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NEW LIES FOR OLD 



The Communist Strategy of Deception and 
Disinformation 

ANATOLIY GOLITSYN 



TO THE MEMORY OF 

Anna Akhmatova 

CONSCIENCE AND SOUL OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE 



Contents 

Editors's Foreword xiii 

Author's Note xvii 



PART ONE 

The Two Methodologies 

1 The Problems Facing Western Analysts 3 
The General Difficulties 3 — The Special Difficulties: Disinformation 
4 — Disinformation in Communist Regimes S 

2 The Patterns of Disinformation: 

"Weakness and Evolution" 10 

The "Weakness and Evolution" Pattern 10 — The Precedent of the NEP 
1 1— The Results of the NEP 16— The Lesson of the NEP 



3 The Patterns of Disinformation: 

"Facade and Strength" 18 

Official Speeches and Party Documents 20 — Special Disinformation 
Operations 2 1 

4 The Patterns of Disinformation: 

Transition 23 

The Misrepresentation of De-Stalinization 24 — Anticommunism 25 — 
Anti-Stalinism 26 — De-Stalinization in Practice 29 — Improvised De- 
Stahnization from 1953 to 1956 29— Re-Stalinization 31 

5 The New Policy and Disinformation Strategy 33 
The New Policy 34 — The Disadvantages of Apparent Unity 36 — The 
Advantages of Apparent Disunity 37 — The Political Use of De- 
Stalinization 39 — Sources of Inspiration 41 

6 The Shelepin Report and Changes in Organization 46 
Department D. 50 



viii CONTENTS 

7 The New Role of Intelligence 52 

8 Sources of Information 58 
Western Sources 58 — Communist Sources 61 — The Analysis of Infor- 
mation from Communist Sources 62 

9 The Vulnerability of Western Assessments 65 
The Consequences of Different Patterns of Disinformation 67 — The 
Crisis in the Bloc, 1949-1956 68— The Second World War 68 

10 Communist Intelligence Successes, 
Western Failures, and the Crisis in 

Western Studies 70 

Factors in Communist Intelligence Successes 71 — Obsolete Western 
Methods of Analyzing Communist Sources 73 — The Western Failure 
to Detect Disinformation and Its Current Pattern 76 

11 Western Errors 79 

12 The New Methodology 85 
Factors Underlying the New Methodology 86 — The New Methodology 
and Western Sources 93 — The New Methodology and Communist 
Sources 96 — Official Communist Sources 96 — Unofficial Communist 
Sources 100 — "Secret" Communist Sources 101 — To Sum Up . . . 102 



PART TWO The Disinformation Program and Its Impact on the West 

13 The First Disinformation Operation: 

The Soviet-Yugoslav "Dispute" of 1958-60 107 

Yugoslavia's Final Reconciliation with the Bloc 107 — Open Evidence of 
Yugoslav Participation in the Formulation of the Policy 1 10 — Further 
Anomalies in the "Dispute" 1 14 — Objectives of the Soviet- Yugoslav 
"Dispute" of 1955-60 118 

14 The Second Disinformation Operation: 

The "Evolution" of the Soviet Regime, 

Part One: Major Changes in the USSR 120 

Economic Changes 120 — Political Changes 124 ~ Changes in Dipio- 



CONTENTS IX 

macy 127 — The Influence of Ideology 131 — The Revival of De-Stalin- 
ization 135 — The Position of Soviet Scientists and Other Intellectuals 
139 — Objectives of Strategic Disinformation on Soviet "Evolution" and 
"Moderation" 141 

15 The Third Disinformation Operation: 

The Soviet- Albanian "Dispute" and "Split" 143 

The Overt Picture of Soviet-Albanian Relations 143 — Inside Informa- 
tion and Its Interpretation 144 — Anomalies in the "Dispute" and "Spht" 
147 — Comparison with the Tito-Stalin "Split" 149 — Conclusion 151 — 
Objectives of the Disinformation Operation 152 

16 The Fourth Disinformation Operation: 

The Sino-Soviet "Split" 153 

CPSU-CPC Collaboration, 1944-49, 153— Sino-Soviet Friction, 1950- 
57, and Its Removal 156 — The Historical Evidence of Sino-Soviet 
Differences 162 — The Form of Sino-Soviet Differences 163 — The 
Content of Sino-Soviet Differences 168 — Ideological Differences 
168 — Economic Differences 170 — Military Differences 172 — Differ- 
ences in National Interest 175 — Differences in Political and Diplomatic 
Strategy and Tactics 177 — Differences over Tactics for Non-bloc 
Communist Parties 179 — The Technique of the "Spht" 179 — Strategic 
Objectives of the "Split" 182 

17 The Fifth Disinformation Operation: 

Romanian "Independence" 183 

Special Relations between the Romanians and Soviets 184 — The 
"Evidence" of Soviet-Romanian Differences 186 — The Motives for the 
Projection of Romanian "Independence" 191 — Objectives of the 
Disinformation Operation 194 

18 The Sixth Disinformation Operation: 

The Alleged Recurrence of Power Struggles in the Soviet, 
Chinese, and Other Parties 195 

Succession in the Soviet Leadership: New Stabihzing Factors 196 — 
The Failure of Lenin and Stalin to Solve the Succession Problem 197 — 
Khrushchev's "Removal"an Agreed Transfer of the Leadership to 
Brezhnev 200 — Objectives of Disinformation on Power Struggles 206 



X CONTENTS 

19 The Seventh Disinformation Operation: "Democratization" in 
Czechoslovakia in 1968 208 
The Western Interpretation 208 — Western Errors 209 — A Rein- 
terpretation of Czechoslovak "Democratization" 210 — The Role of 
Historians and Economists in "Democratization" 211 — The Roles of 
Barak and Sik 212 — The Role of Writers in "Democratization" 214 — 
The "Struggle" between the Novotny "Conservatives" and the Dubcek 
"Progressives" 216 — Conclusions 220 — Communist Gains and Losses 
from "Democratization" 221 — Possible Implications of "Democratization 
"for the West 223 — Objectives of the "Quiet Revolution" 224 

20 The Second Disinformation Operation: The 
"Evolution" of the Soviet Regime. 

Part Two: The "Dissident" Movement 227 

Sakharov 231 — Objectives of Disinformation on "Dissidence" 241 

21 The Eighth Disinformation Operation: 
Continuing Eurocommunist Contacts with 
the Soviets — The New Interpretation 

of Eurocommunism 243 

The Manifestations of Eurocommunism 244 — The French Party 245 — 
The Italian Party 246— The Spanish Party 246— The British Party 
247— Joint Statements 247— The Soviet Attitude 248— The Yugoslavs 
and Romanians 249 — The New Analysis 240 — The Emergence of 
Eurocommunism 250 — The Revival of Dead Issues 251 — Exploitation 
of the "Independent" Image of Eurocommunist Parties 252 — The 
Inconsistencies in Eurocommunism 253 — Continuing Eurocommunist 
Contacts with the Soviets 255 — The New Interpretation of 
Eurocommunism 257 — The Possible Adverse Effects on International 
Communism 259 — Implications for Western Propaganda 261 — 
Conclusion 261 — Objectives of Eurocommunism 262 

22 The Role of Disinformation and 
Intelligence Potential in the Realization of 

the Communist Strategies 263 

The Major Strategy 264 — The Disinformation and Strategic Role of 
Yugoslavia 266 — Sino-Soviet Disinformation and the Cultural Rev- 
olution: A New Interpretation 268 — Sino-Soviet Duality and Commu- 
nist Strategy in the Third World 272 — Sino-Soviet Duality and Mili- 



CONTENTS XI 

tary Strategy 274 — Sino-Soviet Duality and the Revolutionary Move- 
ment 279 — The Advantages of Sino-Soviet Duahty 281 — The Intelli- 
gence Potential and Agents of Influence 282 — Strategic Exploitation of 
KCB Agents among Prominent Soviet Intellectuals and Religious 
Leaders 29 1 

23 The Evidence of Overall Co-ordination 

between the Communist Governments and Parties 295 

Coordination within the Bloc 295 — Summit Meetings 296 — Coordi- 
nation through Diplomatic Channels 299 — Bilateral Coordination 
within the Bloc 301 — Coordination between Bloc and Non-bloc Parties 
306 — Conclusions 307 

24 The Impact of the Disinformation Program 309 
The Shaping of Western Assessments of the Communist World 309 — 
The Effect on Western Policy Formation 313 — The Practical Effects 
on Western PoUcies 316 — Conclusion 317 



PART THREE The Final Phase and the Western Counter- Strategy 

25 The Final Phase 327 
Western Interpretation of Events in Poland 328 — A New Analysis 
328 — Developments in the 1970s 320 — Final Preparations for the 
"Renewal" 330 — The Polish Communist Party within Solidarity 332 — 
Motives for the Creation of Solidarity 332 — The Threat to the West 
from the Polish "Renewal" 335 — Sino-Soviet Relations 343 — The 
Third World 344 — Disarmament 345 — Convergence 345 — The 
Worldwide Communist Federation 346 — Comments on the 
Appointment of Andropov and on Other Developments Following the 
Death of Brezhnev 347 — Sino-Soviet Developments 350 — The 
Attempted Assassination of the Pope 351 

26 Where Now? 355 
Reassessment 357 — End to National Rivalries 360 — Ideological Soli- 
darity 361 — Inward Heart- Searching 362 — Widening Defense Alli- 
ances 362 — Reorientation of Intelligence Services 363 — Diplomatic 



CONTENTS 

Disengagement 363 — Denial of Trade and Technology 36 
Isolating Communist Parties 364 — Addressing the Peoples of the 
Communist Bloc 365— The Next Half Century 365 

Glossary 367 

Notes 371 



Editors' Foreword 



VERY RARELY disclosures of information from behind the Iron Curtain 
throw new light on the roots of communist thought and action and 
challenge accepted notions on the operation of the communist system. 
We believe that this book does both these things. It is nothing if not 
controversial. It rejects conventional views on subjects ranging from 
Khrushchev's overthrow to Tito's revisionism, from Dubcek's 
liberalism to Ceausescu's independence, and from the dissident 
movement to the Sino-Soviet split. The author's analysis has many 
obvious implications for Western policy. It will not be readily 
accepted by those who have for long been committed to opposing 
points of view. But we believe that the debates it is likely to provoke 
will lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of the threat from 
international communism and, perhaps, to a firmer determination to 
resist it. 

The author's services to the party and the KGB and the unusually 
long periods he spent in study, mainly in the KGB but also with the 
University of Marxism-Leninism and the Diplomatic School, make 
the author uniquely well qualified as a citizen of the West to write 
about the subjects covered in this book. 

He was born near Poltava, in the Ukraine, in 1926. He was thus 
brought up as a member of the postrevolutionary generation. From 
1933 onward he lived in Moscow. He joined the communist youth 
movement (Komsomol) at the age of fifteen while he was a cadet in 
military school. He became a member of the Communist Party of the 
Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1945 while studying at the artillery school 
for officers at Odessa. 

In the same year he entered military counterinteUigence. On 
graduation from the Moscow school of military counterespionage in 
1946, he joined the Soviet intelligence service. While working in its 
headquarters he attended evening classes at the University of 
Marxism-Leninism, from which he graduated in 1948. From 



xiv EDITORS'FOREWORD 

1948 to 1950 he studied in the counterintelligence faculty of the High 
Intelligence School; also, between 1949 and 1952 he completed a 
correspondence course with the High Diplomatic School. 

In 1952 and early 1953 he was involved, with a friend, in drawing 
up a proposal to the Central Committee on the reorganization of 
Soviet intelligence. The proposal included suggestions on the 
strengthening of counterintelligence, on the wider use of the satellite 
intelligence services, and on the reintroduction of the "activist style" 
into intelligence work. In connection with this proposal, he attended a 
meeting of the Secretariat chaired by Stalin and a meeting of the 
Presidium chaired by Malenkov and attended by Khrushchev, 
Brezhnev, and Bulganin. 

For three months in 1952-53 the author worked as a head of section 
in the department of the Soviet intelligence service responsible for 
counterespionage against the United States. In 1953 he was posted to 
Vienna, where he served for two years under cover as a member of the 
apparat of the Soviet High Commission. For the first year he worked 
against Russian emigres, and for the second against British 
intelligence. In 1954 he was elected to be a deputy secretary of the 
party organization in the KGB residency in Vienna, numbering 
seventy officers. On return to Moscow he attended the KGB Institute, 
now the KGB Academy, as a full-time student for four years, 
graduating from there with a law degree in 1959. As a student of the 
institute and as a party member, he was well placed to follow the 
power struggle in the Soviet leadership that was reflected in secret 
party letters, briefings, and conferences. 

From 1959 to 1960, at a time when a new long-range policy for the 
bloc was being formulated and the KGB was being reorganized to 
play its part in it, he served as a senior analyst in the NATO section of 
the Information Department of the Soviet intelligence service. He was 
then transferred to Finland, where, under cover as vice-consul in the 
Soviet embassy in Helsinki, he worked on counterintelligence matters 
until his break with the regime in December 1961. 

By 1956 he was already beginning to be disillusioned with the 
Soviet system. The Hungarian events of that year intensified his 
disaffection. He concluded that the only practical way to fight the 
regime was from abroad and that, armed with his inside knowledge of 
the KGB, he would be able to do so effectively. Having reached 



EDITORS FOREWORD XV 

his decision, he began systematically to ehcit and commit to memory 
information that he thought would be relevant and valuable to the 
West. The adoption of the new, aggressive long-range communist 
policy precipitated his decision to break with the regime. He felt that 
the necessity of warning the West of the new dimensions of the threat 
that it was facing justified him in abandoning his country and facing 
the personal sacrifices involved. His break with the regime was a 
deliberate and long-premeditated political act. Immediately on his 
arrival in the United States, he sought to convey a warning to the 
highest authorities in the U.S. government on the new political 
dangers to the Western world stemming from the harnessing of all the 
political resources of the communist bloc, including its inteUigence 
and security services, to the new long-range policy. 

From 1962 onward the author devoted a large proportion of his 
time to the study of communist affairs as an outside observer reading 
both the communist and Western press. He began work on this book. 
While working on the book he continued to bring to the attention of 
American and other Western authorities his views on the issues 
considered in it, and in 1968 allowed American and British officials to 
read the manuscript as it then stood. Although the manuscript has 
since been enlarged to cover the events of the last decade and revised 
as the underlying communist strategy became clearer to the author, 
the substance of the argument has changed little since 1968. Owing to 
the length of the manuscript, a substantial part of it has been held over 
for publication at a later date. 

With few exceptions, those Western officials who were aware of 
the views expressed in the manuscript, especially on the Sino-Soviet 
spht, rejected them. In fact, over the years it became increasingly 
clear to the author that there was no reasonable hope of his analysis of 
communist affairs being seriously considered in Western official 
circles. At the same time, he became further convinced that events 
continued to confirm the validity of his analysis, that the threat from 
international communism was not properly understood, and that this 
threat would shortly enter a new and more dangerous phase. The 
author therefore decided to publish his work with the intention of 
alerting a wider sector of world public opinion to the dangers as he 
sees them, in the hope of stimulating a new 



xvi EDiTORS'FOREWORD 

approach to the study of communism and of provoking a more 
coherent, determined, and effective response to it by those who 
remain interested in the preservation of free societies in the noncom- 
munist world. 

In order to give effect to his decision to publish, the author asked 
the four of us, all former U.S. or British government officials, for 
editorial advice and help. Three of us have known the author and his 
views for twelve years or more. We can testify to his Sisyphean 
efforts to convince others of the validity of what he has to say. We 
have the highest regard for his personal and professional integrity. The 
value of his services to national security has been officially recognized 
by more than one government in the West. Despite the rejection of his 
views by many of our former colleagues, we continue to believe that 
the contents of this book are of the greatest importance and relevance 
to a proper understanding of contemporary events. We were, 
therefore, more than willing to respond to the author's requests for 
help in editing his manuscript for publication, and we commend the 
book for the most serious study by all who are interested in relations 
between the communist and noncommunist worlds. 

The preparation of the manuscript has been undertaken by the 
author with the help of each of us, acting in an individual and private 
capacity. 

The author is a citizen of the United States of America and an 
Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). 

STEPHEN DE MOWBRAY 

ARTHUR MARTIN 

VASIA C. GMIRKIN 

SCOTT MILER 



Author's Note 



THIS BOOK is the product of nearly twenty years of my life. It presents 
my convictions that, throughout that period, the West has 
misunderstood the nature of changes in the communist world and has 
been misled and outmaneuvered by communist guile. My researches 
have not only strengthened my belief, but have led me to a new 
methodology by which to analyze communist actions. This 
methodology takes into account the dialectical character of communist 
strategic thinking. It is my hope that the methodology will come to be 
used by students of communist affairs throughout the Western world. 

I accept sole responsibility for the contents of the book. In writing it, 
I have received no assistance of any kind from any government or 
other organization. I submitted the text to the appropriate US 
authorities, who raised no objection to its publication on grounds of 
national security. 

For the transHteration of Russian names I have used the system 
adopted by US government agencies. The transHteration of Chinese 
names follows the old system. 

I wish to thank my friends, Stephen de Mowbray and Arthur 
Martin, who did the lion's share of the editing and helped me 
throughout with their editorial advice. I thank, too, Vasia C. Gmirkin 
and Scott Miler for their contributions to editing and for their editorial 
advice. 

I am grateful to PC, PW, RH, PH, and AK for their dedication in 
typing the manuscript, to the wives of my friends who suffered in 
silence during its preparation, and especially to my wife, Svetlana, for 
her encouragement and her forbearance. 

I wish to express my deep gratitude to two of my American friends, 
who will remain unnamed, for their help and their efforts in bringing 
my manuscript to the attention of the publishers, Dodd, Mead & 
Company. The publishers deserve my admiration for 

xvii 



xviii AUTHOR'S NOTE 

their grasp of the significance of the manuscript and for having the 
courage to publish such a controversial book. I am especially grateful 
to Allen Klots, of Dodd, Mead & Company, who revealed a great 
personal interest in the publication and also made the final editing of 
the manuscript. 

Finally, I thank the Soviet government and party for the excellent 
educational facilities that made this book possible; and I thank 
Russian history and literature for the inspiration they gave when 
guiding me toward my decision of conscience to serve the people 
rather than the party. 

ANATOLIY GOLITSYN 



Men will not receive the truth from their enemies and it is very seldom 
offered to them by their friends; on this very account 1 have frankly 
uttered it. 

Alexis de Toqueville, 

DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 

New lies for old. 

Attributed to Anna Akhmatova 



PART ONE 



The Two Methodologies 



The Problems Facing Western Analysts 



THE NONCOMMUNIST WORLD devotes considerable effort to the 
study of the communist world, and rightly so, since Western 
policy toward the communist world is based on Western 
assessments of the situation therein. Many institutions have sprung up 
in the United States, Great Britain, France, and elsewhere to study 
communist problems. Apart from traditional historical studies of 
prerevolutionary Russia and China, new specialities have been 
invented, such as "Sovietology" or the more limited "Kremlinol-ogy," 
which study the policy-making level in the Soviet Union. Analogous 
specialities have been established in the fields of "China-watching" 
and East European studies. 

The results of Western studies are valid only if two sorts of 
difficulty are successfully overcome: the general difficulties stemming 
from the concern for secrecy displayed by communist regimes and the 
special difficulties arising from their use of disinformation. The failure 
of current Western studies is due in large part to the failure to 
appreciate the second set of difficulties. 



The General Difficulties 

The general difficulties and obstacles in the way of Western studies 
derive from the nature of communist regimes and are broadly 
recognized in the West. Principal among these difficulties are: 



4 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

• Special measures taken to prevent leakage of secret information relating 
to problems of policy-making and its execution, such as the payment of a 15 
percent salary supplement to KGB officers for maintaining secrecy. 

• The existence of immensely powerful security service resources devoted 
to protecting state secrets and suppressing true freedom of expression. 

• The party and state monopoly over the publishing and communications 
media and the dissemination of information for both internal and external 
consumption. 

• Effective control and observation of foreign embassies, journalists, and 
visitors to communist countries and of their contacts in those countries. 

In principle, these measures are not new; they are the concomitants of all 
totalitarian systems, which apply them with varying techniques and degrees 
of efficiency. 

Although these difficulties complicate the study in the West of communist 
regimes and policies, they do not make it impossible. Western scholars have 
accumulated experience in dealing with the difficulties. The eyewitness 
accounts of many former inhabitants of the communist world now resident in 
the West have proved extremely helpful to the serious study of communist 
regimes and their problems in the past. If these general difficulties were the 
only ones. Western assessments of the situation in the communist world 
might be more or less accurate; however, there are other, special difficulties. 



The Special Difficulties: Disinformation 

The special difficulties derive from the deliberate efforts of communist 
governments to mislead and misdirect Western studies and assessments. 
These deliberate efforts are known as disinformation (in Russian, 
dezinformatsiya). The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia says that the word is taken 
from two French roots, de(s), implying removal or elimination, and 
information, meaning knowledge." The GSE defines disinformation as the 
dissemination through press and radio of false data with the purpose of 
misleading public opinion. It goes on to say that the capitalist press and radio 
broadly use disinformation to deceive the people of the world and to portray 



PROBLEMS FACING WESTERN ANALYSTS 5 

the new war that the Anglo-American imperialist bloc are preparing as 
defensive and the peaceful poHcy of the Soviet Union and the people's 
democracies as aggressive. 

This would have been a broadly accurate definition of disinforma- 
tion if the alleged roles of the "imperialist" and Soviet blocs had been 
reversed. In fact, disinformation has been used to a varying extent 
throughout the history of the Soviet Union. 

This book is primarily concerned with the communist use of 
strategic disinformation. 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. An understanding of the disinformation program 
is crucial to a correct analysis of the situation in the communist world, 
but its existence has been either ignored or discounted in the West. An 
attempt will be made in this book to explain, on the basis of the 
author's inside information and new methodology, the role of the 
disinformation program and the techniques employed in it. 



Disinformation in Communist Regimes 

It is not only by communist governments that disinformation is 
practiced. Nevertheless, disinformation plays a more significant role 
in communist regimes than in any other type. Its role is determined by 
the particular ways in which communist regimes respond to crises 
within their systems, by the unlimited extent of communist external 
objectives, and by the communist capacity for executing a worldwide, 
long-term, offensive political strategy. 

The role of disinformation in communist regimes can be clarified 
by comparing communist and democratic systems in the manner 



b NEW LIES FOR OLD 

in which they respond to internal crises and in the nature of their 
external policies. 

In democratic societies internal crises are usually open and limited 
in their extent. A democratic system allows for the absorption of the 
forces of popular resentment through democratic elections, judicial 
processes, and flexible responses in the form of negotiation and 
mediation. For this reason political or social protest movements do not 
normally lead to revolts of the entire population against the regime. 
Crises usually result in some readjustments in the system and may seal 
the fate of individual politicians, groups, or parties, but the basic 
stability of the system remains unaffected. This kind of flexible, 
democratic response could be seen in the United States during the 
campaign against the Vietnam War and during the Watergate crisis 
and in France after the events of May 1968. 

In communist regimes crises are usually hidden from the outside 
world; because of the absence of democratic processes and the 
suppression of internal opposition, popular political, social, and eco- 
nomic discontents accumulate and threaten to develop into serious 
upheavals or revolts of the entire population against the system as a 
whole. This happened in Hungary in 1956. The manner of solving 
such a crisis in a communist system is normally arbitrary and 
authoritarian. 

As far as external policies are concerned, those of noncommunist 
countries are normally dictated by national interest and have limited, 
short-term objectives. Except in time of war, they are usually 
defensive. Democratic governments deal directly with the govern- 
ments of other countries and are constrained in their dealings with the 
opposition except in the event of civil war. Democratic governments 
tend to be either disinclined or unprepared to take advantage of crises 
in other countries that they may or may not regard as adversaries. 

