State Emblem of the Soviet Union (1956–1991)

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Book Length: 420 pages

The common narrative surrounding the Cold War is that it ended with the democratization of the Soviet Union and the collapse of that central entity into various states, leaving the United States as the sole world superpower. Thus, it has been said that Communism has not only been defeated, but buried in its grave—guaranteeing an eternal triumph for Liberalism at this “end of history”. Such ideas were indeed attractive in the nineties and the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the course of world events since then cries out for a reexamination of this historical consensus. From the dominance of Cultural Marxism in Western education and media to the ascendancy of Communist China as an open challenger to the geopolitical hegemony of the United States, there have been many shifts which, when examined, ought to give us pause and ask: who really won the Cold War?

The work of ex-KGB officer and defector Anatoliy Golitsyn will prove critical in answering this question, for four decades ago he gave us a warning—and predictions, many of which have come true—that, unlike the common narrative, reasonably accounts for the seeming “resurrection” of Marxism.

According to Golitsyn, disinformation is the key to understanding the true strategy of the Communist bloc. Defining this term, he writes:

The term means a systematic effort to disseminate false information and to distort or withhold information so as to misrepresent the real situation in, and policies of, the communist world and thereby to confuse, deceive, and influence the noncommunist world, to jeopardize its policies, and to induce Western adversaries to contribute unwittingly to the achievement of communist objectives. Since 1958 a program of strategic political disinformation operations has been brought into effect. Its purpose has been to create favorable conditions for the implementation of long-range communist bloc policy, to impede the adoption of effective countermeasures or policies by the noncommunist world, and to secure strategic gains for world communism.

(5)

Thus this concerted manipulation of information was the primary weapon of Communist engagement with the noncommunist world. Providing further details, he directs the reader to the Manifesto of November 1960, a document that was the result of “mutual agreement” by all Communist bloc countries and Western communist parties. Instead of creating a second Comintern, the agreement favored the adoption of Leninist multilateralism. The lack of a central structure directed by Moscow allayed Western fears of a united communist front and gave a false impression that the Second World could therefore be easily fractured. It also set the stage for an international communist movement unified by shared principles rather than a shared commitment to the policies of the Soviet Union.

Golitsyn illustrates that in order to counteract this strategy, what the West needed to do was to dispense with the old methodology of analyzing the Communist bloc, which saw open polemics and power struggles within and among communist governments as genuine, in favor of his new methodology that took this shift in strategy into account:

Once it is realized that, by mutual agreement between the eighty-one parties that signed the Manifesto of November 1960, diversity within the communist movement was sanctioned, it is easy to see that arguments and disputes between communists over the orthodoxy of different tactics are artificial, contrived, and calculated to serve particular strategic or tactical ends. The new methodology starts from the premise that the eighty-one parties all committed themselves to the new long-range policy and agreed to contribute toward its objectives according to the nature and scale of their resources. Furthermore, since diversity was licensed, there could be a division of labor between parties and any one of them could be allotted a special strategic role in accordance with its national specifics and Lenin’s suggestion, in an earlier historical context, that “we need a great orchestra; we have to work out from experience how to allocate the parts, to give a sentimental violin to one, a terrible double-bass to another, the conductor’s baton to a third.” The decisions of 1957-60 gave the Soviet, Chinese, Albanian, Yugoslav, Romanian, Czechoslovak, Vietnamese, and other parties their different instruments and parts to play in a symphonic score. The old methodology hears only the discordant sounds. The new methodology strives to appreciate the symphony as a whole.

(87)

This “Red Orchestra” unfortunately proved highly effective in deceiving the West. In large part, it was successful because it exploited the comforting self-delusion among various circles in the West that Communism would implode in upon itself. As the author insists upon and proves throughout the work, bait was set for the West by the Eastern bloc through the creation of manufactured crises (referred to as disinformation operations in the text) within the Communist world in order to trap the Western nations into a position of weakness and confusion, as devised under the long-term strategy outlined by the Manifesto of November 1960. Though he provides the reader with several examples of disinformation operations that served this program of mass deception, perhaps there is none so important as the Sino-Soviet “split”.

