their strategy?

That’s kind of what Golitsyn’s predictions bring to mind.

[Touch Not the Cat]

.
Yes.

[myknowledge]

Communism is one of two globalist elite ideologies used to drive toward the new world order (the other being fascism).

The difference between fascism and communism is not like day and night as liberal socialists purport it to be; fascism and communism are like brothers of evil.

Why did communism fake its death at the collapse of the Soviet Union? Let me tell you this: The 'death' of communism was faked because the globalist elite had used the ideology to clash with capitalism during the 45 year long Cold War. It had served its purpose.

From the end of the Cold War through to the present day, the globalists would merge capitalism (blue) with communism (red) to produce fascism (purple); the ideology of the one world order.

Think Nazi Germany, times that by 100.

[freedomfiter2]

Yes and all the while communism was spreading here in the USA.

[Kenny Bunk]

I feel that we should put Anatoly Golitsyn on Facebook, as in "Golitsyn; become a fan!"

My addiction to his books and theory cost me at least a couple of girlfriends, and I sure would love to be "vindicated" before leaving the planet.

OTOH, he and vodka did drive James Jesus Angleton nuts and caused a massive rift in our intelligence apparatus over whether or not Nosenko was a real or fake defector.

Nosenko, (Fake Defector, IMHO) was sent here to "sell" the CIA the the story that the the KGB "Knew nothing about Lee Harvey Oswald," among other disinformative tales, some partially true, others made of whole cloth. Unfortunately, CIA Policy was to accept him as real. Those who questioned were drummed out of the service.

Golitsyn? Batting pretty damn near a 1000 in his "predictions." Nutty? Yeah. Just don't bet against him!

[Kenny Bunk]

pingski

[dfwgator]

It’s not about Communism, it’s about Russian power, be it Czars or Commissars or Putin.

[Theodore R.]

So does that mean Reagan didn’t win the Cold War after all without firing a shot as Mrs. Thatcher claimed?

The American people will endorse communism so long as it is not labeled “communist”. Huey Pierce Long, Jr., once said that ehe people could in time become “fascist” but call it “anti-fascism”.

[annalex]

There is no evidence of “pretending to collapse” in the late 20th century USSR. There is evidence of an actual collapse. There is also evidence of attempt at reform (glasnost and perestroyka) that got out of Kremlin’s control, but that is not the same as pretending.

People who lead us to serfdom are not agents of Komintern. They are homegrown idiots, community organizers with lust for power, and apparatchiks who enable them, who might occasionally borrow an idea or two from Lenin and Trotzky. Understand that while the Gulag and the single-ideology state are not attractive, some elements of marxism are attractive to very many. For example, many, possibly a majority, of Americans want socialized medicine, banking and education, a solid majority wants the pension system run by the state, nearly all want separation of church and state. These are all building blocks of marxism, but people who want them are not marxists, let alone agents of a foreign power. They simply want a free lunch, a naturally occuring human condition.

[annalex]

For us in America it is very much about Communism. However, you are very correct, in my opinion, that the post-Suslov Soviet elite, those who rose through the ranks in the 70s and ended up on top in the 80s were not communist ideologues but rather nationalists and imperialists. Their main concern was preservation of the soviet spheres of power around the Kremlin. Putin, for example, considers the disintegration of the Soviet Union the greatest tragedy of the 20c, not unlike some Anglophile would consider the disintegration of the British empire a great tragedy. But Putin would readily acknowledge that the soviet economic system was unworkable. This is another argument against Golitsyn’s analysis.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Obama is empowering the relics overseas. We have a form of communism now at home. Obama has got to go. 2012 will be too late.

[holden]

Communism wasn’t DEAD... it just moved to USA and Hid in the ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT

...not to mention in the workings of the Dept. of Education, universities and nationalized school administrators. Ayers has been alive, well-funded and preaches on.

HF

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

I wonder if the FBI has (had) a file on BO? Hmmmmmmmmm.

[unkus]

Gee, the bullet holes in Nicolae Ceausescu’s head looked pretty real...

---

And the evil sonovabitch in the White House is real.

[unkus]

Russia and China are now capitalist in their fashion.

The communists became journalists, environmentalists and Democrats and took over the USA. Now we’re attempting a counterrevolution. It’s all quite obvious.

---

Communism is like Cancer. It spreads out but is still Cancer.

[JasonC]

No, it did not.

Capitalism remains alive and well and communism remains as dead as a doornail.

But conspiracy theorists have lots of time on their hands...

[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

[dr_who]

The left keeps regrouping and coming back. It doesn’t require a conspiracy. It doesn’t need to play dead. It just waits for an opportunity for a power play. All it takes is a few determined nuts and a quorum of useful idiots.