Communist external policy, on the other hand, is global, ideologi- 
cal, and long-range, and has the final objective of world domination. It 
is inherently inchned to take the initiative unless it is forced onto the 
defensive by an extraordinary combination of circumstances. 
Whatever the appearances, communist foreign policy also tends to 
place considerable emphasis on its dealings with the extreme left-wing 
opposition to the established government as well as on its dealings 
with the government itself. Communism is always 



PROBLEMS FACING WESTERN ANALYSTS 7 

inclined, and usually prepared, to take advantage of any crisis in a 
noncommunist country; it is required to do so by its long-term, 
unlimited objectives. 

The differences between communist and noncommunist systems in 
their reactions to internal crises and in their external policies 
determine the different roles of disinformation in their respective 
systems. Democratic systems, being more open and therefore inher- 
ently more stable politically, do not need disinformation to hide the 
internal crises that occur from time to time and the means by which 
they are resolved. Crises become common knowledge and cannot be 
concealed. The Watergate crisis is a case in point. The main condition 
for the successful solution of such a crisis is that it should become 
public knowledge; therefore, there is no place for disinformation. 
Although democratic governments do manage news to some extent to 
project a better image of their performance, the use of special, 
clandestine methods for internal purposes is liable to be disclosed and 
exploited by the opposition in the next election campaign. In external 
policy democratic governments may practice disinformation on a 
limited scale in pursuit of their limited, national, and normally 
defensive objectives, but such disinformation tends to be on a modest 
scale and restricted to the military and counterintelligence fields. 

In communist regimes the role of disinformation is entirely differ- 
ent. It is conditioned in part by the inherent instability of communist 
systems. The political vulnerability of communist regimes, their 
concern for stabiHty, and their undemocratic methods of resolving 
internal crises obhge them to use disinformation on a wide scale in 
order to conceal and dispel the threats to their existence and to present 
themselves in a favorable light as stable forms of society. The internal 
role of disinformation is, on the one hand, to conceal the 
undemocratic, antinational, unlawful, and even criminal methods of 
resolving internal crises and, on the other, to minimize or neutralize 
internal antiregime activities while at the same time preventing or 
neutralizing any attempt from outside to foment and exploit those 
activities. 

The special role of disinformation is enhanced by the aggressive 
and ambitious character of communist external policy. This aims at 
promoting and establishing communist regimes in noncommunist 
countries throughout the world by giving support to the extreme 



8 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

left-wing opposition, by gaining temporary political allies, by exploiting 
and deepening whatever internal crises may occur, and even by 
creating artificial crises. In order to be successful, such a policy needs 
a cloak or screen to mask or distort its specific objectives, tactics, and 
maneuvers while at the same time it creates favorable conditions in 
the countries concerned for the achievement of its goals. 
Disinformation provides this cloak or screen and also a means of 
exerting influence. It is the combination of aggressiveness with 
disinformation that gives communist policy its conspiratorial character. 
This combination is not a matter of speculation but an existing and 
constant reality in communist activity that cannot be arbitrarily 
ignored by Western governments and scholars without affecting the 
accuracy and realism of their assessments of the communist world. 

The scope and scale of disinformation activity by communist 
regimes is virtually unlimited. There are no legal or political obstacles 
to disinformation operations. A police state with its centralized 
authority, its total control over resources, its untrammeled ability to 
execute maneuvers and sudden shifts in policy, and its immunity from 
the pressures of organized public opinion offers tremendous 
advantages for disinformation operations as compared with a demo- 
cratic system. 

Given total control over the communications media, communist 
governments need have no fear of adverse publicity; they can say one 
thing in public and do the opposite in private with complete impunity. 
They can also use for disinformation purposes the facilities of their 
intelligence and security services, which operate on a scale and with 
an immunity unparalleled in the West. 

Given these advantages, it is not surprising that communist regimes 
should engage in disinformation at a state level as a significant part of 
their activities; they have unlimited opportunities to practice total 
disinformation, that is to say, to use all possible types of, and channels 
for, disinformation. 

Communist disinformation operations are controlled at the highest 
level of government. They serve to support the interests of long-range 
policy, and their forms, patterns, and objectives are therefore 
determined by the nature of the policy in any given period. 

In assessing the potentialities of communist strategic disinforma- 
tion, it should be remembered that during the Second World War 



PROBLEMS FACING WESTERN ANALYSTS 9 

the Western allies showed themselves capable of devising ingenious 
and effective military and strategic deception operations. The three 
main conditions for the success of these operations were the existence 
of clearly defined and agreed allied war aims, the wartime system of 
press and radio censorship, and the insight the allies had gained into 
German intelligence, particularly through their ability to decipher 
German communications. In 1958-60 the communist regimes enjoyed 
comparable conditions and advantages in relation to the West. 



The Patterns of Disinformation: 
"Weakness and Evolution" 



THREE PATTERNS OF COMMUNIST STRATEGIC DISINFORMA- 
TION may be distinguished: a pattern for a period in which a 
specific, long-range policy is being pursued; a pattern for a 
period of crisis in a communist regime or its policy; and a pattern for a 
transitional period. 



The "Weakness and Evolution" Pattern 

The pattern of disinformation used during the implementation of a 
long-range policy may be called the "weakness and evolution" pattern, 
or the pattern of "calculated ideological moderation." Its aim is to 
calm the fears of the adversaries of international communism by 
understating real communist strength and to confound the policies of 
those adversaries by masking the realities of communist policy. 

When following this pattern, therefore, disinformation reflects real 
or imaginary weaknesses, splits, and crises in the communist world 
and projects an image of evolution away from an ideological toward a 
conventional, national system. The intention is that the nations of the 
noncommunist world, accepting the alleged disunity and evolution of 
the communist world as genuine, will fail to respond effectively to 
communist offensive strategy and, in their confusion, will be induced 
to make practical miscalculations and mistakes in their dealings with 
the communist world. The major role of disinformation in the 
weakness and evolution pattern is to conceal 



PATTERNS : WEAKNESS AND EVOLUTION 11 

and misrepresent the real nature, objectives, tactics, and techniques of 
communist pohcy. 

In order to gain and exploit temporary, tactical political allies and 
to avoid alarming them, efforts are made to conceal or understate the 
actual strength and aggressiveness of communism. Factual 
information favorable to communist regimes is withheld or down- 
graded; unfavorable information is disclosed, leaked, or invented. 
Given that communist, unlike democratic, governments are not 
concerned about their electoral prospects, they can afford to reveal 
true or false information unfavorable to themselves. During a period 
of policy implementation, real and artificial weaknesses in the system 
are emphasized; readjustments and solutions are presented as failures; 
ideological differences between communist and noncommunist 
systems are played down; calculated moderation in, and even some 
departures from, communist dogma are permitted; common features 
and common interests between communist and democratic systems 
are overemphasized or exaggerated; long-range communist objectives 
and coordinated action in pursuit of them are hidden. But the major 
feature of this pattern is the projection of alleged splits and crises in 
the communist world and the alleged evolution of communist states 
into independent, conventional nation-states motivated like any others 
primarily by national interests. The pattern determines the forms and 
means. Special disinformation operations play the leading part; 
propaganda is relegated to a supporting role. 



The Precedent of the NEP 

The weakness and evolution pattern was used successfully by Lenin 
in the 1920s. In 1921 Soviet Russia faced imminent collapse. Industry 
lay ruined by the war; agriculture was in crisis. The Russian people, 
disillusioned by the rigid policy of "war communism," were on the 
brink of revolt; the policy of terror was proving ineffective; there were 
peasant uprisings in Siberia and along the Volga; nationalist 
movements in the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Central Asia were 
openly proclaiming separatism and posed a serious threat to national 
unity; the sailors at the Kronstadt Naval Base revolted. Abroad, the 
hopes of world revolution had faded after communist defeats in 
Germany, Poland, and Hungary. The major European 



12 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

powers, although not united, were individually hostile to communism 
and to the new Soviet state; a huge Russian emigre movement, spread 
across Europe, was plotting the overthrow of the regime. Soviet 
Russia was in complete political and economic isolation. 

It was in this situation, facing a highly unfavorable balance of 
power vis-a-vis the West, that Lenin conceived and launched a long- 
range policy that, over the following eight years, was to show 
spectacular success. It was given the deliberately misleading title of 
the New Economic Policy, or NEP. In fact, it ranged far beyond the 
economy, defining also the principal political and ideological 
objectives and tactics for the regime internally and externally and the 
strategy for the international communist movement. Within the terms 
of the NEP, the Soviet leaders were to eliminate separatism by 
creating a federation of national republics, the USSR. They were to 
introduce national long-term economic planning. They were to plan 
and build an electric power system to cover and bind together the 
whole country. They were to start to change the world balance of 
power in communist favor. 

To the world at large, the NEP meant that foreign industrialists 
were offered concessions in Soviet industry and invited to open 
businesses in Soviet Russia; that Soviet industrial enterprises were to 
be reorganized as trusts and operated on a profit basis; that smaller 
enterprises and properties could be owned by cooperatives or private 
individuals; that money was back in use and private trade permitted; 
that restrictions on travel were relaxed; that emigres were encouraged 
to return under amnesty, while some Soviet citizens were allowed to 
emigrate; and that Soviet diplomacy was seeking peaceful coexistence 
with the West. 

The Soviet leaders saw it differently. They intended that the NEP 
would not only bring about economic recovery, but would also serve 
to prevent internal revolt, expand foreign trade, attract foreign capital 
and expertise, gain diplomatic recognition from non-communist 
countries, prevent major conflict with the Western powers, help to 
exploit the contradictions in and between the capitalist countries, 
neutralize the emigre movement, and help to promote world 
revolution through the communist movement. 

Lenin believed that this fundamentally aggressive and ideological 
policy could prove effective if it was accompanied by the systematic 
use of misrepresentation and deception, or, to use the current word, 



PATTERNS: WEAKNESS AND EVOLUTION 13 

disinformation. The cliaracteristics of this disinformation were an 
apparent moderation in communist ideology, the avoidance of refer- 
ences to violence in communist methods, the exaggeration of the 
degree of the restoration of capitalism in Soviet Russia, the use of a 
sober and businesslike style in diplomatic and commercial 
negotiations with the West, and emphasis on disarmament and 
peaceful coexistence. All of this was intended to induce the belief in 
the outside world that the communist system was weak and losing its 
revolutionary ardor. Left to itself, it would either disintegrate or come 
to terms with the capitalist system. 

The Soviet security service was reorganized, renamed the OGPU, 
and given new political tasks. It was directed to mount disinformation 
and political operations. False opposition movements were set up and 
controlled secretly by the OGPU. They were designed to attract to 
their ranks genuine opponents of the regime inside and outside the 
country. These innocent persons could then be used by the regime in 
various ways. They could act as channels for disinformation; they 
could be blackmailed and recruited as agents; they could be arrested 
and given public trials. A characteristic, but not unique, example of 
this technique is provided by the so-called "Trust" operation. 

In 1921, as the NEP was being launched, the OGPU created inside 
S oviet Russi a a false anti -S o viet organi zation, the M onarchi st 
Alliance of Central Russia. It had once been a genuine organization, 
founded by Czarist generals in Moscow and Leningrad but liquidated 
by the Soviet security service in 1919-20. Former members of this 
organization, among them Czarist generals and members of the old 
aristocracy who had come over to the Soviet side, nominally led the 
movement. Their new loyalty to the Soviet regime was not in doubt, 
for they had betrayed their former friends in the anticommunist 
underground. They were the Czarist generals Brusilov and 
Zaynchkovskiy; the Czarist military attache in Yugoslavia, General 
Potapov; and the Czarist transport official Yakushev. The most active 
agent in the Trust was a former intelligence officer of the General 
Staff in Czarist Russia whose many names included Opperput. 

Agents of the Trust traveled abroad and established confidential 
contact with genuine anticommunist emigre leaders in order (osten- 
sibly) to coordinate activity against the Soviet regime. Among the 



14 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

important emigres they met were Boris Savinkov and Generals 
Wrangel and Kutepov. 

These agents confided in their contacts that the anti-Soviet mon- 
archist movement that they represented was now well established in 
Soviet Russia, had penetrated into the higher levels of the army, the 
security service, and even the government, and would in time take 
power and restore the monarchy. They convinced the emigre leaders 
that the regime had undergone a radical change. Communism had 
completely failed; ideology was dead; the present leaders had nothing 
in common with the fanatical revolutionaries of the past. They were 
nationalists at heart, and their regime was evolving into a moderate, 
national regime and might soon collapse. The NEP should be seen as 
the first important concession on the road to restoring capitalism in 
Russia. Soon political concessions would follow. Because of this, said 
the Trust agents, any intervention or gesture of hostility from the 
European powers or the emigre movements would be ill-advised, if 
not tragic, since it would only unite the Russian people around their 
government and so extend its survival. The European governments 
and the emigre leaders should put a stop to anti-Soviet terrorist 
activities and change their attitude from hostility toward the Soviet 
regime to one of passive acceptance. They should grant diplomatic 
recognition and increase trade. In this way they would have a better 
opportunity to contribute to the evolutionary process. The emigre 
leaders should return to Russia to make their contribution. 

Naturally there were doubters among the emigres, but the prestige 
of the leaders of the organization (particularly, of General Brusilov) 
convinced the majority. They accepted at face value the Trust's 
disinformation and passed it on to their influential friends in the 
European intelligence services. By the time it had been circulated to 
governments as "secret" intelligence it sounded most impressive, and 
when as time went on the same story was confirmed by source after 
source, it became "secret and reliable." The intelligence services of 
Europe were committed and it was unthinkable that they could all be 
wrong. 

While the Trust was thriving the OGPU took control, wholly or 
partially, of two other movements calculated to influence the political 
climate in support of the NEP. They were the "Change of Signposts" 
movement and the "Eurasian" movement. The first 



PATTERNS: WEAKNESS AND EVOLUTION 15 

was used by the Soviet security service to mislead emigres and 
intellectuals in Europe into believing that the strength of communist 
ideology was on the wane and that the Soviet regime was evolving 
into a more moderate, national state. The movement published, with 
unofficial government assistance, a weekly magazine in Prague and 
Paris, The Change of Signposts, and in Berlin a paper. On the Eve. In 
1922, at some risk, the Soviet government allowed two magazines to 
be published in Leningrad and Moscow, New Russia and Russia. 
They were intended to exert a similar influence on intellectuals inside 
the country. 

By 1926 all publications of the Change of Signposts movement had 
been wound up, the movement disbanded, and some of its leaders in 
the Soviet Union arrested. An official Soviet publication partially 
confirms the exploitation of the movement and describes its end. 
Shortly afterward, operation Trust was terminated with the arrest of 
those opponents of the regime who had been unwise enough to reveal 
themselves as such by associating with the Trust. 

To impress the Soviet people, trials of members of the opposition — 
some genuine, some false — were held throughout the country. 
Abroad, various means were used to damage, disrupt, and discredit 
both the emigre movements and the European intelligence services. 
Agents of both — some genuine, some false — were publicly tried in 
absentia; leaders of the emigre movements, European journalists, 
businessmen, diplomats, and government officials were blackmailed, 
on the basis of their involvement, into working for Soviet intelligence; 
individual emigre leaders, including Boris Savinkov and General 
Kutepov, and the Estonian ambassador in Moscow, Birk, were 
kidnapped; compromised spies were exchanged or recovered; selected 
persons and governments were held up to ridicule as 'Tools who had 
been deluded by the clever OGPU provocation" or were pressured or 
blackmailed by the threat of being discredited. For example, as late as 
1944, during the Soviet occupation of Finland, Zhdanov threatened 
Finnish President Mannerheim that if he did not comply with Soviet 
demands, he would be put on public trial for his involvement in anti- 
Soviet activities during operation Trust and thus be squeezed out of 
politics. 

The NEP was officially ended by Stalin in 1929 with what was 
called "a socialist offensive on all fronts." The concessions to foreign 
industrialists were canceled; private enterprise in the Soviet Union 



16 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

was prohibited; private property was confiscated; agriculture was 
collectivized; repression of political opposition was intensified. The 
NEP might never have been. 



The Results of the NEP 

Agriculture, industry, and trade all improved dramatically under the 
NEP. Although the NEP failed to attract large credits from the West, it 
brought technology and efficient new equipment. Thousands of 
Western technicians helped to industrialize the Soviet Union, and 
Western firms built essential factories there. It is fair to say that the 
foundations of Soviet heavy and military industry were laid in the 
1920s with American, British, Czechoslovak, and, after the Treaty of 
Rapallo (1922), German help. Germany played an especially 
significant role in the Soviet militarization. According to the secret 
clauses of the treaty, Germans helped to build modern aviation and 
tank factories in the USSR. Communists spoke cynically of foreign 
concessionaires and businessmen as "assistants of socialism." Long- 
range planning and industrialization were launched. De jure 
recognition of the Soviet Union by the West helped the regime to 
neutralize internal opposition and so to stabilize itself politically. The 
remnants of other political parties (Socialist Revolutionaries, 
Mensheviks, Zionists) were suppressed, Hquidated, or exiled. The 
peasants were pacified. The independence of the churches was broken 
and new, controlled "living churches" accepted the regime. The 
nationalist and separatist movements in Georgia, the Ukraine, 
Armenia, and the Asian republics were crushed and their nations fully 
incorporated into the federal union. No new organized political 
opposition to the regime emerged during the NEP. Regular purges of 
communist party membership kept ideological purity intact; a 
minority of members succumbed to the temptations of capitalism and 
were expelled. The party and security service gained experience in 
activist methods and in controlling contacts with the West. The 
security service began to exercise effective control over Soviet 
society. 

The European bloc that it was anticipated would be formed against 
the Soviet Union did not materialize. De jure recognition was granted 
by all major countries except the USA. The Russian 



PATTERNS: WEAKNESS AND EVOLUTION 17 

emigre movement was successfully penetrated, discredited, and left to 
disintegrate. The Treaty of Rapallo, signed with Germany in 1922 (the 
crowning achievement of Lenin's activist diplomacy), raised Soviet 
prestige, helped to increase Soviet military strength, precluded a 
united anticommunist front in Europe, and weakened the Weimar 
Republic. 

Between 1921 and 1929 twelve new communist parties joined the 
Comintern, bringing the total to forty-six. By the use of legal tactics, 
communist parties increased their influence in trade unions and 
parliaments. Though the bid to form a united front with the Socialist 
Internationals failed, some socialist parties — the German, French, 
Spanish, and Czechoslovak — split under the influence of the 
communist approach; the left-wing groups joined communist parties 
or formed new ones. Valuable experience was gained by the 
Comintern in the simultaneous use of revolutionary as well as legal 
tactics, in its readiness to switch from the one to the other, and in its 
ability to coordinate with Soviet diplomacy. United front tactics were 
successfully used by the communists in Nationalist China. Mongolia 
became the first Soviet satellite. 



The Lesson of the NEP 

The disinformation of the NEP period had been successful. Seen 
through Western eyes, the threat of communism under the NEP 
seemed to have become diffused. Fear of Bolshevism waned. The 
position of anticommunists was undermined. Expectations of rap- 
prochement were aroused. The Western public, reluctant to make 
sacrifices, urged their governments toward further accommodation 
with the Soviet regime. In reality, of course, the challenge of com- 
munism had been reinforced: Western expectations were later to be 
rudely shattered. But the communist strategists had learned the lesson 
that Western leaders could be deceived and induced to make mistakes 
in their assessments of, and policy toward, the Soviet Union. 
Disinformation had in fact created favorable conditions for the 
success of Soviet internal policy, activist diplomacy, and Comintern 
activity. 



The Patterns of Disinformation: 
"Facade and Strength" 



IF A COMMUNIST REGIME IS IN A STATE OF CRISIS, if the regime is 
weak, if its leadership is split or compromised, the logical pattern 
for disinformation is to conceal the crisis and its dimensions, to 
attract attention to other areas and problems, and to present the 
situation both domestically and to the outside world in as favorable a 
light as possible. This is the "facade and strength," or Potemkin 
village, pattern of disinformation. It has been applied in all commu- 
nist countries, including, for example, China and Romania as well as 
the Soviet Union. 

The general pattern of disinformation determines the forms it takes 
and the techniques used. In the facade and strength pattern, 
information damaging to the regime is suppressed and information 
favorable to it is exaggerated. The real issues are reflected vaguely, if 
at all, in the press. Statistics are withheld or inflated. Propaganda 
plays a leading role to the extent that it becomes in itself the main 
form of disinformation. Special deceptions are carried out to support 
the credibility of the propaganda. The failures and weakness of the 
regime are presented as its successes and strengths. Political and 
ideological passivity and retreat are presented as political and 
ideological victories. Concern about the future is presented as 
confidence. The fears of the outside world at communist strength are 
deliberately aroused and the communist threat is exaggerated out of 
proportion to its actual potential in order to discourage external 
intervention in communist affairs. 

Massive use of disinformation in accordance with this pattern was 
made during Stalin's purges and during the last years of his 

18 



PATTERNS: FACADE AND STRENGTH 19 

life. For instance, during the mass repressions of the 1930s the regime 
projected itself to the outside world, not without success, as a model 
democratic system under a strong leader. The Red Army, whose 
officer corps had been all but eliminated, was presented as the most 
powerful army in the world. In the postwar period the decline in the 
influence of communist ideology and the degree of popular discontent 
in the Soviet Union and its East European satellites were hidden; the 
significance of the opposition to Stalin from Zhdanov and his 
Leningrad group in 1948 was successfully concealed; so were tensions 
between the Soviets and Chinese and other communist countries. The 
bloc was misrepresented as a monolith. The political, military, and 
economic strength of the so-called monolith was grossly exaggerated 
in communist propaganda, the main vehicle for disinformation. 

To prevent the West from detecting the depth of the internal crisis 
in the bloc that the propaganda was intended to conceal, contact 
between the communist and noncommunist worlds was reduced to the 
absolute minimum. Soviet and satellite citizens were prohibited from 
foreign travel except as members of official delegations; delegates 
were thoroughly checked before they left and kept under close watch 
while abroad. The only visitors to the bloc from noncommunist 
countries were communists or fellow travelers, and even they were 
thoroughly screened before their visits were authorized. When they 
arrived their itineraries were firmly supervised, with a large part of 
their program being devoted to visiting collective farms and factories 
that were organized as showplaces. Foreign diplomats and journalists 
were subjected to rigid restrictions; their travel was limited to a 
twenty-five-kilometer zone around the capital. Strict procedures for 
official contacts between foreign diplomats and communist officials 
were established; special decrees were enacted in 1946-47 defining the 
responsibility of Soviet officials when handling state secrets. Western 
contact with the man in the street hardly existed; and when it did, it 
was controlled. By these measures the communist countries were 
literally sealed off fi-om the rest of the world. 

Communist newspapers were devoid of any genuine news. Their 
articles were concerned only with the strength of the regime, the 
achievements of the leaders, and the shortcomings of the noncom- 
munist world. Only those skilled at analyzing propaganda and disin- 



20 NEWLIESFOROLD 

formation could sometimes read between the lines and deduce an inkling of 
what was really going on. 



Official Speeches and Party Documents 

An example of the facade and strength pattern practiced at the time can be 
found in the report of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Nineteenth 
Party Congress in October 1952. It dealt with the political and economic 
situation in the USSR and the communist bloc after the war. These are some 
extracts: 

The grain problem [in the Soviet Union] has been solved, solved definitely 
and finally. 

The achievements in all branches of the national economy have led to a 
further improvement in the material and cultural standards of Soviet 
society. 

Undeviatingly implementing the national policy of Lenin and Stalin, our 
Party strengthened the Soviet multi-national state, promoted friendship and 
co-operation between the peoples of the Soviet Union, did everything to 
support, ensure and encourage the efflorescence of the national cultures of 
the peoples of our country, and waged an uncompromising struggle against 
all and sundry nationalist elements. The Soviet political system, which has 
gone through the severe test of war and has become for the whole world an 
example and model of true equal rights and co-operation of nations, stands 
witness to the great triumph of the ideas of Lenin and Stalin on the 
nationality question. 

The USSR's relations with these countries [the communist satellites] are an 
example of entirely new relations among states, not met with before in 
history. They are based on the principles of equal rights, economic co- 
operation and respect for national independence. Faithful to its treaties of 
mutual assistance, the USSR is rendering, and will continue to render, 
assistance and support in the further consolidation and development of 
these countries. 