Describing the strategy that motivated the Soviets and the Chinese to adopt a pretended antagonism between each other, Golitsyn labels it the “scissors strategy”, for as he writes “The Soviet and Chinese lines on different issues should be seen as…the two blades of a pair of scissors, each enhancing the other’s capacity to cut” (181). The aim was then to make the West notice and fear only one blade of the pair, while blindly seeking the other blade’s support—not taking notice that they themselves were between both blades. Summarizing the second phase of this scissors strategy, in which China played the role of “moderate” Communist power, the author relates:

As the 1970s wore on and as Soviet aggressiveness became more apparent in Europe, Africa, and finally Afghanistan, China began to look attractive as a potential ally for the West. The common interest between the Soviet Union and the West in resisting Chinese militancy in the 1960s had been superseded by a common interest between China and the West in resisting Soviet expansionism in the 1970s. West European and Japanese capitalists tumbled over one another to build up China’s economic and military potential, egged on by anti- Soviet conservative Western politicians and experts on defense. Alliance with China seemed to offer the best hope of redressing the growing military imbalance between the Soviet Union and the West, especially in Europe. The United States has been more and more disposed to “play the China card.” The relationship with Communist China, initiated under Nixon and Kissinger and developed under Carter and Brzezinski, was carried to the point of military cooperation, under Reagan and Haig, with the intention of building up China as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Both in relation to the Soviets in the 1960s and to the Chinese in the 1970s and 1980s, the West has forgotten the error of the German General Staff in helping to rearm the Soviet Union after the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922. The Sino-Soviet scissors strategy has not been recognized for what it is.

(278)

Quite myopically, the United States and its allies built up Communist China. And in doing so, Western capital swiftly achieved that which had been tried by the CCP with spectacular failure, this being the industrialization of their nation. The long-term effects of what is now more and more apparently one of the greatest geopolitical blunders in world history are visible to all. Nixon, in “playing the China card” became the dupe that the Soviets and the Chinese needed him to be, and set the stage for the mass offshoring of American industry which has resulted in the sad state of the Rust Belt. His error should never be forgiven nor forgotten, for he helped to further empower the brutal Chinese regime at the expense of the economic independence of the American people.

The mass surveillance state and dystopian social credit system centered in Beijing would not have been possible without the accumulated years of technological and industrial aid from the West. Left to themselves, China would have likely become another North Korea with a billion inhabitants, and thus would have been forced to rely on less convenient means of cracking down on dissent. Moreover, in sacrificing economic protectionism for the sake of this political alliance, the United States ended up being slashed by the scissors it ignored; it relies now not on an unlikely friend, but an open rival for the production of most of its basic manufactured goods.

However, not all the disinformation operations were directly geopolitical in nature. Some were focused more on domestic ends than international ones, using the favored Leninist tactic of creating controlled opposition movements within the Communist bloc to entrap genuine dissidents and misdirect outside opinion. Considered in the long term, the most successful of these must be the Polish Solidarity movement. For not only in the time the author was writing, but even to this day it is regarded as a “conservative Catholic” movement that genuinely resisted communist tyranny. Understandably, then, Golitsyn devotes a great deal of attention to it in this book, and reveals shocking truths about the nature of the movement that allegedly “overthrew” Communism in Poland.

But why would Communist Poland create a controlled opposition movement to begin with? After pointing out the notable presence of members of the Polish communist party within Solidarity, the author provides the following reasons:

Polish trade unions before the “renewal” were suffering from the stigma of party control. To have attempted to apply Leninist principles by creating a new trade union organization through governmental action would have failed to remove that stigma. The new organization had to appear to have been set up from below. Its independence had to be established by carefully calculated and controlled confrontation with the government. The origin of the Solidarity movement in a shipyard bearing Lenin’s name, the singing of the “Internationale,” the use of the old slogan “Workers of the world, unite” by Solidarity members, and the constant presence of Lenin’s portrait are all consistent with concealed party guidance of the organization. Without that guidance and help, the discipline of Solidarity and its record of successful negotiation with the Polish government would have been impossible. The party’s concealed influence in the Polish Catholic church ensured that the church would act as a force for moderation and compromise between Solidarity and the government.

(333)

Solidarity therefore served the end of ultimately bolstering the regime’s support among its own people by means of setting up an “independent” trade union that supported the party. It filtered in disillusioned Polish workers and subliminally rehabilitated them, and thereby guarded the state against a movement of authentic anticommunist workmen. Furthermore, Golitsyn states that the specific intentions behind this feigned resistance were “to use Solidarity to promote united action with free trade unions, social democrats, Catholics, and other religious groups to further the aims of communist strategy in the advanced countries, and to a lesser extent in the Third World” (Ibid).