This report was a travesty of the real state of affairs. What it said was the 
direct opposite of the truth. Those who composed 



PATTERNS: FACADE AND STRENGTH 21 

it, those who approved it, and those who spoke it knew full well that it 
was totally false. 



Special Disinformation Operations 

A special Disinformation Service {Service 5) was created in 1947 
as part of the Soviet intelligence service, known then as the Committee 
of Information (KI). It was headed by Colonel Grauehr.^ 

Special disinformation operations by communist intelligence ser- 
vices are never regarded as ends in themselves. They are intended to 
serve the ends of policy, usually by creating and shaping the 
conditions for its successful implementation. Since in the last years of 
Stalin's life there was an acute crisis in Soviet affairs and a lack of any 
coherent policy for resolving it, the special operations of Service 5 
were limited in scope to unattributable propaganda operations 
designed to conceal the crisis and to justify some of the more 
outrageous and irrational instances of Stalin's behavior. One example 
was the effort to plant the suspicion that Tito and other Yugoslav 
leaders were long-term Western agents. 

A further limiting factor on the scope of special disinformation 
operations was the cult of personality, which pervaded Stalin's dicta- 
torship and forbade frankness even when it was required to give 
credibihty to a falsehood. Two examples illustrate this. A Soviet agent 
was sent on a mission to the West. He was to pretend that he was a 
defector seeking political asylum. The host country allowed him to 
give a press conference, at which, not unnaturally, he criticized the 
Soviet regime. When Stalin read the report of the press conference, he 
asked who was the agent's controller, and then said: "Where did he 
work before he went into intelligence?" "He was a collective farmer," 
answered the chief of the service. "Then," said Stalin, "send him back 
to his kolkhoz if he cannot understand how damaging his agent's 
statements are. They point to our political instability." 

On another occasion the Polish security service created the fiction 
that an underground organization in Poland, which had in fact been 
liquidated, was still active. They wanted to use the notional 
organization as a channel for political and military disinformation. 
When Stalin was asked to authorize the passing of this disinforma- 



22 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

tion, he refused. "It gives the wrong impression of Poland's political 
stability," he explained. 

In 1951, when Soviet intelligence was transferred from the KI 
(Committee of Information) to the MGB (Ministry of State Security), 
Service 5 became a directorate in the new KI under the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs, dealing only with diplomatic disinformation. During 
the anti-Semitic campaign in 1951-53 Service 5 was as demoralized as 
the rest of the intelligence service. In fact, its head, Grauehr, went 
mad. He was succeeded by Ivan Ivanovich Tugarinov, who later 
became head of the KI. 



The Patterns of Disinformation: 
Transition 



THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER BETWEEN STALIN'S SUCCESSORS lasted from 
Stalin's death in 1953 to Khrushchev's final victory in June 
1957. To an important extent, the struggle was not only between 
rival personalities, but between rival policies. In the absence of a 
settled and consistent policy, it is not surprising that there should have 
been no centrahzed disinformation department in Soviet intelligence 
during the period. Disinformation was practiced sporadically by heads 
of departments acting on the instructions of the head of the service. 

The aims of disinformation at this time were to conceal from the 
West the dimensions of the internal crisis in the communist world, to 
blur the differences in policy of the contenders for the succession, to 
hide the savagery of the struggle, and to misrepresent the process of 
de-Stalinization. 

The successful concealment of internal crisis can be illustrated by 
the handling of information on events in Georgia. 

On March 5, 1956, the anniversary of Stalin's death, the first mass 
disturbance happened in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. Large crowds 
of people, especially students, gathered spontaneously for an anti- 
Soviet meeting in the main square. The speakers demanded the 
abolition of one-party rule, dissolution of the security service, 
freedom of speech, and the independence of Georgia from the Soviet 
Union. The students appealed to the crowds to join the revolt, and 
many Georgians responded to the appeal. On Khrushchev's order the 
special troops were put on the streets, with orders to fire on the 
crowds. Many were killed and wounded. Many stu- 

23 



24 NEWLIESFOROLD 

dents were arrested. The national units of the Georgian and Armenian 
troops in the local military district were disarmed and demobilized in 
one night. 

What happened in Georgia in the spring of 1956 can be Mkened to 
"Bloody Sunday" (January 9, 1905), a day infamous in Russian 
history when, on the orders of the Czar, a people's demonstration was 
dispersed with bloodshed. In 1905 Bloody Sunday was headlined in 
every newspaper in Russia, arousing mass indignation throughout the 
country. In 1956 the event was ignored. Not a newspaper mentioned 
it. It was as if it had never happened. It still remains a state secret that 
Khrushchev and Serov, the Chairman of the KGB, rushed to Georgia 
to direct the suppression of the disturbance. 

Georgia was completely isolated from the rest of the country. The 
area, which attracts holidaymakers from all over the Soviet Union to 
its famous resorts, was deserted throughout the summer of 1956. Rigid 
travel control was imposed. It was explained, semiofficially, that the 
strong nationalist feelings of the Georgians had been upset by the 
condemnation of Stalin. 

News of the disturbance in Georgia did later filter through to the 
West, but it was interpreted as a nationalist outburst of discontent with 
the treatment of Stalin, not as a spontaneous demonstration against the 
whole Soviet system. 



The Misrepresentation of De-Stalinization 

As for the struggle for power, the Central Committee, the KI under 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the KGB were all involved by 
Khrushchev in a successful disinformation operation to misrepresent 
the reasons for the removal of his rivals and the real character of his 
own position and policy. Since this operation involved 
misrepresentation of the issues involved in Stalinism and de- 
Staiinization and provided part of the basic technique for the program 
of strategic disinformation operations launched in 1959, it merits 
detailed explanation. 

To avoid misunderstanding, it is useful to begin by drawing a 
distinction between anticommunism and anti-Stalinism and by de- 
fining the extent to which de-Stalinization is a genuine process. 



PATTERNS: TRANSITION 25 

Anti CO mmuni sm 

Anti communism is not specifically linked with hostility to any 

individual communist leader. It means opposition to communist 
principles and practice; it is critical of communism in the broadest 
sense. It has existed in various forms inside and outside the Soviet 
Union since before 1917. It developed in Lenin's time, flourished 
under Stalin, and persisted, if less vigorously, under his successors. 
Within it three trends can be distinguished: a conservative trend, 
which is more or less rigid and consistent in its opposition; a liberal 
trend, which from time to time favors a degree of accommodation 
with communism; and a neutralist trend, particularly among non- 
communist neighbors of the communist bloc who try to make practical 
arrangements with communist regimes to secure their own survival. 

Anticommunism in the intelligentsia may spring from the rejection 
on intellectual grounds of the dogmatic pretensions of Marxism as a 
philosophy. At all levels of society it is nurtured by the belief that 
communism is an unnatural, intolerant, and inhuman system that 
disregards the individual, maintains itself largely by force and terror, 
and pursues an aggressive ideological policy aimed at eventual 
domination of the world. In the past, communist theory and practice in 
such matters as the seizure of power, the abuse and destruction of 
democratic institutions, the suppression of personal liberty, and the 
use of terror provoked a militant response from social democrats, 
which led to a deepening gulf between socialist and communist parties 
and a split in the international labor movement. 

The strength of international anticommunism has waxed and 
waned. The two high peaks were the Anglo-French effort to create a 
European anti-Soviet coalition during the civil war in Russia from 
1918 to 1921, and the creation of NATO after the Second World War. 

Inside and outside the Soviet Union, anticommunism has expressed 
itself in various forms from 1917 onward. Typical examples are found 
in the civil war in Russia, 1918-21; the separatist movements in the 
non-Russian republics; the revolts in the Caucasus and Central Asia in 
the 1920s; the later underground resistance movements in the Ukraine 
and Baltic republics; and in the activities 



26 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

of emigre organizations, political refugees, and those who broke with 
the Western communist parties. 

Opposition of this kind would have existed whether or not Stalin 
had ever been in power, though it was strengthened and hardened by 
his repressive influence. In fact, so personal and despotic was Stalin's 
rule that, for a while, Stalinism became almost synonymous with 
communism, and opposition to the one became confused with 
opposition to the other, particularly since Stahn repressed both kinds 
of opposition with equal ruthlessness and severity. In the 1930s he 
crushed actual and imaginary opposition to himself by mass 
repressions, even of party members. Some of the leaders of the Third 
International, like Zinovyev, Bukharin, and Bela Kun, were shot. 
Trotskiy, who along with social democratic leaders was regarded by 
Stalin as being among the most dangerous enemies of the Soviet 
Union, was assassinated in 1940 by secret agents acting on Stalin's 
orders. Social democratic leaders in Eastern Europe after the Second 
World War were physically eliminated. 



Anti-Stalinism 

AH anti communists are anti-Stalinists. But the important point to 
note is that anti-Stalinism has traditionally been embraced by many 
communists who have sought not to abolish the communist system, 
but to strengthen and purify it by eliminating certain elements in 
Stalin's policy and practice. Anti -Stalinism of this type is critical of 
communism only in a narrow sense. It has existed in the communist 
movement since 1922. After Stalin's death it became an element in 
official party hfe and policy and gave rise to the genuine process of 
de-Stalinization. 

In many respects Stalin's policy followed classical Leninist doc- 
trine: for example, in the dictatorship of the proletariat and the 
communist party, industrialization, the collectivization of agriculture, 
the elimination of the capitalist classes, the construction of 
"socialism" in the Soviet Union, and in support for "socialist" 
revolutions abroad. But there were also departures from Leninist 
principles and practice in Stalin's establishment of his personal 
dictatorship, in his ruthless physical elimination of opposition and 



PATTERNS: TRANSITION 27 

repression of loyal elements within the party, in the widening gulf he created 
between the ruling class and the underprivileged workers and collective 
farmers, and in the manipulation and discrediting of communist ideology. 
Communist opposition to Stalin was expressed over the years: 

• By Lenin, who in his testament criticized Stalin's rudeness and intoler- 
ance and suggested that he should be removed from the post of general 
secretary of the party. 

• Publicly, in the 1920s and 1930s, by Trotskiy and his followers, who 
distinguished between the Leninist and Stalinist elements in Stalin's policies. 

• Publicly by Tito and the Yugoslav Communist party, during and after 
the split with Stahn in 1948. 

• Secretly by Zhdanov and his Leningrad group in 1948. 

• Secretly by the Chinese Communist leaders from 1950 to 1953 and 
openly in 1956. 

• In deeds rather than words from 1953 to 1956, and openly from 1956 
onward, by the leaders of the CPSU and other communist parties. 

The criticisms of these individuals and groups varied in intensity and 
outspokenness, but all of them remained communists in their different ways 
and, in particular, they all retained their loyalty to Leninism. Theirs was a 
true expression of de-Stalinization; that is to say, they believed in the 
restoration of Leninist communism without Stalinist deviations. 

The dangers of Stalinism to the communist movement were ignored or 
overlooked in the 1930s and 1940s because of the threat of fascism and the 
opportunities that it provided for the formation of popular fronts with 
socialist parties in the 1930s and for the forging of the wartime alliance with 
the Western powers. But by 1953-56, the damage Stalinism had done to the 
communist cause was apparent. It could be seen in the following: 

• The distortion, degradation, and discrediting of communist ideology. The image 
of Marxism as a philosophy had been tarnished in the eyes of Western intellectuals. 

• Deepening discontent in the Soviet Union and its satellites, leading 



2S NEWLIESFOROLD 

to explosive revolutionary situations in East Germany, Poland, and Hungary. 

• The decline of communist influence and the isolation of communist 
parties and regimes. 

• The revulsion against Stahnist communism of Western liberals who had 
earlier been sympathetic. 

• The increased influence and prestige of anticommunism. 

• Strong opposition from various religious movements, including Ca- 
tholicism and Islam. 

• The formation of Western military alliances, such as NATO, SEATO, 
and the Bagdad pact (later CENTO). 

• Hostility from moderate, genuinely nonaligned national leaders of the 
developing countries, such as Nehru. 

• Cooperation between Western democratic governments and anticom- 
munist emigre organizations. 

• Collaboration between social democratic and conservative governments 
and parties against the Soviet threat. 

• Yugoslavia's break with the communist bloc and rapprochement with 
the West in the period 1948-55. 

• The serious tensions between the Soviet Union and Communist China, 
which threatened to create a split between them in 1950-53. 

• Zhdanov's opposition to Stalin. 

• The major power struggle in the Soviet leadership that followed Stalin's 
death. 

In some areas Stalinism brought together the two kinds of opposition: 
anticommunism and anti-Stalinism. In the case of Yugoslavia, which found 
itself closer to the West than to the communist bloc after 1948, they almost 
fused. In the present context, the most significant episode in the history of 
unsuccessful opposition to Stalin during his lifetime was the attempt to form 
a group around Zhdanov in 1948. Although it was a failure, it was known to 
Stahn's immediate heirs in the Soviet leadership. It was part of their 
accumulated store of knowledge of the various forms of opposition to 
communism and Stalinism and an important argument in compelling them to 
face the need to correct Stahnist distortions in the system if they were to 
avoid disaster. De-Stalinization was the obvious course, and an account must 
now be given of how it was put into effect after Stalin's death. 



PATTERNS: TRANSITION 29 

De-Stalinization in Practice 

Three different phases of de-Stalinization can be distinguished: 
first, an initial, unrehearsed, and ill-considered but genuine de-Stal- 
inization, carried out from 1953 to 1956 by a confused, divided, and 
competing leadership under pressure from the populace and in the 
absence of any long-range policy for the bloc; second, a setback to de- 
Stalinization in 1956-57, when Khrushchev was resorting to Stalinist 
methods to suppress revolt in Hungary and opposition to himself in 
order to secure his own personal preeminence; third, a cautious revival 
from 1958 onward of some genuine elements of de-Stalinization (for 
instance, the gradual release and rehabilitation of some of Stalin's 
victims) coupled with a calculated political exploitation of the process 
in which some of its elements were deliberately misrepresented. 



Improvised De-Stalinization from 1953 to 1956 

De-Stalinization began not, as is often assumed, with Khrushchev's 
secret report to the Twentieth CPSU Congress in February 1956, but 
immediately after Stalin's death in March 1953. Each one of the 
pretenders to the succession, Beriya, Malenkov, Molotov, Bulganin, 
and Khrushchev, was in his different way an anti-Stalinist. All of them 
without exception knew of the crisis in the communist system and all 
of them agreed on the urgent necessity of abandoning Stalinist 
policies. On the other hand, there was disagreement on the nature and 
extent of the changes needed. None of the pretenders was preeminent, 
none of them had worked out the details of his own policies, and — 
living as they had done under Stalin's shadow — no agreements on 
policy had been worked out among them. 

The different personalities and policies of the pretenders affected 
the course of de-Stalinization. Beriya had in mind the deepest and 
most heterodox forms of change, including the abolition of collective 
farms. Malenkov, the most confident of the leaders in his own 
position, went further than the others in open condemnation of secret 
police methods and advocacy of concessions to popular demands. De- 
Stalinization was initiated not by Khrushchev, but by Malenkov, 
Beriya, and Molotov, who dominated the Presidium after Stalin's 
death. 



30 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Several steps were taken more or less immediately. The cases of 
certain leading personalities who had been tried and imprisoned under 
Stalin were reviewed. The Kremlin doctors were released. A ban on 
mass arrests was issued. International tension was eased by the 
settlement of the Korean War. Stalin's instruction of December 1952 
on the reactivation of Soviet intelligence abroad was canceled, lest it 
should compromise the impact of the new moderation in Soviet 
foreign policy. 

The first hint of the downgrading of Stalin's role and the admission 
of his mistakes was given in July 1953 in a secret party letter to the 
party membership informing them of Beriya's dismissal and the 
reasons for it. It referred to Stalin not as an outstanding leader, but 
simply as "Stalin, 1. V.," and bracketed his name with that of Beriya, 
stating that Stalin's favoritism had prevented Beriya's exposure. It was 
the first tacit admission to the party membership of the fallibility of 
Stalin. 

Later it became known in party circles that a discussion took place 
in the Presidium on Malenkov's initiative in July 1953 after Beriya's 
arrest. It was unanimously decided to make changes in Stalinist 
practices in the party and administration, although without public 
criticism of Stalin. In particular the Presidium recommended a 
reexamination and reform of the practices of the security service with 
the idea that, at a future date when the situation in the party and in the 
country had settled down, a reasonable explanation should be found 
for Stalin's deviations from communist principles, such as his 
unjustified repressions of personnel, including party members. All 
members of the Presidium, including Khrushchev, agreed that only 
Stalin and Beriya should be criticized and that there should be no 
admission of mistakes by other members of the Presidium. 

Thus the secret report on Stalin's crimes, delivered by Khrushchev 
in February 1956 at the Twentieth Party Congress, which later found 
its way to the West but which has never been published in the Soviet 
Union, was in fact the consequence of a Presidium decision. The 
report was prepared by Pospelov, the head of the Marx-Engels-Lenin- 
Stalin Party Research Institute. The facts were taken from secret 
security service archives, and many of the ideas from accounts of 
Stalin's repression of the Leninist "Old Guard" found in the memoirs 
of former communist leaders published in 



PATTERNS: TRANSITION 31 

the West in the 1930s, especially in those of Trotskiy. The draft of 
Pospelov's report was discussed and approved by the Presidium on the 
eve of the party congress.' While delivering the report, Khrushchev 
added some personal touches of his own. 

The most important point about the report was that it prevented de- 
Stalinization from developing into an attack on communist principles 
as a whole. The changes that Beriya and Malenkov had in mind in 
their revisionist version of de-Stalinization might have altered the 
regime in principle. Furthermore, given the depth of the crisis in the 
communist world and the intensity of the struggle for power in the 
Soviet leadership, if those changes had been pursued, they might have 
developed a momentum of their own and brought about a radical 
transformation of Soviet society regardless of the wishes of their 
initiators and with incalculable consequences for the Soviet Union and 
the rest of the communist and noncom-munist world. It was not 
without reason that Beriya was shot for being an "agent of world 
imperialism," and that Malenkov was dismissed as Prime Minister in 
1955 for "departing from Lenin's and Stalin's theories." Their ideas 
had indeed threatened the regime and could have led to a situation that 
they would have been unable to control. By pinning the blame for all 
past mistakes on the misdeeds — not the theories — of one single 
individual, Stalin, the party leadership was able, while introducing 
some tactical changes, to preserve the essence of the communist 
regime. 



Re-Stalinization 

The exposure of Stalin's mistakes gave a substantial boost to 
anticommunism in general and to anti -Stalinist feeling in both the bloc 
and nonbloc communist parties. Revolts occurred in Georgia, Poland, 
and Hungary. The crisis in many other communist parties deepened. 

Khrushchev's response was to revert to Stalinist methods. The 
security service was strengthened; armed force was used to crush 
revolt in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 

Khrushchev's progress toward his own form of personal dictator- 
ship alarmed his colleagues in the leadership. Molotov and Malenkov 
emerged as the leaders of the opposition. At this time Molotov 



32 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

was forming his own attitude and policy on de-Sta!inization. He and 
his supporters made it clear that they wanted to remove Khrushchev in 
order to secure a continuation of the de-Stalinization process that 
Khrushchev had arrested. As communists they wanted to stabilize the 
system, and they viewed with dismay Khrushchev's establishment of 
his own cult of personality. It threatened their own position. In their 
view his resort to a policy of repression might lead to an even bigger 
explosion than the Hungarian revolt, and it completely contradicted 
the course adopted after Stalin's death. Khrushchev, in their eyes, was 
a new StaHn who had to be removed. 

The showdown came in June 1957. With the help of the army and 
the security service, Khrushchev defeated the "antiparty group" by the 
narrowest of margins. Had the opposition been successful, it would 
once more have opened up the possibility of a genuine and 
uncontrolled process of de-Stalinization and liberalization of the 
regime. Public exposure of the Stalinist methods used by Khrushchev 
to gain personal power, coupled with renewed denunciations of secret 
police repression and a public trial of the KGB chairman, Serov, 
would have led to popular demands for further changes. Being 
divided, the opposition group, had it come to power, would have been 
obliged to make concessions regardless of the wishes of the individual 
members. An intensified power struggle would have ensued and a 
new, agreed-upon, long-range policy could not have been adopted. 

Khrushchev's defeat of the opposition in June 1957 left him in an 
unchallengeable position, free to reconsider the situation in the Soviet 
Union and the bloc without interference from inside the leadership. 
His first move was to turn the tables on the antiparty group by falsely, 
but successfully, pinning the Stalinist label on them. He managed to 
take for himself the credit for the exposure of Stalin's crimes, to 
conceal his own use of Stalinist methods in the pursuit of power, and 
to distract attention from the nature of the opposition's charges against 
him. Misrepresented as a victory over the forces of Stalinism, his 
defeat of the opposition was made to look like a blessing for the 
Soviet public and the world at large. Although there was some initial 
scepticism at home, even in a few party organizations, both domestic 
and international pressures on the government were eased. 



The New Policy and Disinformation Strategy 



KHRUSHCHEV'S VICTORY in the power struggle in June 1957 
marked the beginning of the end of the crisis in world com- 
munism. It opened up a period of stability in which relations 
between the members of the communist bloc were to be reestablished 
on a new and sounder basis and in which a new long-range policy and 
new strategies for putting it into effect were to be worked out. 

Within days of his victory, Khrushchev renewed the effort to restore 
party as well as state relations with the Yugoslavs, a course on which 
he had embarked at the time of his visit to Tito in May 1955. 

Already, by June 1957, the Soviet and Chinese leaders had reached 
an agreed assessment of Stalin and his distortions of communist 
doctrine. The Chinese contribution to this assessment is to be found in 
two articles by Mao, which were published in the Soviet press in April 
and December 1956. At the Eighth Chinese Communist Party (CPC) 
Congress in September 1956, the Chinese leaders supported the 
condemnation of the cult of the individual by the Twentieth CPSU 
Congress of February 1956.'' 

By the end of 1957 reconcihation between the leaders of all the 
communist states had been achieved. At a conference in Moscow in 
November 1957, they all agreed that Stalin had been responsible for 
damaging distortions of communist theory and practice. In varying 
degrees they had all resented Stalin's interference in their internal 
affairs and the rigid conformity he had demanded of them. But all 
(including the Yugoslavs, whose presence at the 

33 



34 NEWLIESFOROLD 

conference was deliberately concealed) were prepared to cooperate on 
a Leninist basis in a partnership of equals. The Soviets, in effect, 
agreed to abandon their domination of the communist movement. 
They even offered to forego references to their leading role in the 
declaration issued after the conference was over. It was at Chinese 
insistence that such references were included. The conference took an 
unpubhcized decision to formulate a new, Leninist program for world 
communism that was intended to imbue the movement with the sense 
of purpose and direction it so badly needed.^ 

The next three years were a period of intense research and consul- 
tation between the communist parties inside and outside the bloc while 
the new policy and strategies were worked out.^ The process 
culminated in the Eighty-one-Party Congress held in Moscow in 
November 1960. The leaders of all eighty-one parties committed 
themselves to the program set out in the conference's statement, or — 
as it is sometimes described — Manifesto. From that day to this the 
main binding force in the communist movement, inside and outside 
the bloc, has not been the diktat of the Soviet Union, but loyalty to a 
common program to which the leaders of many communist parties had 
made their contribution. Despite subsequent appearances, an 
atmosphere of confidence was created between the party leaders in 
which Soviet coercion became superfluous but Soviet advice and help 
were willingly accepted. 



The New Policy 

In 1957, as in 1921, the communist strategists, in working out their 
new program, had to take into account the political, economic, and 
military weakness of the communist bloc and the unfavorable balance 
of power vis-a-vis the West. Fissiparous tendencies in Hungary and 
elsewhere in Eastern Europe threatened the cohesion of the bloc in 
1957 as nationalist movements had threatened the unity of Soviet 
Russia in 1921. The communist world faced hostility from Western 
conservatives and sociahsts alike. Western propaganda was keeping 
the communist regimes under constant pressure. The West in general 
was reluctant to trade with the bloc. And 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 35 

the bloc faced one completely new factor — the possibility of nuclear 
confrontation. 

Against this background, how could the communist leaders make 
their system more acceptable to their peoples? How were they to 
achieve cohesion and cooperation between the members of the bloc? 
And how could they advance the communist cause outside the bloc 
without provoking a greater degree of unity in the noncom-munist 
world? It was clear that a reversion to the Stalinist policy of mass 
repression at home would fail and that traditional revolutionary tactics 
abroad would only intensify confrontation with the West at a time 
when the balance of power was unfavorable. The precedent of Lenin's 
NEP seemed to provide many of the answers, although, of course, the 
new policy would need to be far more complex and sophisticated. 

The need for a new policy was felt with special keenness by the 
Soviet leadership. The older members, like Khrushchev, Brezhnev, 
Mikoyan, and Suslov, wanted to purge themselves of the taint of 
Stalinism and rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of history. The 
younger ones, like Shelepin, wanted the kudos due to innovators. All 
of them realized that only agreement on a long-range policy would 
preclude recurrent power struggles and give stability to the leadership. 

The Manifesto produced by the Eighty-one-Party Congress (No- 
vember 1960) clearly betrays the influence of Lenin's ideas and 
practice, as does Khrushchev's follow-up speech of January 6, 1961.^ 
These two basic documents have continued to determine the course of 
communist policy to the present day. They explain in detail how the 
triumph of communism throughout the world is to be achieved 
through the consolidation of the economic, political, and military 
might of the communist world and the undermining of the unity and 
strength of the noncommunist world. The use by communist parties of 
a variety of violent and nonviolent tactics is specifically authorized. 
Peaceful coexistence is explicitly defined as "an intense form of class 
struggle between sociaHsm and capitalism." The exploitation by world 
communism of economic, political, racial, and historical antagonisms 
between noncommunist countries is recommended. Support for 
"national liberation" movements throughout the Third World is 
reemphasized. 



36 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

All parties, inside and outside the bloc, including the Chinese, 
signed the Manifesto — with the sole exception of Yugoslavia. For 
tactical reasons, Yugoslavia was not present at the congress but, as 
both Gromyko and Tito indicated publicly thereafter, Yugoslav and 
Soviet foreign pohcy coincided on many issues. 

Agreement between the communist leaders on a new Leninist 
program for world revolution was only half the battle. A strategy was 
needed for putting such a program into effect at a time when the 
subject populations in the communist bloc were seriously alienated 
from their communist regimes and when the militarily superior 
Western powers were determined to resist the further spread of 
communism. 

Some aspects of the strategy, such as united fronts with socialists in 
the advanced capitalist countries and support for national liberation 
movements in the Third World, were openly proclaimed. But the 
decision to use systematic, strategic disinformation as an essential 
component of the strategy clearly had to be carefully concealed. 



The Disadvantages of Apparent Unity 

The communist strategists appreciated that the major disadvantage 
of the pursuit by all the parties of the bloc of a uniform and openly 
aggressive policy was that a combination of ideological zeal with 
monolithic unity would alarm the noncommunist world and force it 
into greater cohesion and possibly into a vigorous and coordinated 
response to the communist threat. This would lead at best to a 
continuation of the East-West status quo, and at worst to heavier 
pressure on the communist world from a West equipped with a 
superior nuclear arsenal. 

A unified strategy would have been even more hampering to the 
international communist movement. Experience had shown that the 
activities of the Comintern were handicapped by its identification as 
an instrument of Soviet policy. The same could be said of the 
Cominform, its successor. Communist parties in the noncommunist 
world had failed to gain influence or, in many cases, even legal 
recognition because of their obvious subservience to Moscow. In 
1958 more than forty parties were illegal. 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 37 

From the historical experience of the Soviet Union and the bloc, the 
communist strategists identified the factors that had favored united 
Western action against communism. In the pre-NEP period, the West 
had felt threatened by Soviet ideology and militancy. The result was 
allied intervention on Russian territory. After the end of the Second 
Worid War, the threat of monolithic, Stalinist communism drove the 
West into military and political alliances, such as NATO, SEATO, 
and the Bagdad pact, and into other forms of military, political, 
economic, and security collaboration. 

Similarly the communist strategists identified the factors that had 
tended to undermine unity in the Western approach to the communist 
world. These were moderation in official Soviet policy; emphasis on 
the conflicting national interests of communist countries and parties at 
the expense of their ideological solidarity; and the dissolution of the 
Comintern in 1943, which caused many Western observers to believe 
that worldwide communist subversion had been abandoned. 



The Advantages of Apparent Disunity 

Communists regard unity between the Western powers as inherently 
unstable; it follows from the nature of the capitalist system that, in 
normal circumstances, divisive considerations of national interest 
outweigh tendencies toward solidarity and cohesion. The communist 
strategists therefore reasoned that, through projecting the right image 
of the bloc and the communist movement, they could help to dissolve 
the measure of Western unity that Stalinist policies had brought into 
being. Moreover, they decided not to await the appearance of natural 
contradictions and divisions in the West, but to take active political 
steps to create artificially conditions in which Western economic and 
political unity would tend to disintegrate and which would therefore 
prove favorable for the implementation of their long-range bloc policy. 
In their view, by consistent and coordinated efforts, the countries of 
the bloc would be able to influence the policies and attitudes of the 
governments and populations of the noncommunist world in a 
direction favorable to themselves. They had before them the 
successful precedent of 



38 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Soviet policy and intelligence operations during the period of the 
NEP. 

The naive illusions displayed in the past by the West in its attitudes 
and policies toward communism, the failure of the Western allies to 
develop a coordinated, long-range policy during their alliance with the 
Soviet Union in the Second World War, and the inclination of 
capitalist countries to pursue policies based on national interest were 
all taken into account in planning how to bring influence to bear on 
the West. 

The conclusion was reached that, if the factors that had previously 
served to forge a degree of Western cohesion — that is, communist 
ideological miHtancy and monolithic unity — were to be perceived by 
the West, respectively, as moderating and disintegrating and if, despite 
an increase in the bloc's actual strength, an image was to be 
successfully projected of a bloc weakened by economic, political, and 
ideological disarray, then the Western response to communist policy 
would be feebler and less coordinated; actual Western tendencies 
toward disintegration might be provoked and encouraged, thereby 
creating conditions for a change in the balance of power in favor of 
the communist bloc. 

In other words, common logic suggested that the bloc should 
proceed towards its aim of worldwide victory for communism by 
forging its own unity and coordinating its own policies as far as 
possible in secret while at the same time undermining the unity and 
resistance of the noncommunist world by projecting a misleading 
image of its own evolution, disunity, and weakness. This was in fact 
the hidden essence of the long-range bloc policy adopted in 1958-60 
and the basis of the various strategies developed from then onward in 
the execution of that policy. The Eighty-one-Party Congress in 
Moscow, in November 1960, could well have created a new, overt 
central coordinating body for the international communist movement 
as a successor to the Comintern and Cominform, but it did not do so. 
Instead, it ratified the use of varying tactics by individual communist 
parties within the framework of the long-range policy and, in place of 
a controlling center, called for the coordination and synchronization of 
policy and tactics between bloc and nonbloc parties. Thus, while 
coordination was in fact improved, the decision not to create a new, 
overt central body, the emphasis on "polycentrism," and the use of a 
variety of different 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 39 

tactics by communist parties were designed to create an effect 
analogous to that created by the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943. 



The Political Use of De-Stalinization 

The Soviet leaders recognized that mistakes had been made in the 
first phase of de-Stalinization. Too many rehabilitations of Stalin's 
victims had been allowed too quickly; the party and the security 
service had been too passive in the face of the spontaneous reactions 
of intellectuals to the revelation of Stalin's crimes; above all, the 
Soviet leaders accepted that they should have consulted the parties of 
the other communist countries in advance. They realized that further 
uncontrolled measures of de-Stalinization could give rise to more 
revisionism and popular unrest. But they also realized that vigorous 
waving of the anti- Stalinist flag could help them undermine opposition 
at home and improve their image abroad; some of the damage done by 
Stalinism could be repaired. 

Controlled anti-Stalinism could be used to help stabilize the regime; 
through propaganda emphasis on the distinctions between the new 
policy and Stalin's policy, some internal and external opposition could 
be undermined. For example, former communist party members of all 
ranks who had suffered repression under Stalin, or their widows and 
families, could be brought into active collaboration with the regime in 
the implementation of a Leninist policy that ostensibly repudiated 
Stalinism. Controlled anti-Stalinism could create favorable conditions 
for political and diplomatic maneuvers against noncommunist 
countries. It could be used to change attitudes toward communism and 
communist parties in the labor and social democratic movements. If 
the consequences of StaHnism, in the shape of personal dictatorship 
and the indiscriminate use of terror to suppress opposition inside and 
outside the party, had been fusion and alliances between the different 
types of opposition, it was arguable that emphasis on anti-Stalinism 
could lead to a weakening and disruption of such alliances. If 
Stalinism had led to cooperation between groups with different 
interests, between conservatives and social democrats in the creation 
of NATO, between Western capitalists and Yugoslav revisionist 
communists after 



40 NEWLIESFOROLD 

1948, between Russian emigres and Western governments, anti-Stalinism 
could be used to weaken these ties. If Stalinism had contributed to the 
dechne in Soviet prestige, to diplomatic failures and a loss of allies. anti- 
Stalinism could be used to reverse the process, to recover old allies and gain 
new ones among Western intellectuals, liberals, social democrats, and 
nationalists. 

Between 1953 and 1956 genuine, improvised de-Stalinization was used to 
correct mistakes and improve the Soviet regime. In 1956 and 1957 notional 
de-Stalinization was exploited deceitfully by Khrushchev as a means of 
defeating his rivals while concealing the nature of his own methods. From 
1958 onward calculated, deceitful use was made of notional de-Stalinization 
to help the new long-range policy achieve its domestic and external goals. 

By 1958 the real issues involved in Stalinism, anti-Stalinism, revisionism, 
and national communism having been resolved, they could be revived in 
artificial form as "issues" allegedly causing divisions between different 
leaders and different parties inside and outside the bloc. Individual 
communist leaders or groups of leaders (all of them committed Leninists) 
could be projected misleadingly and in contrast with one another as 
"Stalinists," "neo-Stalinists," "Maoists," "dogmatists," "hard-liners," 
"diehards," "militants," or "conservatives" as opposed to "anti-Stalinists," 
"pragmatists," "revisionists," and "national," "hberal," "progressive," or 
"moderate" communists. 

The objectives of disinformation on these "issues" can be summarized as 
follows: 

• By the revival of dead issues and the display of apparent differences of 
opinion over them, to present the communist countries as in a state of 
disarray in accordance with the weakness and evolution pattern of 
disinformation. 

• By projecting a false picture of nationalism and competing national 
interests in and between the communist regimes of the bloc, to conceal the 
actual unity of the bloc parties and governments in their pursuit of a 
common, ideological long-range policy. 

• To create favorable conditions for the implementation of that policy, 
internally and externally. 

• To provide a broad framework and convenient technique for specific 
disinformation operations on Soviet relations with Yugoslavia, Albania, 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 41 

China, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and certain West European communist 
parties. 

• To exploit these issues for disinformation about the alleged continuing 
power struggles and the unsolved succession problem, for shifts in communist 
domestic policy and in diplomatic tactics for implementing different phases 
of that pohcy. 



Sources of Inspiration 

The decision in principle to revert to the whole-scale use of strategic 
disinformation, taken in 1957, triggered off a spate of research into 
precedents and techniques. For example, the Central Committee called for 
secret publications on the subject held by the KGB and GRU, and in 
particular for a secret training manual for internal use only, written by a GRU 
officer, Popov, that described, in about eighty pages, the technique of 
disinformation, and for another manual written by Colonel Raina of the KGB 
entitled On the Use of Agents of Influence. 

Popov's manual defined disinformation as a means of creating favorable 
conditions for gaining strategic advantages over the opponent. It specified 
that disinformation must function in accordance with the requirements of 
military strategy and diplomacy, and stipulated that in all circumstances it 
must be subordinate to policy. 

The book classified different types of disinformation as strategic, political, 
military, technical, economic, and diplomatic. It listed the channels through 
which disinformation can be disseminated as: 

• The declarations and speeches of leading statesmen and officials of the 
originating country. 

• Official government documents. 

• Newspapers and other materials published in that country. 

• Foreign publications inspired by agents working among foreign jour- 
nalists and other experts. 

• Special operations in support of disinformation. 

• Agents of influence and other agents in foreign countries. 

Studies of particular facets of the NEP were commissioned by the CPSU's 
Central Committee from 1957 onward. As well as government departments, 

speciahzed institutes of the Academy of 



42 NEWLIESFOROLD 

Sciences, such as the Institutes of Law and History, contributed. Two 
projects of special significance for the reintroduction of strategic 
disinformation were undertaken in the KGB. One was a study on the 
use of KGB agents of influence in the Soviet intelhgentsia (meaning 
in this context scientists, academics, writers, musicians, artists, 
actors, stage and screen directors, and rehgious leaders); the other 
was on the disclosure of state secrets in the interests of policy. 

Popov's manual was in fact the only available modern text dealing 
with strategic disinformation. Lenin left behind him no specific 
treatise on the subject, although his writings contain scattered refer- 
ences to it; deception and duplicity were essential elements in his 
political technique. Significantly the Soviet authorities chose to 
publish for the first time, between 1960 and 1965 in the fifth edition 
of Lenin's works, some of his documents relating to the NEP period 
and the use of disinformation, in particular in his correspondence 
with his commissar for foreign affairs, Chicherin. 

In one of his letters Lenin, commenting on the draft of a statement 
to be made by the Soviet delegation to the Genoa conference, advised 
Chicherin to omit any mention of "the inevitable forced coup d'etat 
and bloody struggle" and also to omit the words "our historical 
concept includes the use of violent measures and the inevitability of 
new world wars." "These frightening words," he wrote, "should not 
be used because they would serve the interests of our adversaries." 

Chicherin responded enthusiastically to Lenin's ideas on disinfor- 
mation. He wrote to him on January 20, 1922: "In case the Ameri- 
cans would insist on representative institutions, don't you think that, 
for solid compensation, we can deceive them by making a small 
ideological concession which would not have any practical meaning? 
For example, we can allow the presence of three representatives of 
the non-working class in the body of 2,000 members. Such a step can 
be presented to the Americans as a representative institution."* 

Lenin and Chicherin were not the only sources of inspiration for 
the revival of strategic disinformation. The ancient Chinese treatise 
on strategy and deception. Sun Tzu's The Art of War, translated into 
Russian by N. I. Konrad in 1950 (shortly after the communist victory 
in China), was retranslated into German in 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 43 

1957 by the Soviet specialist Y. 1. Sidorenko, with a foreword by the 
Soviet military strategist and historian General Razin.^ It was 
published in East Germany by the East German Ministry of Defense 
and was prescribed for study in East German military academies. A 
new translation and other studies of Sun Tzu were published in Peking 
in 1957 and 1958 and in Shanghai in 1959. Mao is known to have 
been influenced by Sun Tzu in his conduct of the civil war. 

This intense official interest in Sun Tzu on the part of both the 
Soviets and the Chinese at the very time when the new policy and 
strategy were being formulated is a good indication that the Chinese 
probably made a positive contribution to their formulation. 

The strategy of strengthening the communist bloc while presenting 
an appearance of communist disunity is neatly expressed in Sun Tzu's 
aphorisms: 

• All warfare is based on deception. Therefore, when capable, feign 
incapacity; when active, inactivity. 

• Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him. 

• One who wishes to appear to be weak in order to make his enemy 
arrogant must be extremely strong. Only then can he feign weakness. 

To be credible and effective, a deception should accord as far as 
possible with the hopes and expectations of those it is intended to 
deceive. Since the communist strategists were aware, especially 
through their knowledge of the Bilderberg papers,'" that the West half 
expected and ardently desired the disintegration of the communist 
bloc, they could anticipate that the projection to the outside world of a 
fictitious disintegration of the bloc would be advantageous — provided 
always that it was accompanied in parallel by an actual, but partially 
concealed, implementation of the long-range policy of strengthening 
the bloc and changing the world balance of power in its favor. 

How, in practice, was this to be achieved? Study of the genuine 
Tito-Stalin spHt of 1948 showed that by no means all of its conse- 
quences had been adverse. Open defiance of Stalin had sent Tito's 
prestige soaring in his own country and throughout the world. Inde- 
pendence of the Soviet Union had enabled Yugoslavia to obtain 



44 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

substantial economic and military assistance from the West and to 
acquire the beginnings of political influence in the Third World and 
with West European socialist parties. Moreover, Tito had dem- 
onstrated in 1957-58 that, despite the Western support he had 
received, he remained a faithful Leninist willing to work wholeheart- 
edly with the other leaders of the bloc. 

A more remote, but equally instructive, precedent was provided by 
Lenin's Far Eastern policy in the 1920s. Realizing that Soviet Russia 
would be overstretched in defending all her frontiers simultaneously, 
Lenin decided voluntarily to "sacrifice" a substantial area in the Far 
East by setting up an independent "noncommunist" buffer state, the 
Far Eastern Republic (DVR), in April 1920. It was independent and 
noncommunist in form only, its policies being closely coordinated 
from the outset with those of Soviet Russia. Nevertheless, its 
existence, together with promises of economic concessions that did 
not materialize, relieved the pressure from Japanese and American 
interests in the area while the Soviet army and Comintern reinforced 
their capacity to deal with the threat from the White Russian emigre 
movement in Mongolia led by Baron Ungern. By November 1922 
Soviet influence in the area was strong enough for the "independent" 
DVR to be openly incorporated into the Soviet Union as its Far 
Eastern region (kray). 

The combined lessons of the DVR and the Tito-Stalin split 
suggested to the communist strategists of the 1950s that spurious 
splits and independence in the communist world could be used to ease 
Western pressure and to obtain increased Western economic and even 
military aid for individual communist countries while the world 
balance of power was being shifted inconspicuously in communist 
favor. 

By the end of 1957 the issues that had caused actual and potential 
splits in the communist world, principally Stalinist interference in the 
affairs of other communist states, had been finally and decisively 
resolved. Common agreement had been reached on the abandonment 
of Stalin's acknowledged distortions of Leninist doctrine. The Soviet 
Union abided by the terms of the agreement in practical ways, for 
example, by making a total declaration of its former intelligence agents 
in China and Eastern Europe. 

The reasons for genuine splits having been removed, the way was 
open for the creation of spurious splits in accordance with 



NEW POLICY AND STRATEGY 45 

Dzerzhinskiy's principle of political prophylaxis; that is, the forestall- 
ing of undesirable developments {such as splits or the growth of 
opposition movements) by deliberately provoking and controlling 
such developments through the use of secret agents, and by guiding 
them in directions that are either harmless or positively useful to the 
regime. 

Khrushchev had demonstrated in 1957 how misrepresentation of 
the Stalinist issue could be used to his own advantage in the struggle 
for power. The artificial revival of the dead issues related to Stalinism 
was the obvious and logical means of displaying convincing but 
spurious differences between different communist leaders or parties. 



The Shelepin Report 

and 

Changes in Organization 



THE ADOPTION OF THE NEW BLOC POLICY and disinformation 
strategy entailed organizational changes in the Soviet Union and 
throughout the bloc. In the Soviet Union, as elsewhere, it was 
the Central Committee of the party that reorganized the intelligence 
and security services, the foreign ministry, and other sections of the 
party and government apparatus and the mass organizations so as to 
be able to implement the new policy. Several highly significant 
alterations were made to the Central Committee's own apparatus in 
and after 1958. A new Department of Foreign Policy was set up to 
supervise all government departments concerned with foreign affairs 
and to coordinate Soviet foreign policy with that of the other 
communist states. It was under Khrushchev's direct control. 

A new practice was adopted in relation to the appointment of 
ambassadors to other communist countries. Prominent party officials, 
normally members of the Central Committee, were chosen to ensure 
that there was proper coordination of policy between parties as well as 
governments. 

Another new department of the Central Committee, the Department 
of Active Operations, was introduced. Its function was to coordinate 
the bloc disinformation program and conduct special political and 
disinformation operations in support of policy. It began by holding 
secret briefings of senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
the Committee of Information, and the security and intelligence 
services. The news agency Novosti was set up to serve the interests of 
this new department. 

46 



THE SHELEPIN REPORT AND CHANGES 47 

An important change was the transfer to the Central Committee 
apparatus of the Committee of Information, which had hitherto been 
subordinated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. One of its new 
functions was to prepare long-range studies and analyses for the 
Central Committee. Another was to establish contacts with foreign 
statesmen and other leading figures, either in their home countries or 
during their visits to the Soviet Union, and use them to influence 
Western governments. Its head was Georgiy Zhukov, a former agent 
of the Soviet intelligence service, who had many contacts among 
Western politicians, journalists, and cultural figures. He was himself 
an able journahst. 

Perhaps the most significant changes of all were the appointments 
of Mironov and Shelepin. Mironov had been head of the Leningrad 
branch of the KGB. While in that post he had studied operation Trust, 
in which the Leningrad OGPU had played an active part. He was a 
friend of Brezhnev and had easy access to him. Shelepin was a friend 
of Mironov. It was Mironov who first drew Shelepin's attention to the 
role of the OGPU in the NEP period. 

In 1958 Mironov and Shelepin discussed with Khrushchev and 
Brezhnev the idea of transforming the KGB from the typical secret 
political police force that it was into a flexible, sophisticated political 
weapon capable of playing an effective role in support of policy, as 
the OGPU had done during the NEP. 

They were rewarded for this suggestion with posts in the Central 
Committee apparatus. Shelepin was made head of the Department of 
Party Organs and, later, chairman of the KGB; Mironov was made 
head of the Administrative Organs Department. 

In the autumn of 1958 Mironov's and Shelepin's suggestion was 
discussed, in the context of the performance of the KGB and its head, 
General Serov, by the Presidium of the Central Committee. Serov had 
delivered a report to the Presidium on the work of the KGB at home 
and abroad, and it became the focus for sharp criticism. The leading 
critic was Shelepin. The KGB under Serov, he said, had become a 
very effective police organization that, with its widespread net of 
informers and agents throughout the country, had successfully 
detected and controlled opposition elements among the population as 
well as agents of Western intelligence services. It had failed, however, 
to influence the views of the population in favor of the regime or to 
prevent the growth of undesirable 



48 NEWLIESFOROLD 

political trends either at home or among anti communists abroad. He 
praised the recent successes of the KGB in penetrating the secrets of 
Western governments, but said that its role was too passive and 
limited in that it had done nothing to help the strategic, political, 
economic, and ideological struggle with the capitalist powers. 

Shelepin continued that the main reason for the unsatisfactory 
situation in the KGB was that it had departed from the traditions and 
style of the OGPU, its predecessor under Lenin. The OGPU, although 
inexperienced, had made a greater contribution to implementing 
policy than any of its successors. As examples of what he meant, he 
referred to the Eurasian and Change of Signposts movements and the 
Trust. Unlike the OGPU, the KGB had degenerated into a passive, 
repressive organization. Its methods were self-defeating because they 
served only to harden opposition and damage the prestige of the 
regime. The KGB had failed to collaborate with the security services 
of the other bloc countries on political matters. 

Shelepin commended Mironov's ideas and said that the KGB 
should be concerned with positive, creative political activity under the 
direction of the party leadership. A new, more important role should 
be given to disinformation. The Soviet Union, in common with the 
other communist countries, had vital internal and external intelligence 
assets that had been lying dormant, especially in the persons of the 
KGB agents among the Soviet intelligentsia. 

The Presidium decided to examine the new role of the KGB at the 
Twenty-first -Party Congress, which was due to be held in January- 
February 1959. The Soviet press confirmed in general terms that this 
examination had taken place. 

Under Mironov the Administrative Organs Department became 
very important. Its function was to supervise and coordinate the work 
of departments concerned with internal order, like the KGB, the 
Ministry of the Interior, the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Justice, 
and the law courts. Mironov was chosen in order that he should imbue 
these institutions with the style and methods of Dzerzhinskiy, the 
OGPU's chairman in the 1920s. 