Following from these insights, the author’s next claim would also undoubtedly come as a shock to Catholic neoconservatives: Pope John Paul II—who famously was an enthusiastic supporter of Solidarity—was not a true enemy of the Soviets. This is articulated in a section about the infamous assassination attempt on his life, in which the former KGB official methodically dismantles the thesis that Ali Ağca worked on behalf of the Bulgarians and was ultimately under the direction of the KGB.

Both President Reagan and the would-be Polish Messiah therefore were not threats to the Communist bloc, but accessories—whether knowingly or unknowingly—to its transformation. For the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was not the result of a long-awaited for victory won by the “Christian” liberal democracies of the West over the godless communist dictatorships of the East, but the signal for convergence between both worlds. Writing in 1984, Golitsyn laid out what this convergence would entail and how it would come about:

The communist bloc, with its recent accretions in Africa and South-East Asia, is already strong. European-backed Soviet influence and American-backed Chinese influence could lead to new Third World acquisitions at an accelerating pace. Before long, the communist strategists might be persuaded that the balance had swung irreversibly in their favor. In that event they might well decide on a Sino-Soviet “reconciliation.” The scissors strategy would give way to the strategy of “one clenched fist.” At that point the shift in the political and military balance would be plain for all to see. Convergence would not be between two equal parties, but would be on terms dictated by the communist bloc. The argument for accommodation with the overwhelming strength of communism would be virtually unanswerable…Traditional conservatives would be isolated and driven toward extremism. They might become the victims of a new McCarthyism of the left. The Soviet dissidents who are now extolled as heroes of the resistance to Soviet communism would play an active part in arguing for convergence. Their present supporters would be confronted with a choice of forsaking their idols or acknowledging the legitimacy of the new Soviet regime.

(345-346)

Though today the world has not seen the end of the process here described, there has been a convergence—not a geopolitical one, but an ideological one. The prevailing ideology of the West is not the Classical Liberalism of the nineteen-fifties, but one that is a mixture of that ideology with Marxism. Hence, the modern West is neither Liberal nor Marxist: it is Liberal-Marxist. The noxious influence of egalitarian ideologies such as feminism, critical race theory, queer theory, and their grandfather, Marxism, are felt throughout our systems of education. Their claims are not viewed with suspicion, but are considered the default or orthodox building blocks of the twenty-first century Western worldview.

In fact, they may rightly be compared to those gods that were accepted by pagan Rome and adored within the Pantheon; it is the traditionalist or genuine conservative who is excluded, because he—like the ancient Christians—refuses to adore these false gods alongside the true One. But the mainstream conservatives compromise their principles for approval with the Liberal-Marxist establishment; they want to join the Pantheon, not bravely declare the chimera false regardless of personal consequences. They betray the conservation and handing down of tradition, in order to conserve the last phase of the Liberal-Marxist disease. Thus we have witnessed the alienation of the “traditional conservatives” Golitsyn speaks of—they are the Alternative Right or Dissident Right, who can certainly be described as “victims of a new McCarthyism of the left”.

And the supposed “fall” of the Soviet Union played no small part in this matter: for the “end” of Communism gave the appearance that Marxism was a vanquished threat. No longer, then, could home-grown Western Marxists face the accusation of being unpatriotic pawns; no longer could the American Right rally around Christian values against an atheistic superpower that it had seemingly defeated. It would appear, therefore, that the ideological convergence with the West has preceded the geopolitical convergence with the Communist bloc: but, given present events, this cannot be too far off if this terrible strategy is not thwarted. The open reconciliation between Russia (which never truly ceased to be Soviet) and China has occurred, and the gains by these two powers in the Third World have only accelerated in the four decades since Golitsyn wrote this book. One only needs to examine such cases as the alliances and international organizations the two powers have forged to obtain the reality of the situation. The presence of BRICS, CTSO, SCO, and the ever-increasing influence of both nations within Africa, Asia, and Latin America declare that the declining and demoralized West is being encircled by a hostile and heavily populated Global South that is sympathetic to the Russian and Chinese forms of Marxism. While the Soviets gambled with their controlled demolition of the Warsaw Pact and lost much of Eastern Europe, their successors have more than made up for those losses and assured that the balance of power has reoriented towards the Communist bloc.

This prescient work is therefore highly recommended for the student of history, politics, and geopolitics, whether Catholic or otherwise. It enlightens one about the true serpentine nature of Communism and how it—not liberal democracy—won the Cold War. Such a knowledge, at least on a basic level, is necessary for anyone who seeks to defend the remnants of Christendom from the two anti-Christian worlds of the Liberal-Marxist West and the Marxist East.