Shelepin was appointed chairman of the KGB in December 1958. 
In May 1959 a conference of senior KGB officers was held in 
Moscow. It was attended by Kirichenko, representing the Presidium; 



THE SHELEPIN REPORT AND CHANGES 49 

the ministers of internal affairs and defense; members of the Central 
Committee; and some two thousand KGB officers. 

Shelepin reported to the conference on the new political tasks of the 
KGB. Some of the more specific points in his report were as follows: 

The "main enemies" of the Soviet Union were the United States. Britain, 
France, West Germany, Japan, and all countries of NATO and other 
Western-supported military alliances. (It was the first time that West 
Germany, Japan, and the smaller countries had been so named in KGB 
documents.) 

The security and intelligence services of the whole bloc were to be 
mobilized to influence international relations in directions required by the 
new long-range policy and, in effect, to destabihze the "main enemies" and 
weaken the alliances between them. 

The efforts of the KGB agents in the Soviet intelligentsia were to be 
redirected outward against foreigners with a view to enlisting their help in 
the achievement of policy objectives. 

The newly established disinformation department was to work closely 
with all other relevant departments in the party and government apparatus 
throughout the country. To this end, all ministries of the Soviet Union and 
all first secretaries of republican and provincial party organizations were to 
be acquainted with the new political tasks of the KGB to enable them to 
give support and help when needed. 

Joint political operations were to be undertaken with the security and 
intelligence services of all communist countries. 

The report ended with the assurance that the Presidium had approved the 
new tasks of the KGB, attached great importance to their fulfillment, and was 
confident that the KGB staff would do its best to put the directive into 
practice. 

After the conference, a number of organizational changes were made in 
the KGB. The counterintelligence directorate was enlai'ged. Its three main 
tasks were: to influence, pass disinformation to, and recruit as agents 
members of the embassies of the capitalist 



50 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and Third World countries in Moscow, as well as visiting journalists, 
businessmen, scientists, and academics; to carry out prophylactic 
political operations to neutralize and then use internal political 
opposition, especially from nationalistic, intellectual, and religious 
groups; and to carry out joint political operations with the security 
services of the other communist countries. 



Department D 

When Shelepin created the new disinformation department, De- 
partment D, in January 1959, he ensured that its work would be 
coordinated with the other disinformation services of the party and 
government machine: that is, the Central Committee, the Committee 
of Information, the disinformation department in the Soviet Military 
Intelligence Service, and the two new "activist methods" departments 
in the KGB (one serving Shelepin himself and the other serving the 
counterintelligence directorate). 

From the beginning Department D was subordinate to the Central 
Committee apparatus, which defined its requirements and objectives. 
It differed from the other disinformation services in that it used its 
own means and special channels available only to the KGB to 
disseminate disinformation. These channels are: secret agents at home 
and abroad; agents of influence abroad; penetrations of Western 
embassies and governments; technical and other secret means of 
provoking appropriate incidents or situations in support of policy — for 
example, border incidents, protest demonstrations, and so forth. 

Department D was given access to the executive branches of 
government and to departments of the Central Committee to enable it 
to prepare and carry out operations that required the approval or 
support of the party leadership or the government machine. Its closest 
contacts with the Central Committee were Mironov's Administrative 
Organs Department, Ponomarev's International Department, the 
Department of Foreign Policy, and the Department of Active 
Operations; and with the Soviet government through the State 
Committee of Science and Technology and the planning organs. 
There was particularly close cooperation between the new department 
and the disinformation department of the Military In- 



THE SHELEPIN REPORT AND CHANGES 51 

telligence Service. 

There were two experienced candidates for the post of head of the 
new department: Colonel Fedoseyev, head of the foreign intelligence 
faculty of the KGB Institute, who was a specialist both on internal 
KGB operations and on the use of emigre channels to penetrate 
American intelligence; and Colonel Agayants, head of the political 
intelligence faculty in the High Intelligence School and a specialist on 
the Middle East {Iran in particular) and Western Europe {France in 
particular). Shelepin chose Agayants. 

The new department consisted at the outset of fifty to sixty 
experienced intelligence and counterintelligence officers. Under 
Colonel Agayants was Colonel Grigorenko, a specialist in counterin- 
telligence work at home and emigration operations abroad. He had 
been adviser to the Hungarian security service from 1953 to 1955, and 
then had worked in the counterintelligence directorate in headquarters 
as head of the department responsible for the surveillance of 
immigrants and repatriates. The department was abolished when 
Grigorenko moved to Department D. 

In the department were experts on NATO, the United States, 
Germany, France, Japan, and other countries; on the US intelligence 
services; on US, European, Asian, African, and Latin American labor; 
and on rocketry, aviation, and other specialized subjects. There was a 
specialist on Israel, Colonel Kelin, who as an officer in the security 
service had worked for twenty years against the Jews in Moscow. 
Colonel Sitnikov was the department's specialist on Germany, Austria, 
and NATO. Colonel Kostenko (who in the 1960s appeared in England 
under diplomatic cover) was its specialist on aviation. Indeed, the 
composition of the department made it clear that it had both political 
and military objectives. 

A disinformation section of some twenty officers was also set up in 
the KGB apparatus in East Germany under Litovkin, a specialist on 
penetration of the West German intelligence service. 



7 



The New Role of Intelligence 



IN OUTLINE, the new tasks for the intelhgence services of the bloc, 
in addition to their traditional intelligence-gathering and security 
functions, were, first, to help to create favorable conditions for the 
implementation of the long-range policy by disseminating strategic 
disinformation on disunity in the bloc and international communist 
movement in accordance with the weakness and evolution pattern; 
second, to contribute directly to the implementation of the policy and 
its strategies through the use of communist bloc and Western agents of 
influence; and third, to contribute to a shift in the mihtary balance of 
power in communist favor by helping to accelerate the bloc's military 
and economic development through the collection of scientific and 
technical intelligence from the West and through the undermining of 
Western military programs. 

To take the last of these tasks first, it was considered by Soviet 
officials in 1959 that the communist bloc was lagging ten to fifteen 
years behind the United States, for example, in the field of military 
electronics. Through use of the bloc's intelligence potential, it was 
hoped to close the gap within five years.' Conversely, through the 
disinformation potential of the bloc's security and intelligence ser- 
vices, it was hoped, as Shelepin put it, to confuse and disorientate 
Western military programs and divert them into useless, wasteful, and 
extravagant fields of expenditure. With this end in view. Department 
D, together with the Central Committee, took part in briefing Soviet 
scientists for their assignments at various international conferences 
where they have contacts with foreign scientists. 

Some of the other operations of Department D were known 

52 



NEW ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE 53 

in outline to the author in their early stages. 

There were plans for an operation to influence the French govern- 
ment to leave NATO. Soviet experts were already convinced by 1959- 
60 that "contradictions" between the United States and France could 
be exploited to bring this about.^ 

A long-term plan was in preparation to discredit anticommunist 
American labor leaders and to influence them to change their attitude 
toward contact with the communist trade unions. 

There was also a plan called "Actions Against American Institu- 
tions," in particular the CIA and FBI, details of which are not known 
to the author. 

An operation, carried out soon after Department D was formed, 
aimed to help isolate West Germany from NATO and the Western 
community. Experts in Jewish affairs in Department D prepared 
numerous letters for their agents to send to relatives in Israel and other 
countries that were calculated to arouse hostility to West Germany 
and to give a misleading impression of political developments in the 
Soviet Union. 

Of the greatest long-term significance was an order issued by 
Shelepin to Agayants at the end of 1959 to collaborate with the 
Central Committee's Department of Active Operations and with 
Albanian and Yugoslav representatives on a disinformation operation 
connected with the new long-range policy and relating to Soviet- 
Yugoslav-Albanian relations. 

A number of other reflections of the adoption of the new policy and 
the revival of disinformation came to the author's attention in the 
course of his work in Soviet inteUigence. 

Early in 1959 a secret party letter warned party members against 
revealing state and party secrets. 

Genuine, potential Western sources of information on the new 
policy were suppressed. For example, the KGB arrested a valuable 
American agent in the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Colonel Popov of the 
GRU. 

Other potential openings for the West to obtain information on the 
policy were closed: for example, a special instruction was issued to 
KGB staff to step up the recruitment, compromise, and discrediting of 
Western scholars and experts on communist affairs visiting 
communist countries. 

An instruction was issued to KGB staff to give details to the 



54 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

disinformation department of all their existing intelligence sources 
and channels, so that, where appropriate, they could be used for 
disinformation purposes. 

New channels were planned and created for feeding disinformation 
to the West. In this context, three items deserve mention. Department 
D showed great interest in exploiting two special French sources 
belonging to Soviet counterintelligence: they asked for the controlling 
officer, Okulov, to be transferred to Department D. There is serious, 
unresolved evidence that Colonel Penkovskiy was planted on Western 
intelligence by the KGB. There has been publicity in the American 
press suggesting that an important FBI source on Soviet affairs, 
known as "Fedora," was under Soviet control while he was 
collaborating with the FBI in the 1960s. 

The section of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate, led by Colonel 
Norman Borodin and responsible for the recruitment and handling of 
agents among foreign correspondents in the Soviet Union, was 
disbanded so as to avoid the creation of a central pool of agents all 
taking a suspiciously similar line. The agents were handed over to the 
appropriate geographical sections of the KGB to ensure that their 
disinformation activity was closely related to the particular situation 
in each country or area. 

Two former residents of Hitler's security service, with their nets of 
agents in the Ukraine, which were under KGB control, were prepared 
for planting on the West German intelligence service. 

In 1959 the head of Soviet counterintelligence. General Griba-nov, 
issued an instruction to his staff to prepare operations to influence 
Western ambassadors in Moscow, in accordance with the 
requirements of the new policy. Western intelligence and security 
services — in particular, that of the French — had occasion to investi- 
gate Gribanov's activity against their ambassadors. Gribanov also 
instructed members of his staff, posing as senior officials of various 
Soviet government departments, to establish personal contact with, 
and exercise political influence over, the ambassadors in Moscow of 
all the developing countries. 

In 1960 a secret directive was issued by the KGB in Moscow to the 
intelligence service's representatives abroad and the security service at 
home on the influencing of foreign visitors to the Soviet Union, 
especially politicians and scholars; efforts were made to use, recruit, 
and discredit anticommunist politicians, journalists, scholars, 



NEW ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE 55 

and analysts of communist affairs during their visits to communist 
countries. For instance, an attempt was made to discredit a prominent 
American scholar, Professor Barghoorn, by harrassing him in Moscow 
in 1963. Almost every Western security service has accumulated 
evidence on this subject. 

A special form of control over the Soviet press was established by 
the apparatus of the Central Committee so that the press could be used 
by the Central Committee and KGB for disinformation purposes. For 
instance, the KGB supplied Adzhubey, the chief editor of Izvestiya, 
with "controversial" material on internal conditions in the Soviet 
Union. 

The resources of the KGBs of the national republics were brought 
into play; for example, in the year 1957-58 alone, the KGB of the 
Ukraine put up for Moscow approval 180 operational proposals for 
the recruitment of, or the planting of agents on, foreigners inside or 
outside the Soviet Union. 

Direct attempts were made to exert political influence abroad. 
Instructions were issued to the KGB residents in Finland, Italy, and 
France to step up and exploit their penetration of the leadership of 
socialist and other political parties in order to bring about changes in 
the leadership and policies of those parties in accordance with the 
requirements of bloc policy."^ 

In Finland, in 1961, the KGB resident, Zhenikhov, was working on 
a plan to remove from the political scene leading anticommunist 
leaders of the Finnish social democratic party like Tanner and 
Leskinen and to replace them with Soviet agents. 

A KGB agent was planted on the leadership of the Swedish social 
democratic party. 

Assassinations were not excluded in the case of anti communists 
who represented an obstacle to the successful implementation of bloc 
policy. For example, in 1959 the KGB secretly assassinated the 
Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera in West Germany. This is 
known thanks to the exposures of the former Soviet agent Stashinskiy, 
who assassinated Bandera on Shelepin's orders. 

The list could be expanded. But enough has been said to indicate 
that the entire Soviet intelligence potential was used to carry out 
operations in support of the first phase of the new long-range bloc 
policy; the same can be said of the intelligence potential of the other 
countries of the communist bloc. 



56 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Since even professional analysts in the West do not always realize 
clearly what the intelligence potential of the communist bloc in action 
may amount to in terms of exercising influence favorable to the bloc, 
it is desirable at this point to give at least some theoretical examples. 

Suppose, for instance, that a particular noncommunist country 
becomes the target of the bloc's intelligence potential. This would 
imply that all the intelligence and counterintelligence staff of all the 
communist countries would review all their intelligence assets and 
make suggestions about what could be done to bring political 
influence to bear on the government of the country and on its policy 
and diplomacy, political parties, individual leaders, press, and so 
forth. It would imply that all the intelligence staff of the bloc countries 
under diplomatic or other official cover in the country concerned, 
which could amount to several hundred highly trained professionals 
plus several hundred secret agents among the country's nationals, 
would all be directed to work in different ways toward one objective 
according to one plan. The agents would be guided not only to obtain 
information, but also to take certain actions or to exercise influence 
wherever and whenever the plan required. Their combined capacity to 
affect governmental, press, and public opinion could well be 
considerable. 

The same would apply if the target was a group of noncommunist 
countries; or a specific problem, such as the defense program of a 
noncommunist country; or a particular Western attitude to the 
communist bloc or one of its members; or world public opinion on a 
particular policy; or issues such as the Vietnam War, alleged West 
German revanchisme, or the Middle East situation. 

In his speech on January 6, 1961, Khrushchev, after alluding to the 
fact that "the dictatorship of the working class has emerged beyond 
the confines of one country and become an international force," said 
that "in the conditions of today, socialism is in a position to determine, 
in growing measure, the character, methods and trends of international 
relations." It was the reorientation of the Central Committee 
apparatus, the mass organizations, and the diplomatic, intelligence, 
and security services of the bloc that provided Khrushchev and his 
allies with the means to change the character and methods of 
international relations. 

Some elements of the new bloc policy — like the introduction 



NEW ROLE OF INTELLIGENCE 57 

of economic reforms in the industry and agriculture of the Soviet 
Union and other communist states or the emphasis on peaceful 
coexistence, disarmament, and the improvement of diplomatic, trade, 
and other relations with noncommunist countries — all of them 
reminiscent of the NEP period, were themselves means of 
misrepresenting the bloc's intentions and influencing the noncom- 
munist world in the first phase of the policy. Even more significant, 
and again reminiscent of the NEP period, were the striking changes in 
the style, quantity, and quality of information revealed by the 
communist world about itself. These changes were reflected in the 
wider access permitted to foreign visitors to the Soviet Union and 
most East European countries. They coincided in time with Shele-pin's 
report and the intensive preparation of a program of political 
disinformation operations. The coincidence in timing helps to explain 
the changes. 



8 



Sources of Information 



PRECEDING CHAPTERS HAVE DESCRIBED IN DETAIL how the 
program, strategy, organization, and operational philosophy at the 
center of international communism developed in the period 1957 to 
1960. How did it happen that the Western world almost entirely failed to 
detect these changes and appreciate their significance? To discover the 
answer, one must begin by examining the sources of information available to 
Western analysts. 



Western Sources 

The main Western sources of information on communist countries are: 

• The secret agents of Western intelligence services. 

• The interception and decoding of communist communications. 

• The monitoring of communist embassies and officials in noncommu- 
nist countries. 

• Photographic and other observations of industrial installations, missile 
sites, troop movements, and so forth from Western aircraft and satellites 
flying over communist territory.. 

• The monitoring of nuclear and rocket tests by technical devices. 

• The personal observations of Western diplomats, journahsts, and visi- 
tors in communist countries. 

• Unofficial contacts in these countries of Western diplomats, journalists, 
and other visitors. 

58 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 59 

• Scholars working on communist affairs. 

• "Internal emigrants" or well-wishers in the communist states. 

• Refugees from communist countries and parties and, in particular, 
former officials and agents of their intelligence services. 

These sources vary in their significance and reliability, in the 
degree of access they provide, and in the manner in which they need 
to be interpreted. 

Because communist societies are closed societies and because their 
governments' aims are aggressive, it is vital for the West to have 
vigorous, healthy, and effective intelligence services capable of 
obtaining reliable secret information of a strategic nature on the 
internal affairs and external policies of the communist countries, on 
their relations with one another, and on their relations with the 
communist parties outside the bloc. The secret agents of Western 
intelligence services are potentially the most valuable sources of all, 
provided that they are operating in good faith and have access to 
information at the policy-making level. The problem is that Western 
intelligence services sometimes accept provocateurs as genuine 
agents, and provocateurs are a favored channel for passing communist 
disinformation. 

The interception and decoding of communications can provide 
valuable information, provided that the possibility of disinformation is 
always kept in mind and properly assessed. 

Likewise, the monitoring of communist embassies and officials can 
be valuable, but it has to be remembered that the methods used by 
Western counterintelligence and security services are well known and 
in most cases are capable of being converted by the communist bloc 
into channels for disinformation. 

The technical monitoring of nuclear and rocket tests and the various 
forms of aerial reconnaissance are valuable but cannot be regarded as 
self-sufficient. Because of their limitations, the information they 
provide always needs to be evaluated in conjunction with information 
from other sources. All techniques have their individual limitations. 
The general limitation which they all share is that, even if they 
provide accurate information on what is present and what is 
happening in a particular locality, they cannot answer questions on 
why it is present or happening, who is responsible, and what their real 
intentions are. For instance, from these sources 



60 NEWLIESFOROLD 

alone, one cannot say whether the existence of troop concentrations on 
the Sino-Soviet border is evidence of genuine hostility between the 
two countries or evidence of joint intention on the part of the Soviet 
and Chinese leaders to give the impression, for strategic 
disinformation purposes, that there is hostihty between them. 

The personal observations of foreign diplomats, journalists, and 
other visitors to communist countries are of limited value because of 
the controls over their travels and their contacts. The value of 
information from unofficial contacts should not be overestimated, 
since the probability is that these contacts, however critical they may 
be of the regime, are controlled by the security services. Given the 
scale of operation of the communist security services, it is impossible 
for a citizen of a communist country to remain for any length of time 
in unauthorized contact with a foreigner. Investigative reporting of the 
type so popular in the West is impossible in communist countries 
without at least tacit cooperation from the security authorities. 

Western academics can be extremely valuable as analysts, provided 
they are given accurate information. Their value as sources is not 
always great, since their visits to communist countries do not 
necessarily give them access to inside information, and they are as 
prone as other visitors to be misled by deliberate communist 
disinformation. Their visits can also be hazardous. 

"Internal emigrants," or well-wishers, are those citizens of com- 
munist countries who, for political or other reasons, approach foreign 
diplomats or visitors or attempt to enter Western embassies with 
offers of secret information. They can be valuable sources, but the 
problem is that there are many obstacles in their way. For example, 
the Soviet security service used to practice a provocation technique 
through which any well-wisher who attempted to estabHsh contact by 
telephone with the American or British embassies in Moscow would 
be connected with specially trained officials of the security service. 
These would pose as members of the American or British embassy 
staffs and would arrange to meet the well-wisher outside the embassy, 
with predictable consequences for the well-wisher concerned. Many 
well-wishers attempted to contact Western embassies; few succeeded. 
Even if they did, they were not always trusted by the embassies 
because the Soviet security services deliberately discredited this type 
of person by sending their 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 61 

own provocateurs to embassies under the guise of well-wishers. 

Past experience indicates that the most valuable information 
has been provided by refugees and defectors from communist 
countries and communist parties. The most informative have 
been those who occupied leading positions, such as Trotskiy, 
Uralov, and Kravchenko, or those who worked in organizations 
where policy is implemented, such as the intelligence and 
security services (Aga-bekov, Volkov, Deryabin, the Petrovs, 
Rastvorov, Khokhlov, and Swiatlo), military intelligence 
(Krivitskiy, Reiss, Guzenko, Akhme-dov), the diplomatic 
service {Barmine, Kaznacheyev), or the armed forces (Tokayev). 
Important information was revealed by Yugoslav leaders during 
the Soviet-Yugoslav split from 1948 to 1956. Valuable 
information was also provided by former leading communists or 
communist agents, such as Souvarine, Jay Lovestone, Borkenau, 
Chambers, and Bentley. 

The value of the information from such sources depends, of 
course, on the degree of their access to information, and on their 
education, experience, honesty, degree of emotionalism, and the 
completeness of their break with communism. Trotskiy's 
exposures were of limited value because his break was not with 
communism but with Stalin. The same could be said of the 
Yugoslav leaders. Some refugee information is affected by 
emotionalism. During the cold war period, some of the literature 
on communism published in the West was distorted for 
propaganda reasons and can be used only with caution. 

Above all, the value of information from defectors and 
refugees depends on their good faith, since it is common practice 
for the communist security and intelligence services to send 
provocateurs abroad under this guise to act as channels for 
disinformation. 



Communist Sources 

The communist sources need to be treated as a separate 
category. They may be divided into official, unofficial, and 
"secret" communist sources. The official ones are: 

• The published records of international conferences of communist 
governments and communist parties inside and outside the bloc. 



62 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

• The public activities and decisions of the parties, governments, and 
ministries of individual communist countries. 

• The public activities and speeches of communist leaders and other 
officials. 

• The communist press: books, periodicals, and other publications. 

• The official communist contacts of foreign diplomats, journalists, and 
other visitors. 

• The public activities and decisions of communist parties in noncom- 
munist countries. 

The unofficial communist sources are: 

• Unofficial speeches and off-the-record comments by communist leaders 
and officials. 

• Unofficial contacts in communist countries of foreign diplomats, jour- 
nalists, and other visitors. 

• Wall posters in China and underground pubhcations in other communist 
countries, such as samizdat in the Soviet Union. 

• The books of communist scholars. 

The "secret" communist sources are the occasional, often retrospective, 
leakages or disclosures by the communist side, sometimes in documentary 
form, of information that has earher been treated as secret. These often relate 
to polemics between members of the communist bloc and may cover: 

• Secret activities, discussions, and decisions of the leading bodies of the 
bloc. 

• Secret activities, discussions, and decisions of the parties, governments, 
and ministries of individual communist countries. 

• The secret activities and speeches of communist leaders and officials. 

• Secret party and government documents, particularly party circulars to 
rank-and-file members. 



The Analysis of Information from Communist Sources 

The possibilities of obtaining reliable information on the communist world 
through communist sources should be neither ignored 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 63 

nor overestimated. Obviously, not all the items that appear in the 
communist press are false or distorted for propaganda or disinforma- 
tion purposes. Though both are present to a significant degree, the 
communist press also reflects, to a large extent accurately, the 
complex life and activity of communist society. The party and the 
population are kept informed through the press of major party and 
government decisions and events; they are also mobilized and guided 
through the press into carrying out those decisions. 

For these reasons, study of the communist press is important for the 
West. But the problem for Western analysts is to distinguish between 
the factual information and the propaganda and disinformation to be 
found in the press. Here certain Western tendencies tend to get in the 
way: the tendency to regard certain communist problems as a 
reflection of eternal, immutable world problems; a tendency to assume 
that changes in communist society are spontaneous developments; and 
a tendency to interpret developments in the communist world on the 
basis of the experience, notions, and terminology of Western systems. 

Undoubtedly there are eternal and universal elements at work in 
communist politics (Stalin did have something in common with other 
tyrants who were not communists). Some developments in the 
communist world are spontaneous (the Hungarian revolt is a case in 
point) and there are some similarities between the unfolding of events 
in the communist and noncommunist worlds. It is more important to 
point out that there is also a definite ideological, political, and 
operational continuity in the communist movement and its regimes, 
the specific elements of which should not be overlooked or ignored. 
There is a more or less permanent set of factors that reflect the essence 
of communism and make it different from any other social or political 
system, and there are certain permanent problems with which 
communists deal with varying degrees of failure and success. These 
factors and problems are, for example, class ideology, nationalism, 
intrabloc and interparty relations, internationalism, revisionism, power 
struggles, succession in the leadership, purges, policy toward the 
West, party tactics, the nature of crises and failures in the communist 
world, and the solutions or readjustments that are applied to them. To 
overlook what is specifically communist in the content and handling 
of all these problems is to fall into error. For example, attempting to 
explain the purges 



64 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

of the 1930s in terms of Stalin's psychological makeup would be 
skating on the surface. No less erroneous would be the analysis in 
Western terms of the nationalism that undoubtedly exists in the 
communist world. 

Even those Western experts who recognize the specific nature and 
continuity of communist regimes and have overcome the three 
tendencies mentioned above often display a fourth tendency, which is 
to apply stereotypes derived from the Stalin period to subsequent 
developments in the communist world, thereby failing to take into 
account the possibility of readjustments in communist regimes and the 
adoption of a more rational approach to the abiding problems 
confronting them. Historically speaking, communist ideology and 
practice have both shown themselves capable of flexibility and suc- 
cessful adaptation to circumstances: Lenin's NEP is a good example. 
Continuity and change are both present in the communist system; both 
are reflected in the communist press. 

Analysis of the communist press is therefore important to an 
understanding of the communist world but only if it is done correctly. 
A knowledge of communist history and an understanding of the 
permanent factors and problems and the manner in which they have 
been tackled in different historical periods is essential. So also — and 
hitherto this has been almost entirely lacking in the West — is an 
understanding of the role and pattern of communist disinformation in 
a given period and the effect it has on the vahdity and reliability of 
sources. 



The Vulnerability of Western Assessments 



GIVEN THAT COMMUNIST REGIMES PRACTICE DISINFORMA- 
TION in time of peace on a scale unparalleled in the West, it is 
essential to determine the pattern of disinformation that is being 
followed if Western studies and assessments are to avoid serious error. 
Once the pattern has been established, it provides criteria for 
distinguishing reliable from unreliable sources and genuine 
information from disinformation. Determining the pattern is difficult, 
if not impossible, unless reliable inside information is available. 

Here a distinction should be noted between the communist sources 
and the Western sources. All the communist sources are permanently 
available as natural channels for communist disinformation. Western 
sources are in general less available as channels, but can become so to 
a varying extent depending upon whether their existence is or is not 
known to the communist side. With communist sources the problem is 
to detect how they are being used for disinformation. With Western 
sources the problem is twofold; to determine whether they have been 
compromised to the communist side, and if so, whether they are being 
used for disinformation purposes. 

Since Western sources are in general less vulnerable than commu- 
nist to exploitation for purposes of disinformation, they tend to be 
regarded as more reliable than the communist sources, which are 
completely open to exploitation. However, if Western sources are 
compromised (and particularly if the West does not know, or does not 
wish to acknowledge, that they have been compromised), 

65 



66 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

they can become unreliable and even dangerous. Conversely, if the 
pattern of disinformation is known and if an adequate method of 
analysis is used, even communist sources can reveal reliable and 
significant information. 

The ideal situation for the West is when its intelligence services 
have reliable sources of information at the policy-making level, when 
adequate methods of analysis are applied by the West to communist 
sources, and when the pattern of communist disinformation is known. 
These three factors react on one another to their mutual advantage. 
The inside sources provide information bearing on the adequacy of 
Western analysis; they also help to determine the pattern of 
disinformation and provide timely warning of any changes in it. The 
pattern of disinformation, once established, and a proper analysis of 
communist sources together lead to an accurate assessment of Western 
secret sources and to the exposure of the tainted ones among them. 

The trouble is, however, that the effectiveness of Western inteUi- 
gence services cannot be taken for granted. Apart from the general 
obstacles to the acquisition of reliable, high-level inside information 
on the communist world, there are special risks of reliable sources 
becoming compromised through their own mistakes or through 
communist penetration of Western intelligence services. Some 
Western sources — for example, listening devices — can be detected 
and exploited by the communist side for disinformation purposes 
without the Western services concerned being penetrated. But the 
major factor that has damaged the effectiveness of Western services 
has been penetration by their communist opponents; this has com- 
promised Western sources and enabled the communist side to use 
them as channels for disinformation. 

If Western intelligence services lose their effectiveness and them- 
selves become channels for communist disinformation, this in turn 
damages Western analysis of communist sources and results in failure 
to detect the pattern of communist disinformation and any changes 
there may be in it. When all three factors — Western abihty to obtain 
secret information. Western abihty to interpret communist sources, 
and Western abihty to understand disinformation — are themselves 
adversely affected by the consequences of penetration and 
disinformation, then the whole process of Western assessment 



VULNERABILITY OF WESTERN ASSESSMENTS 67 

of communist affairs is vitiated, and the real problems and real 
changes in the communist world cannot be distinguished from 
fictitious and deceptive ones. Doubtful information from official, 
unofficial, or "secret" communist sources confirms or is confirmed by 
disinformation fed through compromised Western secret sources. 
Information deliberately leaked by the communist side is accepted as 
reliable by the West. Genuine information, fortuitously received by 
the West, may be questioned or rejected. In this way the errors in 
Western assessments become not only serious, but also irreversible 
unless and until the pattern of disinformation is correctly established. 
The critical condition of the assessment process in the West is the 
more serious because it is unrecognized and undiagnosed. If Western 
assessments of the communist world are wrong, then Western 
miscalculations and mistakes in policy will follow. These 
miscalculations and mistakes will be exploited by the communist side 
to their own advantage. When this happens and the Western mistakes 
are recognized by the public, the politicians, diplomats, and scholars 
associated with those mistakes are discredited and a basis is laid for 
the emergence of extremist bodies of opinion. The rise of 
McCarthyism in the United States after the failure of American 
postwar policy in Eastern Europe and China is an obvious example. 



The Consequences of Different Patterns of Disinformation 

The character of Western miscalculations depends to a large degree 
on the pattern of communist disinformation. During a crisis in the 
communist system when the facade and strength pattern of 
disinformation is used, the West is confused about the real situation in 
communist countries and fails to perceive the weakness of their 
regimes. A convincing, but spurious, facade of monolithic unity is 
built around the actual explosive realities of the communist world. 
Spurious though it is, the facade is liable to be taken at its face value 
by Western observers and even governments. Their overestimate of 
the strength and cohesion of the apparent monolith inhibits them from 
taking proper steps to exploit an actual crisis in the communist world. 



68 NEWLIESFOROLD 

The Crisis in the Bloc, 1949-56 

Undoubtedly there was some realization in the West of the diffi- 
culties in the communist world in the years immediately preceding 
and following Stalin's death. But facade and strength disinformation 
successfully concealed the existence of genuine Sino-Soviet differ- 
ences between 1950 and 1953; it also veiled the acuteness of the 
revolutionary situation in Eastern Europe. If the depth of the crisis 
there had been more fully appreciated in the West, a more active and 
helpful Western response to the events in Poland and Hungary might 
have been forthcoming; part or all of Eastern Europe might have been 
liberated altogether. 

During the implementation of a long-range policy, a weakness and 
evolution pattern of disinformation is used. Again, the West is 
confused about the real strength of communist regimes and, this time, 
about their policies as well. A convincing picture is built up of the 
decline of ideology and the emergence of competing national entities 
in the communist world. Although this image is false and is 
dehberately projected by the communist regimes, it is liable to be 
accepted at face value by the West as an accurate reflection of 
spontaneously occurring political developments. On this basis the 
West tends to underestimate the strength and cohesion of the 
communist world and is encouraged to overlook the necessity for 
proper defensive measures. Furthermore it can be misled into taking 
offensive steps that unintentionally serve the ends of communist 
policy and provide opportunities for future exploitation by the 
communist side, to Western disadvantage. 

Of the two patterns of disinformation, the second has potentially the 
more serious consequences for the West in that, if appHed 
successfully, it can adversely affect Western offensive and defensive 
measures; the first inhibits Western offensive measures only and 
serves to harden its defense. 



The Second World War 

Soviet expansionism was helped by disinformation during the 
Second World War. Without in any way questioning the necessity of 
the wartime antifascist alliance between the Soviet Union and the 
Western allies, it is legitimate to point out that the alliance 



VULNERABILITY OF WESTERN ASSESSMENTS 69 

was successfully exploited by the Soviet Union to further its own 
political objectives. There is scope for a detailed historical study of the 
methods and channels used by the Soviet regime to influence and 
disinform the American and British governments before the Tehran 
and Yalta conferences about the real nature of the Soviet regime and 
its intentions. American and British archives should yield additional 
information on the influence exerted by Soviet agents in the US State 
Department and British Foreign Office, such as Donald Maclean and 
Guy Burgess.' Meanwhile, a few points may be made to illustrate the 
use of the themes of the decline of ideology, the rise in nationalist 
influence, and the disunity and lack of cooperation between 
communist parties. 

During the wartime alliance ideological criticism of the United 
States and Great Britain virtually disappeared from the Soviet press. 
Revolutionary ideology, though never wholly abandoned, was soft- 
pedalled. Old Russian traditions were glorified; former czarist ranks 
and decorations were restored in the Red Army. A new respect was 
shown for religion; Stalin held a public audience for Russian church 
leaders in 1943. The common dangers confronting the Soviet Union 
and the West and their common interest in survival were emphasized, 
and described as providing a basis for future cooperation. Western 
statesmen and diplomats were told that a postwar liberalization of the 
Soviet regime and its evolution into a national. Western type of 
nation-state were inevitable; they were even flattered with the idea 
that these changes would take place under Western influence. Soviet 
acceptance of the Atlantic Charter in 1941 and signature of the United 
Nations Pact on January 1, 1942, should be seen as part of the effort to 
raise Western expectations of favorable developments in the Soviet 
Union. But the most striking and significant deception designed to 
mask continuing, active cooperation between communist parties and 
convince the Western allies that revolutionary objectives had been 
abandoned was the dissolution of the Comintern in May 1943, six 
months before the Tehran conference. Allied with this deception were 
the themes that the Soviet Union and the Red Army were fighting 
only for the liberation of Eastern Europe from fascism and had no 
thought of establishing communist regimes in that area. 



10 



Communist Intelligence Successes, 

Western Failures, and the Crisis in 

Western Studies 



AT PRESENT, Western efforts to obtain secret political information 
on the communist world, Western attempts to analyze 
information from communist sources, and Western ability to 
distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources — between genuine 
information and disinformation — all appear to be suffering from at 
least a temporary loss of effectiveness. This state of affairs is 
symptomatic of the penetration of Western intelligence services by 
their communist opponents. 

Western intelligence has not always been unsuccessful. During the 
post-Stalin crisis, the communist intelligence and security services 
were weak. More people were disposed to help the West; five officials 
of Soviet intelligence defected in 1954. Although the West has never 
fully uncovered the extent of communist intelligence penetration of its 
governments and societies, Western intelligence did nevertheless have 
some reliable sources with access to poHcy-making bodies in the 
communist countries. But as the communist world recovered from its 
crisis, so its intelligence and security services regained their strength 
and effectiveness. The effort to penetrate Western governments in 
general and Western intelligence and security services in particular, 
which had been continuous from 1917 onward, was revitalized with 
success. This is not the place for a detailed study of the problem; 
nevertheless, some examples to illustrate the argument must be given. 
From his service in the NATO section of the Information Depart- 
ment of the KGB's First Chief Directorate in 1959-60, the author 
knows that at that time the Soviet and bloc intelligence services 

70 



COMMUNIST INTELLIGENCE SUCCESSES 71 

had agents in the foreign ministries of most NATO countries, not to 
mention those of many of the non-NATO countries. This meant that 
the Soviet leaders and their partners were nearly as well informed 
about the foreign policies of Western governments as were those 
governments themselves. 

Symptomatic of the depth and scale of penetration were the cases of 
the former British Admiralty official, Vassall; the former Swedish 
military attache in the Soviet Union and later in the USA, Colonel 
Wennerstrom; the former senior official in NATO headquarters in 
Paris, Colonel Paques; and the forty concealed microphones belatedly 
discovered in the American Embassy in Moscow in 1964. 

There is also striking public evidence of communist penetration of 
Western intelligence services. The British security and intelligence 
services, the oldest and most experienced in the West, were gravely 
damaged by Blunt, Philby, Blake, and others who worked for Soviet 
intelligence inside them for many years before being discovered. 

The exposure of the Felfe ring inside the German intelligence 
service in 1961 showed that this service had been penetrated by the 
Soviets since its rebirth in 1951. 

The author's detailed information on extensive Soviet penetration of 
French intelligence over a long period of time was passed to the 
appropriate French authorities, who were able to neutralize the 
penetration. 

American intelligence suffered from Soviet penetration of allied 
services with which it was collaborating. In 1957-58 American 
intelligence lost an important secret agent in the Soviet Union, 
Lieutenant Colonel Popov, as a result of KGB penetration.' 

Particularly because the problem of disinformation has not been 
understood, it is doubtful if adequate account has been taken of the 
compromise of sources resulting from known instances of communist 
penetration of Western intelligence. 



Factors in Communist Intelligence Successes 

Three main factors contribute to the successes of the communist 
intelligence services against the West. In the first place, they operate 



72 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

on a vastly greater scale. The intelligence potential of totalitarian 
regimes is always greater than that of democracies because they rely 
on secret police for their own internal stability. The determination of 
communist regimes to promote their system in other countries entails 
an expanded role for their intelligence services abroad. Accordingly, 
communist regimes take intelligence and security work more seriously 
and commit more human and financial resources to it than do 
democracies. In the Soviet Union staff can be trained in these subjects 
up to the equivalent of university degree level. They are encouraged to 
enlarge their networks of informers on a massive scale both inside and 
outside their own particular territories. 

Second, communist leaders appreciate the importance of good 
security work to their survival and the constructive contribution that 
good intelligence can make to the success of their international 
strategy. Communist inteUigence and security services are therefore 
free from the difficult if not impossible constraints imposed on the 
activities of their counterparts in democratic countries. They have an 
officially recognized and honored place in communist institutions. 
They have no problems to contend with from the press or public 
opinion in their own countries. They can afford to be more aggressive, 
especially in the recruitment of new agents. 

The third, and possibly the most important, factor is that from 1958- 
60 onward the combined intelligence and security resources of the 
whole communist bloc have been committed by the communist 
governments to play an influential part in the implementation of the 
new long-range bloc policy by assuming an activist pohtical role, 
which has entailed providing Western intelligence services with 
carefully selected "secret" information from inside the communist 
world. 

It is an additional indication of the loss of effectiveness of Western 
intelligence that this change in the role of the communist intelligence 
services has virtually escaped attention in the West, just as did the 
significance of the two conferences of leading KGB officials in the 
Soviet Union in 1954 and 1959. There has been no sign, up to the 
present, of any increased awareness of the new dimension of the 
problem posed by the involvement of the communist intelligence 
services in strategic disinformation. This seems to indicate that 
whatever secret Western sources there may be have not reported on it. 



COMMUNIST INTELLIGENCE SUCCESSES 73 

Obsolete Western Methods of Analyzing Communist Sources 

Up to now Western analysts have normally used the content method of 
analysis of communist sources, principally the communist press and 
periodicals. Since the rules were formulated by the former German 
communist, Borkenau, it is often known as Borkenau's method. Without 
questioning the intelligence or integrity of Western analysts, one must 
question their continuing and almost exclusive reliance on his method after 
the new long-range bloc policy and the systematic use of disinformation had 
been adopted. 

The basic rules of Borkenau's method can be summed up as follows: 

• Avoid being taken in by the facade of communist propaganda and strip 
away the empty verbiage of communist statements in order to determine the 
real issues and real conflicts in communist societies. 

• Interpret these issues and forecast possible developments in the com- 
munist world before they become pubhc knowledge. 

• Seek clues for the interpretation of developments in the communist 
world in the national and local communist press in announcements of 
appointments or dismissals of officials and in obituary notices. 

• Make detailed comparisons of the speeches of leading communists in 
the same country and in different countries in a search for significant 
differences, especially in emphasis on and approach to doctrinal problems. 

• Make similar detailed comparisons between communist newspapers, 
other publications, and broadcasts in the same country and in different 
countries, with the same purpose in mind. 

• Interpret current developments in the light of knowledge of old party 
controversies. 

• Pay particular attention to struggles for personal power; trace the 
background and careers of party bosses and study the grouping of their 
followers. 

This method was valid and effective for the period of Stalin's dictatorship 
and for the power struggle that followed his death. The ehmination of the 
Zhdanov group by Stalin in 1948-49, the existence of Sino-Soviet differences 
in the Stalin period, and Khrushchev's "victory" over the majority of the 
Presidium in June 1957 were all susceptible to more or less accurate 
interpretation and 



74 NEWLIESFOROLD 

assessment by these means. Factionalism, policy disputes, political 
maneuvers, and the struggle for power were all real problems at that 
time, and the analysis of them on Borkenau's lines justified itself and 
provided a key to the understanding of the realities of the communist 
world and its poHcy. 

During the initial post-Stalin period, from 1953 to 1957, the most 
spontaneous and uncontrolled period in communist history, there were 
some new developments. Genuine nationalism and revisionism took 
on significant proportions. Different interest groups emerged (the 
military, the party, and the technical administration), together with 
groups of Stalinists and moderates, liberals, and conservatives. These 
new factors were taken into account by Western analysts, who 
modified their technique accordingly. 

However, the spontaneous period ended with the reestablishment 
of the authority of the communist parties in the bloc. Readjustments 
in the communist world reversed the original significance and mean- 
ing of the various factors studied by Western analysts. Since the latter 
failed to apprehend these readjustments, their method of analysis of 
communist sources was invalidated. 

The adoption of the long-range policy firmly established the prin- 
ciple of collective leadership, put an end to real power struggles, 
provided a solution for the problem of succession in the leadership, 
and established a new basis for relations between the different mem- 
bers of the communist bloc. Whereas the methods of assessing 
nationalism and revisionism were relevant to the crisis period of 1953 
to 1956, in which there was a loss of Soviet control over the satellites 
and spontaneous revolts occurred, notably in Poland and Hungary, 
they ceased to be relevant once the leaders of the communist parties 
and governments had been given tactical independence and all of 
them, including the Yugoslavs, had committed themselves to the new 
long-range bloc policy and international communist strategy. The 
forces of nationalism and revisionism ceased to determine communist 
policy anywhere; communist policy determined the use that could be 
made of them. It was because this fundamental change was 
successfully concealed from Western observers that subsequent 
Western analysis of Soviet- Albanian, Soviet- Yugoslav, Soviet- 
Romanian, Soviet-Czechoslovak, Soviet-Chinese, and Soviet-Polish 
relations, based on the old, obsolete methodology, became 
dangerously misleading. 



COMMUNIST INTELLIGENCE SUCCESSES 75 

The reestablishment of the authority of the parties put an end to the 
influence of the interest groups. This can be illustrated with the case 
of the military group. Under Stalin the military were a potentially 
important group because they were persecuted by him. They knew all 
about Stalin's methods from personal experience. For that reason an 
antiparty move by the military was always a possibility. During the 
power struggle from 1953 to 1957, party control over the Soviet 
military was weak, and the military played a significant role first in 
unseating undesirable leaders like Beriya and later, through Zhukov, 
in Khrushchev's "victory" over the opposition. After Zhukov's 
removal the military came under sounder party control and were freed 
from the threat of persecution. Similarly, party control over the 
military in China was reaffirmed from 1958 onward. The military 
cannot and do not make policy in either country. The "discovery" by 
Western analysts of a military pressure group in the Soviet Union in 
1960 and the emphasis on the role of the former Chinese minister of 
defense, Lin Piao, were both mistaken. The military leaders, like the 
so-called technocrats, are all party members under the control of the 
party leadership. In their separate fields they are all active participants 
in the implementation of the long-range policy. 

Once collective leadership had been established in the Soviet Union 
and reaffirmed in the Chinese party in 1959-60, factionalism lost its 
meaning. There could no longer be actual groups of Stalinists, neo- 
Stalinists, Khrushchevites, or Maoists, but such groups could be 
invented if required by policy considerations. The personality factor in 
the leadership of communist parties took on a new significance. A 
leader's personal style and idiosyncracies no longer determined 
communist policy; on the contrary, the long-range bloc policy began 
to determine the actions of the leaders and to exploit their differences 
in personality and style for its own purposes. Stalin used the cult of 
personality to establish his own personal dictatorship; Mao used it, in 
part, to conceal the reality of collective leadership. Since the adoption 
of the common long-range policy also solved the problem of 
succession, power struggles lost their former significance and became 
part of the calculated and controlled display of difference and disunity 
within the bloc. The existence of genuine groups of Stalinists and 
liberals, hard-liners, and moderates in the Soviet Union is as illusory 
as the existence of pro-Soviet and anti- 



76 NEWLIESFOROLD 

Soviet groups, or groups of conservatives and pragmatists in the 
Chinese leadership. It is true that there have been representatives of 
the older and younger generations in both leaderships, but attempts to 
find differences in the ideology or policy of the different generations 
cannot be substantiated by hard evidence. Both generations in both 
parties were, and are, equally committed to the long-range pohcy of 
1958-60. 

When there was a real power struggle in the Soviet Union, it made 
sense to scan the communist press for clues, hints, and significant 
omissions, to read veiled criticism between the lines or to seek 
divergences of emphasis on a given subject in different papers or by 
different leaders in one party or in different parties. It made sense 
particularly in the years before and after Stalin's death. After 1960, 
however, continued analysis on these lines was not only useless but 
positively dangerous, since the bloc's strategists knew all about the 
Borkenau technique and its cliches and used their knowledge in 
planning their strategic disinformation. They knew all the pointers on 
which exponents of the Borkenau method had come to rely for their 
insight into the workings of the communist system; they knew the 
fascination exercised by actual and potential spHts in the communist 
world; they knew when and how to drop hints in the media or in 
private conversation suggesting apparent shifts in the balance between 
apparent rival groups in the leadership; they knew where and how to 
disclose the texts of secret speeches and discussions reflecting 
apparent discord between parties; and, finally, they learned how to 
conduct controlled public polemics between party leaders realistically 
enough to convince the outside world of the reality of Soviet-AI banian 
and Sino-Soviet hostility while at the same time preserving and 
strengthening unity of action within the bloc in accordance with the 
mutually agreed long-range policy and strategy. 



The Western Failure to Detect Disinformation and Its Current Pattern 

Conventional methodology tends to regard a secret source as 
reliable if the information it provides is broadly compatible with other 
information openly available; conversely, a source reporting 



COMMUNIST INTELLIGENCE SUCCESSES 77 

information that conflicts with the generally accepted view of the 
situation in the communist world may be discounted or rejected. In the 
absence of disinformation, this methodology would be valid. But the 
Shelepin report of May 1959 marked the reintroduction of a 
systematic program of disinformation. It is true that in the late 1960s 
an increase in communist disinformation activity, mainly of a tactical 
nature involving the fabrication and leakage by the communist side of 
alleged Western documents, attracted Western attention and was 
reported by the CIA to the Congress of the United States. But the fact 
is that when Shelepin delivered his report to the KGB conference in 
1959, the West apparently had no sources capable of reporting on it; 
its contents and implications remained unknown to, and unexplored 
by, any Western intelligence service until the author gave his account 
of them. Bearing in mind the public references to the long-range 
political role of the KGB at the Twenty-first CPSU Congress, the 
good faith of any KGB source or defector who has described the KGB 
conference of 1959 and Shelepin's report to it as routine is open to 
serious doubt. 

Not only did the West lack specific information on the Shelepin 
report; communist use of disinformation in general has been consis- 
tently underrated in the West, and the purpose of the weakness and 
evolution pattern is virtually unknown.^ If the West had been aware of 
the Shelepin report and had appreciated its implications, Western 
methodology should, and probably would, have been turned upside 
down; it would have been realized that a reliable source would give 
information conflicting with the generally accepted picture. The 
communist concept of total disinformation entails the use of all 
available channels to convey disinformation; that is to say, all the 
communist sources and all the Western sources except, obviously, any 
that are unknown to the communist side and those that, for some 
practical reason, are unsuitable. If the communist and Western sources 
reflect the same image of the communist world, it is a good indication 
that the Western as well as the communist sources are being used 
successfully for disinformation purposes. 

Against the background of the superior communist security and 
intelligence effort and its known successes in penetrating Western 
intelligence services, the odds are heavily against the survival of 
rehable, uncompromised Western secret sources at the strategic 



78 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

political level in the communist world. If, despite the odds, such a 
source were to have survived, it should have produced information at 
variance with that from all other sources. At a time when the facade 
and strength pattern of disinformation was in use, a reliable source at 
the right level should have drawn attention to the existence of a 
critical situation in the communist world that the communist side was 
anxious to conceal. Conversely, after the weakness and evolution 
pattern had been reintroduced in 1958-60, a reliable secret source 
should have drawn attention, in contrast with other sources, to the 
underlying strength and coordination of the communist world. 
Because the West failed to find out about or understand communist 
disinformation after 1958, it failed to change its methodology; because 
it failed to change its methodology, it has continued to accept as 
genuine information from all sources, both communist and Western, 
reflecting disunity and disarray in the communist world. The fact that 
all the sources. Western and communist alike, continue to tell much 
the same story on this subject is a good indication that the 
disinformation effort has been both comprehensive and effective. The 
most dangerous consequence of Western failure to detect and 
understand communist disinformation and its patterns is that, in the 
absence of any correcting influence from rehable Western secret 
sources, the version of events transmitted through communist sources 
has increasingly come to be accepted as the truth. Conventional 
Western views on the Sino-Soviet "split," the "independence" of 
Romania and Yugoslavia, the "Prague spring," Eurocommunist 
dissidence, and other subjects discussed in Part 2 were devised for the 
West and communicated to it by the communist strategists. 



11 



Western Errors 



THE FAILURE OF WESTERN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES to adapt their 
methodology to take into account the changes in communist 
pohcy and strategy in the period 1957-60 and the reintroduction 
of disinformation on the weakness and evolution pattern meant that 
those services lost their ability to produce or contribute to accurate 
and balanced assessments of the situation in the communist world; 
they unwittingly became vehicles for the further dissemination of 
disinformation deliberately fed to them by their communist opposite 
numbers. Since they failed to convey adequate warnings either about 
the mobilization of the bloc's intelligence potential for political action 
or about the techniques and patterns of disinformation, it is not 
surprising that Western diplomats, academics, and journalists should 
also have overlooked the calculated feeding of disinformation through 
the communications media and should increasingly have accepted at 
face value the "disclosures" made to them by communist leaders and 
officials in unofficial, off-the-record conversations. 

Acceptance of the new brand of disinformation from 1958 onward 
was by no means total and immediate. Until 1961 at least, there were, 
broadly speaking, two schools of thought among serious Western 
students of communist affairs. There were those who, on the basis of 
their long experience and acquaintanceship with communist duplicity 
and deceit and their intuitive mistrust of evidence and "leakages" 
emanating from communist sources, adopted a sceptical attitude 
toward the early manifestations of divergences and splits in the 
communist world and warned against the uncritical 

79 



80 NEWLIESFOROLD 

acceptance of these manifestations at their face value. Scepticism 
about the authenticity of Sino-Soviet differences was expressed in 
different ways and on different grounds by, among others, W. A. 
Douglas Jackson, J. Burnham, J. Lovestone, Natahe Grant, Suzanne 
Labin, and Tibor Mende. For example, Jackson wrote: "In the latter 
part of 1959 and throughout 1960, as a result of different views 
expressed in statements issued in Peking and Moscow, the notion of a 
possible falling out between the two powers [gained] considerable 
momentum in some Western capitals. The desire to see a conflict 
develop between the CPR and the USSR is a legitimate one, but it 
may tend to blind the West to fundamental realities if undue weight is 
given to seemingly apparent signs of rift, when in fact nothing of a 
fundamental nature may exist." 

James Burnham pointed out in the National Review that the Sino- 
Soviet conflict seemed to be a subject of conversation much favored 
by communist hosts for Western statesmen and journalists during their 
visits to Moscow and Peking; he wondered whether statements about 
the Sino-Soviet dispute were a "deliberate deception by the 
communists or wishful thinking by non-communists, or a fusion of 
both."- 

Suzanne Labin repeated in her book the opinion of a refugee from 
Communist China, Dr. Tang, according to whom Sino-Soviet 
differences stemmed from a division of labor between the USSR and 
China.' 

Tibor Mende, who visited China at that time, warned against 
exaggerating the importance of existing differences and observed that 
"when China and the Soviet Union meet it is not merely to bargain, 
but also to concert their actions."^ 

Natalie Grant, well-versed in the history of the Trust, went further, 
suggesting that "a careful study of the material forming the alleged 
grounds for concluding that there is a serious Sino-Soviet conflict 
proves the absence of any objective foundation for such a belief ... all 
statements regarding the existence of a serious disagreement between 
Moscow and Peking on foreign policy, war, peace, revolution, or 
attitude toward imperialism are an invention. All are the fruit of fertile 
imagination and unbased speculation." She also said that much of the 
"misinformation" on Sino-Soviet relations was communist-inspired 
and "reminiscent of that almost forgotten era dominated by the 
Institute of Pacific Relations."^ 



WESTERN ERRORS 81 

The opposite school of thought apphed Borkenau's methods to the 
new situation and devoted great attention to the study of what came to 
be known as "symbolic," or "esoteric," evidence, which began to 
appear in the communist press from 1958 onward, of divergences and 
doctrinal disputes between different members of the communist bloc.^ 
The esoteric evidence of Sino-Soviet differences was supported by 
various unofficial statements by Soviet and Chinese leaders, such as 
Khrushchev's critical remarks about the Chinese communes to the late 
Senator Hubert Humphrey on December 1, 1958, or Chou En-lai's 
"frank admissions" to Edgar Snow in the autumn of 1960. Further 
support came from off-the-record comments by communist officials in 
Eastern Europe. 

Throughout 1960 and much of 1961, opinions fluctuated between 
the sceptics and the believers in the esoteric evidence. Then, at the 
Twenty-second CPSU Congress held in October 1961, Khrushchev 
dehvered a public attack on the Albanian Communist party leadership 
and Chou En-lai, leader of the Chinese delegation, withdrew from the 
congress. The Soviet-Al banian dialogue had ceased to be esoteric and 
had become public. As the public polemics between the Soviet and the 
Albanian and Chinese leaders developed, retrospective accounts 
began to appear in the West of disputes that had allegedly occurred 
behind closed doors at the congress of the Romanian Communist 
party held in Bucharest in June 1960 and the congress of eighty-one 
communist parties held in Moscow in November 1960. The most 
notable of these disclosures were those made in Edward Crankshaw's 
articles in the London Observer for February 12 and 19, 1961, and 
May 6 and 20, 1962. They were followed by the publication of official 
documents and statements in the press of the Italian, French, Belgian, 
Polish, and Albanian Communist parties. This material confirmed and 
added to the content of the Crankshaw articles. 

By the end of 1962 the combination of esoteric evidence, public 
polemics between communist leaders, and the largely retrospective 
evidence of factionalism at international communist gatherings proved 
irresistible; acceptance of the existence of genuine splits in the 
communist world became almost universal The esoteric and the 
unofficial evidence from communist sources had proved themselves 
reliable and accurate. The continuing validity of the basic premises of 
the old methodology had been reconfirmed and 



82 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

its practitioners vindicated. The ground was cut from under the 
sceptics' feet. Some changed their minds. Those who retained their 
doubts lacked soHd evidence with which to back them and had no 
option but to keep silent. Study of the splits built up its own 
momentum, creating on the way a variety of personal commitments to 
and vested interests in the validity of an analysis that demonstrated 
the accelerating disintegration of the communist monolith. New 
students entering the field had no incentive and no basis for 
challenging the accepted orthodoxy or for reexamining the basic 
premises of the methodology or the validity of the evidence on which 
they were founded. 

The development of splits in the communist world appeals to 
Western consciousness in many ways. It feeds the craving for sensa- 
tionalism; it raises hopes of commercial profit; it stirs memories of 
past heresies and splits in the communist movement; it shows that 
factionalism is an element in communist as in Western politics; it 
supports the comforting illusion that, left to itself, the communist 
world will disintegrate and that the communist threat to the rest of the 
world will vanish; and it confirms the opinions of those who, on 
intellectual grounds, reject the pretensions of communist dogma to 
provide a unique, universal, and infallible guide to the understanding 
of history and the conduct of policy. Not surprisingly, therefore, 
evidence in official communist sources that conflicts with the image 
of disunity and disarray in the communist world and that points, or 
can be interpreted as pointing, to continuing cooperation between the 
Soviet Union, China, Romania, and Yugoslavia and continuing 
coordination in the implementation of the long-range bloc policy has 
been discounted or ignored. The focus of attention is almost 
invariably on the evidence of discord. So exciting has this evidence 
been and so lacking has been Western understanding of the motives 
and techniques of communist disinformation that less and less 
attention has been paid to the communist origin of the evidence. 
Virtually all of it has in fact been provided to the West by communist 
governments and parties through their press and intelligence services. 
Failing to take this into account. Western observers have fallen deeper 
and deeper into the trap that was set for them. 

The present situation is reminiscent of the NEP period with one 
important difference: In the 1920s Western mistakes related 



WESTERNERRORS 83 

only to Soviet Russia; now the mistakes relate to the whole commu- 
nist world. Where the West should see unity and strategic coordina- 
tion in the communist world, it sees only diversity and disintegration; 
where it should see the revival of ideology, the stabilization of 
communist regimes, and the reinforcement of party control, it sees the 
death of ideology and evolution toward or convergence with the 
democratic system; where it should see new communist maneuvers, it 
sees moderation in communist policy. Communist willingness to sign 
agreements with the West for tactical reasons on a deceptive basis is 
misinterpreted as the reassertion of great-power national interests over 
the pursuit of long-range ideological goals. 

Two further tendencies have helped to compound the series of 
Western errors: the tendency to apply cliches and stereotypes derived 
from the study of conventional national regimes to the study of 
communist countries, overlooking or underestimating the ideological 
factor in their internal systems and their relations with one another; 
and the tendency toward wishful thinking. 

Both tendencies favor the uncritical acceptance by the West of what 
communist sources, official and unofficial, say in particular about the 
Sino-Soviet dispute. Much of the Western literature on the subject 
lumps together historical evidence on rivalry between the two 
countries when they were governed by czars and emperors with the 
controversies between them in the 1920s through the 1960s — all this 
in an effort to substantiate the authenticity of the current dispute 
without any serious attempt to study the different factors in operation 
in different periods. The focus of Western attention is always on the 
split and not on the evidence from the same communist sources, 
scanty though it is, of continuing Sino-Soviet collaboration. Western 
analysts, inside and outside government, seem to be more concerned 
with speculation on future relations between the communist and 
noncommunist worlds than with critical examination of the evidence 
on which their interpretation of events is based. 

Nationalism was an important force in communist parties during 
Stalin's last years and the crisis after his death. Various parties were 
affected by it, particularly those in Yugoslavia, Poland, Hungary, and 
Georgia. It is important to realize, however, that nationalist dissent in 
the parties at that time was a reaction to Stalin's 



84 NEWLIESFOROLD 

departures from Leninist principles of internationalism. Once Stalin's 
practices had been condemned and the necessary readjustments had 
been made from 1956-57 onward in the conduct of communist affairs, 
particularly with regard to relations between the CPSU and other 
communist parties, the basis for nationalist dissent in those other 
parties progressively disappeared. From then on, nationalist feehngs 
in the respective populations were a factor that the communist regimes 
could deal with by an agreed diversity of tactics and by the calculated 
projection of a false image of the national independence of communist 
parties. Whatever the appearances, since 1957-60 the regimes in 
China, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Dubcek's Czechoslovakia have not 
been motivated by different brands of national communism; their 
actions have been consistently dictated by Leninist ideology and 
tactics directed toward the pursuit of the long-range interests and 
goals of the communist bloc as a whole, to which the national 
interests of the peoples of the communist world are subordinated. 

The fundamental Western error throughout has been to overlook the 
adoption of the long-range bloc policy and the role and pattern of 
communist disinformation. Either disinformation is not taken into 
account at all or it is assumed that a facade and strength pattern is 
being followed. In reality the weakness and evolution pattern has 
applied since 1958-60. Disinformation on this pattern has laid the 
basis for erroneous Western assessments of the communist world, 
which in turn have engendered mistakes in Western responses and 
policies. As a result the communist world has been allowed 
systematically to implement its long-range policy over a period of 
more than twenty years. 



12 



The New Methodology 



THERE ARE TWO WAYS of analyzing and interpreting each of the 
major developments since 1958 in world communism described 
in Part 2. According to the conventional view, based on the old, 
obsolete methodology, each of these developments is a manifestation 
of the spontaneous growth of fissile tendencies in international 
communism. The new methodology leads to the radically different 
conclusion that each of them forms part of an interlocking series of 
strategic disinformation operations designed to implement long-range 
bloc policy and its strategies. The essence of the new methodology, 
which distinguishes it from the old, is that it takes into account the 
new policy and the role of disinformation. 

Conventional methodology frequently attempts to analyze and 
interpret events in the communist world in isolation and on a year-to- 
year basis; communist initiatives are seen as spontaneously occurring 
attempts to achieve short-term objectives. But because the years 1957- 
60 saw a readjustment in intrabloc relations and the formulation and 
adoption of a new long-range policy for the bloc as a whole, a proper 
understanding of what occurred in those years provides the key to 
understanding what has happened since. The first, and basic, principle 
of the new methodology is that the starting point for the analysis of all 
subsequent events should be the period 1957-60. 

85 



86 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Factors Underlying the New Methodology 

From the account of those years already given, based largely on inside 
information, eight new factors can be isolated. Only if all these factors and 
the interaction between them are understood and taken into account together 
can analysis of the developments of the past twenty years yield correct 
results. These factors are: 

• The readjustments in relations between members of the communist bloc, 
including Yugoslavia, from 1957 onward and the adoption of a common 
long-range policy. 

• The settlement of the question of Stalinism. 

• The establishment of collective leadership, the ending of power strug- 
gles, and the solution of the succession problem. 

• The phases and long-range objectives of the policy. 

• The historical experience on which the policy was based. 

• The preparations made to use the party apparatus, the mass organiza- 
tions, and the diplomatic, intelligence, and security services of the whole bloc 
for purposes of political influence and strategic disinformation. 

• The adoption of a weakness and evolution pattern of disinformation. 

• The new appreciation by communist strategists of the use that could be 
made of polemics between different members of the communist bloc. 

From these new factors new analytical principles can be derived. Each 
factor will be considered in turn. 

Before the new policy began to be formulated, and as one of the essential 
preconditions for its formulation, a new relationship between the regimes of 
the communist bloc was established in 1957. Soviet domination over the East 
European satellites and Stalinist attempts to interfere in Chinese and 
Yugoslav communist affairs were abandoned in favor of the Leninist 
concepts of equality and proletarian intemationahsm. Domination gave way 
to genuine partnership and mutual cooperation and coordination in pursuit of 
the common long-range interests and objectives of the whole of the 
communist bloc and movement; account was taken of the diversity of the 
specific national conditions within which each communist regime and party 
was operating. 

Obsolete, conventional methodology failed to spot the significance of this 
change; it continued to see the Soviet party as striving, often unsuccessfully 
and in competition with the Chinese, to exert 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 87 

its influence over the other communist parties so as to ensure their 
conformity with the Soviet pattern. Once it is reaHzed 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 pohcy 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. 

The new interpretation of the evidence available from official 
communist sources leads to the identification of six interlocking 
communist strategies and illustrates the different strategic roles 
allotted to different communist parties within the overall design. 

The congress of bloc communist parties in 1957 agreed on a 
common, balanced assessment of Stalin's mistakes and crimes and on 
the measures needed to correct them. The basis for differences 
between communists on the question of Stalinism and de-Staliniza- 
tion was removed; the issues were settled. The old methodology took 
little or no account of this and continued to see them as matters in 
contention between different Soviet leaders and between the Soviets 
and the Chinese and Albanians. The new methodology sees Stalinism 
from 1958 onward as a dead issue that was deliberately and artificially 
revived and used for the projection of a false image of warring 
factions among the leaders of the communist bloc. An understanding 
of the constituent elements of de-Stalinization and 



88 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the way they were exploited provides a key to the understanding of 
communist tactics and technique in the rest of the program of related 
disinformation operations dealing with, for example, the alleged 
conflicts between Yugoslav and Soviet "revisionism" and Chinese and 
Albanian "Stalinism," or the "independence" of Romania. 

From 1958 onward the concept of collective leadership widened 
progressively to cover far more than agreement on policy between the 
individual members of the Presidium or Politburo. It began to 
embrace all those who were in a position to contribute toward the 
formulation of the policy and the development and application of 
ways and means of achieving its ends, including not only the leaders 
of all the bloc and some of the more important nonbloc parties, but 
also senior officials in the Central Committee apparatuses, the 
diplomatic and intelligence services, and the academies of sciences. 

The settlement of the issue of Stalinism, together with the estab- 
lishment of collective leadership in this sense and the downward 
diffusion of power and influence that it entailed, effectively removed 
the grounds for genuine factionalism, power struggles, and succession 
problems in the leadership of the bloc communist parties. 
Thenceforward these phenomena were available to be used as the 
subjects of disinformation operations in support of long-range policy, 
and it is in this light that the new methodology regards them. 
Kremlinologists and China-watchers were caught out when they 
continued to try to rationalize the ups and downs of Soviet and 
Chinese leaders by using the outdated methodology, which took no 
account of disinformation. According to the new methodology, 
promotions and demotions, purges and rehabilitations, even deaths 
and obituary notices of prominent communist figures — formerly 
significant pointers for the Borkenau method of analysis — should be 
examined for their relevance to communist attempts to misrepresent 
shifts in policy as dictated by personal rather than strategic or tactical 
considerations. 

Conventional methodology tries to analyze developments in the 
situation and policies of the communist world either in terms of short- 
term objectives or in terms of the rival, long-range great-power 
national interests of the Soviet Union and China. It seldom appreciates 
the marked influence, especially since 1958-60, of dialectical thinking 
on communist policies, which frequently entail their own 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 89 

opposites: communist detente diplomacy, for example, implying the 
calculated raising of international tension over specific issues and its 
subsequent relaxation when specific communist objectives have been 
achieved; the disgrace of communist leaders, implying their later 
rehabilitation; the harassment or forced exile of dissidents, implying 
their eventual pardon or return to their homeland. 

The new methodology examines current developments in relation to 
the objectives of the long-range policy. It sees that policy as having 
three phases, like its predecessor, the NEP. The first phase is the 
creation of favorable conditions for the implementation of the poHcy; 
the second is the exploitation of Western misunderstanding of the 
policy to gain specific advantages. These two phases, like the phases 
of an alternating current electric supply, are continuous, overlapping 
and interacting. The beginning of the third, and final, offensive phase 
is marked by a major shift in communist tactics in preparation for a 
comprehensive assault on the West in which the communist world, 
taking advantage of the West's long-term strategic errors, moves 
forward toward its ultimate objective of the global triumph of 
international communism. 

In the first phase of the NEP, economic reform was used both to 
revive the economy and to foster the illusion that Soviet Russia had 
lost its revolutionary impetus. Favorable conditions were thus created 
for the second phase, that of stabilizing the regime and winning 
diplomatic recognition and economic concessions from the Western 
powers. The third phase began with the reversal of the economic 
reforms in 1929 and the launching of ideological offensives internally 
through the nationalization of industry and the collectivization of 
agriculture and externally through Comintern subversion. The success 
of both internal and external offensives was prejudiced by the 
distortions of the Stalinist regime. The corresponding first two phases 
of the current long-range policy have already lasted over twenty years. 
The final phase may be expected to begin in the early 1980s. 

The intermediate objectives of the policy may be summarized as 
follows: 

• The political stabilization and strengthening of the individual communist 
regimes as an essential precondition for the strengthening of the bloc as a whole. 

• The correction of the economic deficiencies of the bloc through 



NEW LIES FOR OLD 

international trade and the acquisition of credits and technology from the 
industrially advanced noncommunist countries. 

• The creation of the substructure for an eventual world federation of 
communist states. 

• The isolation of the United States from its aUies and the promotion of 
united action with socialists in Western Europe and Japan, with a view to 
securing the dissolution of NATO and the United States-Japan security pact 
and an alignment between the Soviet Union and a neutral, preferably 
sociahst, Western Europe and Japan against the United States"" 

• United action with nationalist leaders in Third World countries to 
ehminate Western influence from those countries as a preliminary to their 
absorption into the communist bloc. 

• The procurement of a decisive shift in the balance of political and 
military power in favor of the communist world. 

• The ideological disarmament of the West in order to create favorable 
conditions for the final offensive phase of the pohcy and the ultimate 
convergence of East and West on communist terms. 

The new methodology aims to see how developments in the communist 
world may relate and contribute to the achievement of these objectives in 
each phase of the pohcy. The decisions of November 1960 authorized the use 
of all forms of tactics — right and left, legal and revolutionary, conventional 
and ideological — in pursuit of communist aims. Conformity with the Soviet 
pattern having ceased to be a criterion of orthodoxy, the most potent cause of 
actual and potential splits in the communist world had vanished. The new 
methodology therefore examines the so-called splits as a new form of tactic 
and tries to see how they serve the aims of policy. Once it is realized that 
hcensed anti-Sovietism can in fact yield dividends for overall communist 
strategy, it is easy to see that the anti-Sovietism of leading dissidents inside 
the Soviet Union and Eurocommunists outside it, like the anti-Sovietism of 
the Chinese, Albanian, Yugoslav, and Romanian leaders, is artificially con- 
trived to serve the ends of long-range policy. 

The old methodology takes httle or no account of the history of the NEP 
and other periods in which disinformation was important. It cannot therefore 
appreciate or illuminate the implementation of the long-range policy that was 
based largely on a reexamination of that history. The new methodology 
applies the lessons of 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 91 

the NEP. The elements in it most relevant to the 1960s, and therefore most 
useful to the new methodology for purposes of comparison, were: 

• The stabilization of the Soviet regime by the creation of spurious, 
controlled opposition movements and the effective use of those movements 
to neutralize genuine internal and external opposition. 

• The creation of favorable conditions for an activist Soviet foreign policy 
aimed at securing diplomatic recognition by, and increased trade with, the 
Western powers. 

• The experience of the Treaty of Rapallo, of entering into a secret 
political and military alliance with a capitalist state for acquiring military 
technology. 

• The successful projection of a false image of the Far Eastern Republic 
(DVR) as an independent regime. 

• Lenin's tactical advice to communist parties on overcoming their 
isolation, establishing united fronts with socialists, and increasing their 
influence in parliaments and trade unions. 

The genuine Tito-Stalin split in 1948 provided the communist strategists 
ten years later with a model on which to base their planning of spurious sphts 
in the future. The history of Soviet-Yugoslav relations from 1948 to 1955 
therefore provides the new methodology with a set of criteria for judging the 
authenticity of subsequent splits. 

The decision to use the intelligence potential of the bloc for strategic 
disinformation purposes, embodied in the Shelepin report in 1959 and related 
documents, destroys the notion, imphcit in much of conventional 
methodology, that the communist intelligence services are engaged solely in 
espionage and security work. The new methodology takes into account the 
Shelepin report and the important role allocated to Soviet officials, trade 
unionists, scientists, priests, academics, artists, and other intellectuals in the 
implementation of policy through the exercise of political influence. The new 
methodology tries to see how their activities and public statements may serve 
the interests of policy. 

To create favorable conditions for the implementation of that policy, the 
bloc's strategists adopted the weakness and evolution pattern of 
disinformation used successfully in the NEP period in 



92 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the Soviet Union and extended since 1958-60 to cover the whole 
communist bloc. The new methodology therefore dictates that all 
information reaching the West on the communist world and the 
international communist movement, including Eurocommunism, 
should be assessed in relation to that pattern. 

A significant contribution to the formulation of the long-range 
policy and disinformation technique about splits was made by the 
Yugoslav leader Edvard Kardelj, whose book Socialism and War was 
published shortly before the Eighty-one-Party Congress in November 
1960. In it Kardelj wrote that differences of opinion between 
communists "are not only not harmful but are the law of progress."^ 
According to Kardelj the domestic and foreign policies of the Yugo- 
slav communist party could not be independent of the interests of 
socialism but could be independent of the "subjectively concocted 
notions" of other parties, such as the CPC. One should not be content 
with "interpreting this or that phenomenon in the course of 
development by the simple repetition of stereotyped dogmatic 
phrases."^ "When making an objective analysis, one should try to 
separate what is subjective from what is objective, that is, not allow 
slogans or political declarations to conceal insight into the real 
substance of things."^ Tito made much the same Leninist point when 
he said in 1958 that "internationalism is practice — not words and 
propaganda."' 

For obvious reasons Kardelj and Tito could not openly announce 
that spurious polemics between communist parties were thencefor- 
ward to be used as part of the technique of communist disinformation. 
Nevertheless, the distinction clearly drawn between the subjective 
nature of polemics and the objective nature of common interests and 
socialist solidarity expressed in unity of actions provided a theoretical 
basis on which the genuine polemics between Tito and Stalin could be 
transmuted, when required by the interests of long-range policy, into 
spurious polemics between communist leaders without endangering 
the fundamental ideological and practical unity of the communist 
world. 

An up-to-date restatement of Kardelj 's point has been made by 
Yuriy Krasin: "Complete unanimity can hardly be a precondition of 
joint action. . . . What is needed is not static, monolithic unity, but a 
dynamic system of views and positions marked by differences on 
particular issues but developing on the basis of the fundamental 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 93 

principles of Marxism-Leninism common to all."^ 

From such statements and their impHcations, five related principles 
can be derived. The first is not to assume that where there are 
polemics between communists there are necessarily divisions. The 
second is to assess whether or not there are any solid and consistent 
grounds for the existence of disputes. The third is to seek evidence of 
unity of actions behind the disunity of words, to look for secretly 
coordinated joint actions by apparent enemies or rivals. The fourth is 
to seek correlations in timing between outbursts of polemics and 
major communist initiatives or negotiations with Western powers 
(SALT, for instance) or meetings with Western leaders. The fifth is to 
assume that polemics form part of a disinformation operation and 
examine them to see if, regarded in that light, they could contribute 
toward the achievement of communist objectives. To take some 
obvious examples, Khrushchev's charges of Chinese warmongering 
and Chinese countercharges of Soviet revisionism and pacificism in 
the 1960s should be examined to see if they helped to build up 
Khrushchev's image in the West as a moderate with whom it was 
possible to negotiate concrete deals. Yugoslavia's continued exclusion 
from the communist bloc, despite Tito's secret participation in the 
formulation and execution of the new long-range policy, should be 
considered in relation to the buildup of Yugoslavia's credibility as a 
leader of the nonaligned movement in the Third World. Soviet attacks 
on conservative Western leaders in the last few years should be 
viewed in conjunction with Chinese efforts to cultivate closer relations 
with those same leaders. The escalation of Sino-Soviet hostilities in 
1969-70 should be considered as intended to facilitate both the SALT 
talks between the Soviet Union and the United States and Chinese 
rapprochement with the advanced industrial nations. In short, the 
study of polemics, if they are read as disinformation, may throw light 
not on the existence of splits, but on the long-range policy and 
strategic interests that apparent splits are intended to promote. 



The New Methodology and Western Sources 

The existence of a program of disinformation operations has 
implications for every type of source of information on the commu- 



94 NEWLIESFOROLD 

nist world. Continued failure to take disinformation into account will 
lead to the continuing proliferation of errors in Western assessments 
of, and policy toward, the communist world. Given the communist 
concept of total disinformation, any Western reassessment of the 
situation, if it is to have meaning, should cover information from all 
sources, open and secret, human and technical. The assumption that if 
secret and open sources in general support one another, the reliability 
of both is confirmed should be dropped; it should be realized that the 
two streams of information, open and secret, may well have a 
common point of origin in the Central Committees and disinformation 
departments of the bloc parties and intelligence services. If 
information from Western secret sources is in line with information 
from open sources, including official communist sources, that alone 
calls the reliability of the Western secret sources into question. Those 
Western secret sources whose information since 1958-60 conforms 
with the weakness and evolution pattern need particularly careful 
scrutiny to see whether they have become known to the communist 
side through compromise or other means. 

If conformity with the normal pattern of information coming from 
the communist world is an indication of the unreliability of sources, 
the converse principle is that greater weight should be given to 
evidence that conflicts with that pattern even if it comes only from a 
single source. For example, the personal observations of a Western 
visitor to a Chinese commune in 1961, who reported that commune 
dwellers were no worse off in material terms than they were before 
and that the Chinese people were inevitably becoming more closely 
identified with the communist regime, should not have been 
discounted on the grounds that the observations conflicted with the 
generally accepted opinion of the time that the situation in the 
communes was disastrous.^ 

Total disinformation, to be effective, necessitates the release by the 
communist side of a volume of accurate information about itself, 
including genuine secrets, in order to give credibility and weight to the 
disinformation it is seeking to convey. In the Stalin period the release 
of secret information by the communist side was impossible. With the 
adoption of the long-range policy and disinformation program, the 
position changed. The Leninist concept of primary and secondary 
types of sacrifice was reintroduced. The primary communist secret is 
the existence and nature of the 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 95 

long-range bloc policy and strategy and the role of disinformation. 
Military, scientific and technical, economic, and counterespionage 
secrets are secondary; they form a reservoir from which information 
may be drawn and given away for strategic purposes, particularly if 
there is some reason to think that it may already have been 
compromised by genuine leakages or technical means. For example, 
the identities of secret agents who for one reason or another are 
reaching the end of their usefulness to the communist side may be 
given away through a source in whom the communist side is seeking 
to establish Western confidence. The good faith of Western secret 
sources or of defectors from the communist side is not therefore 
automatically established by the fact that they produce quantities of 
information on military, economic, scientific and technical, or 
counterespionage subjects or that they give vent to spectacular 
denunciations of communism. A more important criterion is what they 
have to say on communist long-range policy and the use of 
disinformation. The number of communist leaders, officials, and 
intellectuals who have full knowledge of the scope and scale of the 
disinformation program is very limited, but the number who 
participate in one or other of its aspects is very large. Most secret 
sources or defectors, if they have genuinely transferred their alle- 
giance to the West, should have something of value to say on current 
communist techniques in this field even if they themselves do not 
realize the full significance of their own knowledge. 

In evaluating scientific and technical information reaching the 
West, due regard should be paid to the fact that Sheiepin, in his May 
1959 report and articles for KGB staff in Chekist, called for the 
preparation of disinformation operations designed to confuse and 
disorientate Western scientific, technological, and military programs; 
to bring about changes in Western priorities; and to involve the West 
in costly, wasteful, and ineffective lines of research and development. 
It is to be expected, therefore, that information available in the West 
on Soviet space projects, weapons systems, military statistics, and 
developments in science and technology will be found to contain an 
element of disinformation. 

Given that a program of total disinformation is in operation and 
given that the communist side is well aware of Western interest in 
intercepting its communications, evidence derived from communist 
communications in plain language or weak codes and ciphers 



96 NEW LIES FOR OLD 



is particularly suspect; in fact, it should be treated in the same way as 
evidence from official communist sources. According to the Western 
press, some at least of the evidence on casualties in the Sino- 
Vietnamese "war" in 1979 fell into this category. 



The New Methodology and Communist Sources 

All communist sources are permanently available for use as chan- 
nels for disinformation; all must conform to the current pattern if the 
credibility of the pattern is to be maintained. Nevertheless, it is 
possible to distinguish between sources that are more or less Hkely to 
be used for conveying disinformation to the West and those that are 
more or less likely to contain revealing information on the 
implementation of the long-range policy. 



Official Communist Sources 

Beginning with the official statements and decisions of interna- 
tional communist gatherings, those in the period 1957 to 1960 are of 
fundamental importance, not only because that was the period of the 
formulation and adoption of the long-range policy, but also because of 
the nature of the policy itself. An essential element in it was that its 
existence and modus operandi should not be appreciated in the West. 
It was to be expected, therefore, that once it had been adopted 
subsequent official policy statements should have been less revealing 
about long-range objectives and the methods of achieving them than 
the fundamental documents of the period of policy formation. The 
latter should be considered as including the documents of the congress 
of bloc communist parties in 1957, the Twenty-first CPSU Congress 
in January-February 1959, the congress of eighty-one communist 
parties in November 1 960, and Khrushchev's strategic report of 
January 6, 1961. 

Basing themselves largely on retrospective evidence about dis- 
agreements at the Eighty-one-Party Congress, most Western analysts 
concluded that the decisions of that congress represented a 
compromise between the positions of the various conflicting com- 
munist parties that signed the congress Manifesto with varying 



THENEWMETHODOLOGY 97 

degrees of reluctance or commitment to abide by the congress's 
decisions. The conclusion was incorrect. The congress lasted several 
weeks. No doubt many different parties aired many different views, as 
they had every right to do, according to Leninist principles of 
democratic centralism, before the policy had been adopted. Once the 
discussions had concluded and the policy had been ratified by the 
majority decision, all parties which signed the Manifesto undertook a 
serious commitment to work for the implementation of the policy. 
Any party that had genuinely dissented from the congress's decisions 
would not have signed the Manifesto and would have been ostracized 
by the international communist movement. Any party wishing to 
maintain its standing in the movement must be able to demonstrate 
that it has made consistent efforts to put the decisions of the congress 
into effect. If communist parties in general did not take the decisions 
of the higher organs of authority seriously and strive consistently to 
implement them, they would not be the disciplined and effective 
bodies they are known to be. The element of political determinism 
should not be overlooked, considering that it has been revealed daily 
in the statements and actions of communist parties inside and outside 
the bloc, in the proceedings of their national party congresses during 
the past twenty years, and in their implementation of the policy and its 
concomitant strategies. 

In accepting the evidence that the Eighty-one-Party Congress 
signified a watershed in the disunity of the communist world rather 
than the opposite. Western analysts, unaware of the disinformation 
program, made a fundamental error on which it was easy for the 
communist strategists to build in the development of their major 
strategies in Europe, the Third World, and the military and ideological 
fields. Largely because of this error, later "evidence" in official 
communist sources on communist disunity came to be almost auto- 
matically accepted in the West at its face value. 

Given that the disinformation program is directed primarily (though 
not exclusively) at the noncommunist world, it is imperative to 
distinguish those communist speeches, publications, and broadcasts 
that are primarily intended for communist audiences from those that 
are primarily intended for noncommunist audiences. Obviously the 
second category is likely to contain more disinformation than the first. 
It is not possible wholly to conceal the policy 



98 NEWLIESFOROLD 

and its implementation from those who are expected to carry it out. 
For that reason the basic decisions of the period 1958 to 1960 were 
published, as were the findings of the congress of communist parties in 
1969, which reviewed progress in the first decade of the policy. To a 
greater extent than elsewhere, progress in the coordination and 
consolidation of the communist bloc, particularly through Comecon 
and the Warsaw Pact organization, is recorded in the annual 
supplements of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia which are available 
only in Russian. Naturally, they do not disclose the nature of the 
disinformation program. Nevertheless, items are occasionally included 
that figure less prominently, if at all, in publications directed at the 
West and that call into question the depth and authenticity of splits 
and crises in the bloc. 

In particular the Encyclopaedia reflects the continual exchange of 
visits of communist leaders and delegations between communist 
countries and parties that are supposed to be at odds with one another. 
Sometimes these meetings are publicized elsewhere in the communist 
press, accompanied by photographs of, for example, Brezhnev warmly 
embracing Dubcek, Tito, or Ceausescu. Western commentators, in 
their obsession with splits in the communist world, automatically 
assume that such meetings are held in attempts, usually unsuccessful, 
to resolve the differences between the parties and that the photographs 
are intended to mask the hostility between the leaders. They forget 
that in the years of the genuine Tito-Stalin spht it would have been 
more than Tito's life was worth to have visited Moscow, and they 
overlook the possibility that the meetings in the 1960s and 1970s have 
been taking place in order to coordinate the display of bogus 
differences intended to serve the interests of long-range policy. 

The Western scholars who devoted so much attention to esoteric 
evidence in the communist sources pointing to splits between the 
Soviet Union and China and Albania seldom seemed to realize that 
only a privileged few in the communist world, and mainly those 
concerned with poHcy and the disinformation program, were in a 
position to make detailed comparisons between the press of their own 
party and the press of other parties. Even if foreign newspapers or 
broadcasts were available, few Russians could read or understand 
Chinese or Albanian and not many Albanians or Chinese could read or 
understand Russian. Radio Moscow broad- 



THENEWMETHODOLOGY 99 

casts in Albanian in 1960-61 may not have been audible in Albania 
unless retransmitted by an Albanian station. They were, however, 
picked up by the BBC and other interested Western organizations and 
circulated to Western analysts in Summaries of World Broadcasts and 
similar publications. The communist intelligence services were well 
aware of this, but few Western analysts spotted that some of the 
polemics between communist leaders may only have reached a 
Western audience. 

In their preoccupation with finding and examining splits in the 
communist world. Western analysts focused all their attention on the 
passages in communist speeches and articles that betrayed differences 
in approach between different parties or different leaders. Passages 
dealing, for example, with communist unity and commitment to the 
decisions of the Eighty-one-Party Congress were ignored or written 
off as lip service to communist shibboleths. This is not necessarily the 
way in which they were read and understood by members of the 
communist parties concerned. 

Because Western analysts have not been sufficiently on the lookout 
for disinformation, they have paid inadequate attention to the origin 
and authenticity of the texts of important communist statements and 
speeches, particularly in cases where more than one text has been 
available. 

Even where disputes in the communist world are reflected in 
official communist publications available to the West, the perception 
of them by the party membership in the countries concerned is likely 
to be very different from the perception of them in the West. By using 
various devices such as those suggested above, the party leadership is 
in a position to project simultaneously two different images of the 
same "dispute." To the West, it may seem to be of profound 
significance; in the East, it may well be a "little local difficulty" 
whose consequences for the leaders of the parties concerned may be 
wholly beneficial. To take a concrete example. As far as the author 
was aware, no information or guidance was issued to CPSU members 
on the Soviet- Albanian dispute before the Twenty-second CPSU 
Congress in October 1961, when Khrushchev publicly attacked the 
Albanian leaders. The only knowledge that the author had of anything 
unusual in Soviet-AI banian relations up to that point was derived from 
statements by two senior colleagues in the KGB in 1959 that a 
disinformation operation on 



100 NEW LIES FOR OLD 



Soviet- Yugoslav and Soviet- Albanian relations had been planned 
during 1958-59. 



Unofficial Communist Sources 

It is not uncommon for disclosures in the communist press about 
dissension in the communist world to be backed up by off-the-record 
remarks by communist leaders and officials to their Western 
counterparts and friends. Bearing in mind that the KGB and the other 
communist security services together can count the total numbers of 
their informers as literally in the millions, it is a relatively simple 
matter for them to control the few thousands of their citizens who are 
in any regular form of official or semiofficial contact with foreigners. 
Communist regimes are not tolerant of disclosures of information by 
their servants to foreigners. As Khrushchev himself put it, in 
repudiating the idea that he had spoken out of turn to the late Senator 
Hubert Humphrey in 1958 on the subject of Chinese communes: "The 
mere suggestion that I might have confidential contact with a man 
who boasts of having spent twenty years fighting communism can 
only give rise to laughter. Anyone who understands anything at all 
about politics, to say nothing of Marxism-Leninism, will realise that a 
confidential talk with Mr. Humphrey about the policies of communist 
parties and relations with our best friends, the leaders of the 
Communist Party of China, is inconceivable."'*' Yet many Western 
observers and scholars claim to have benefitted from such disclosures. 

In the preface to his book The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, 
Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote: "I am also grateful to several officials of 
various communist states, for their willingness to discuss matters they 
should not have discussed with me." No explanation is offered in the 
book of the reasons why communist officials should have been willing 
to speak frankly to a prominent anticommunist scholar and citizen of 
the leading "imperialist" power, nor is any reference made in the book 
to the possibilities of disinformation. But if the existence of a 
disinformation program is taken into account, together with the 
controls over the communist officials in contact with foreigners, the 
explanation for these indiscretions is obvious. Almost all the Western 
commentators on the "Prague spring" of 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 101 

1968 and Eurocommunism in the 1970s have shown a similar ten- 
dency to believe what they have been told by leading communist 
participants in the events and debates concerned. 

Against the background of the methods of provocation used during 
the NEP period and the known facts of the intensified political use of 
scientists, writers, and other intellectuals by the KGB from 1959 
onward, the authenticity of the form of underground literature known 
as samizdat, which made its appearance in the Soviet Union in the 
1960s, must be regarded with scepticism. Its significance cannot be 
fully assessed unless the extent of its circulation inside the Soviet 
Union is known. There is no justification for assuming that because it 
reaches a fairly wide audience abroad, it is also widely read at home. 
It may be in fact that few in the Soviet Union see it other than those 
authorized by the KGB to do so. In short, it should be regarded as 
falling within the category of unofficial communist sources. 

Similar considerations apply to the Chinese wall posters from 
which the West derived much of its knowledge of the Cultural 
Revolution, of power struggles in the Chinese leadership, and of the 
Chinese attitude to the Soviet Union, especially in 1966-70. What can 
be said with certainty is that wall posters would not have appeared at 
all in this period unless the Chinese leadership had wished them to do 
so and that the Chinese authorities were well aware of the attention 
paid to them by noncommunist diplomats, journalists, and other 
foreign representatives in China. This alone provides grounds for 
reconsidering their contents against the current pattern of communist 
disinformation. Their full significance cannot be judged without 
knowing precisely by whom they were put up and what guidance was 
given to party members about them through the normal channels of 
party communication. 



"Secret" Communist Sources 

The remaining category of communist sources is the leakage or 
disclosure, documentary or otherwise, of information on the 
proceedings of secret party meetings and international conferences. A 
conspicuous feature of the evidence on disagreements between parties 
at the Romanian Communist party congress in June 1960 



102 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and at the communist Eighty-one-Party Congress later in the same 
year is that most of it was retrospective and much of it reached the 
West with some delay. This is a significant factor, given the existence 
of a disinformation program. It is a difficult matter to stage a whole 
conference for disinformation purposes, but it is a simple operation to 
fabricate or distort the record at leisure after the conference is over 
and to choose appropriate channels to transmit it to the West. 



To Sum Up . . . 

The new methodology provides explanations for many contradic- 
tions and anomalies in the communist world on which the old 
methodology throws no light. It explains the confidence of the 
communist world and the loyalty and dedication of the vast majority 
of its officials. It explains the reasons for disclosures of information 
by the communist world about itself and relates them to the require- 
ments of long-range policy. It explains the seeming tolerance of a 
totalitarian system toward dissension openly expressed by its citizens 
in their contacts with foreigners. It provides criteria for assessing the 
reliability of sources, for distinguishing genuine secret agents and 
defectors from provocateurs, for distinguishing genuine information 
from disinformation and propaganda. It provides pointers to the 
identification of agents of influence in the West. It suggests that 
disinformation, recognized as such, can provide clues to the intentions 
of its authors. It offers guidance on the relative importance of the 
official and unofficial communist sources. It diverts attention from 
spectacular communist polemics between parties and focuses it 
instead on the solid advances in the groundwork of communist 
cooperation and coordination. It points the way to recovery from the 
crisis in Western studies and assessments of communism. It could 
help to revive the effectiveness of Western security and intelligence 
services. It explains the communist victory in the Vietnam War 
despite the Sino-Soviet split. Above all, it explains the willingness and 
ability of the communist world, despite the appearance of disunity, to 
seize the initiative and to develop and execute its strategies in relation 
to the United States, the other advanced industrial countries, and the 
Third World in the quest 



THE NEW METHODOLOGY 103 

for the complete and final victory of international communism. So far, 
the new methodology is the methodology of a minority of one. Only 
time will show whether it will survive; whether it will stimulate new 
lines of research; whether it will replace the old, obsolete 
methodology; and whether it will help the West to see in a new light 
the real meaning and dimensions of the communist problem. 



PART TWO 



The Disinformation Program and 
Its Impact on tiie West 



13 



The First Disinformation Operation: The 
Soviet-Yugoslav "Dispute" of 1958-60 



THE YEARS 1958 TO 1960 were marked by spectacular polemics 
between the Soviet and Yugoslav leaders and their party presses, 
with interjections from the Albanians and Chinese. Khrushchev 
himself participated with vigor. In his speech to the Seventh Congress 
of the Bulgarian Communist Party held in Sofia on June 3, 1958, he 
called Yugoslav revisionism a class enemy in the pay of the 
imperialists and a Trojan horse in the communist movement. "Some 
theoreticians," he said, "exist only because of the alms they receive 
from imperialist countries in the form of leftover goods. . . . The 
revisionists are trying to bore at the revolutionary parties from within, 
to undermine their unity and introduce disorder and confusion in 
Marxist-Leninist ideology [shouts of They won't succeed']."' 

The existence of a Soviet- Yugoslav dispute was, to all appearances, 
confirmed by the boycott of the Seventh Congress of the Yugoslav 
party by the communist parties of the bloc, by further Soviet criticism 
of the Yugoslav party's program and foreign policy, and by the 
exclusion of Yugoslavia from the Eighty-one-Party Congress in 
November 1960, which condemned revisionism. However, the true 
picture of Soviet- Yugoslav relations, revealed by inside information 
supported by much open evidence, is very different. 



Yugoslavia's Final Reconciliation with the Bloc 

After Stalin's death the Soviet leaders made a major effort to 
achieve a reconciliation with the Yugoslav leaders in order to win 

107 



108 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Yugoslavia back from the West and return her to the communist 
camp. Official secret negotiations between Tito and Khrushchev in 
1955 and 1956 led to a full reconciliation in state relations and a 
partial reconciliation in party relations, but the process of 
reconciliation was interrupted by the Polish and Hungarian uprisings 
of 1956. The initial and generally sympathetic attitude of the Yugo- 
slav leaders toward the Poles and Hungarians during these uprisings, 
and Tito's attacks on such Stalinist leaders in Eastern Europe as 
Hoxha, contributed to the surge of nationalism and revisionism in the 
bloc and to Hungary's short-lived break with the Soviets. The Soviets 
recognized the dangers of Yugoslav revisionist influence in Eastern 
Europe, and therefore resumed their general criticism of Yugoslavia 
while continuing their efforts to split her away from the West. 

Although the exchanges of criticism between the Soviets and 
Yugoslavs intensified immediately after the Hungarian uprising, the 
leaders on both sides were always careful to leave the door open for 
subsequent meetings and discussions. After Khrushchev had defeated 
the antiparty group at home in June 1957, he renewed his efforts to 
return Yugoslavia to the bloc. This time he was successful. A complete 
reconciliation between the Yugoslav leaders and the Soviet and other 
bloc leaders was achieved. According to TASS, Kardelj and 
Rankovic, while on holiday in the Crimea, visited Moscow for 
"comradely" meetings with Khrushchev; the Albanian leader, Hoxha; 
and the Bulgarian leader, Zhivkov, in July. 

On August 1-2, 1957, Tito, Kardelj, and Rankovic met Khrushchev 
and Mikoyan in Bucharest for a confidential conference on "socialist 
solidarity." A statement issued after the conference affirmed their joint 
determination to improve relations and cooperation on a basis of 
equality. Moscow radio reported that agreement on "concrete forms of 
cooperation" had been reached. The major implication of the Soviet- 
Yugoslavian reconciliation was that the grounds for the continuation 
of their old feud vanished. 

It is clear from Yugoslavia's actions in the following months that 
she had in fact realigned herself with the communist bloc, including 
China. In September 1957 there were four strong indications of this; a 
Yugoslav delegation led by Vukmanovic-Tempo was welcomed in 
Peking; Yugoslavia blocked a United Nations resolution condemning 
Soviet intervention in Hungary; Yugoslav 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 109 

representatives attended a session of Comecon; and Tito, together with 
Gomulka, pubHcly repudiated "national communism." Said Tito, "We 
think it wrong to isolate ourselves from the great possibilities of 
strengthening socialist forces throughout the world." In October the 
Yugoslavs honored the commitment they had made to the Soviets in 
1955-56 to recognize East Germany. In June 1958 Tito tacitly 
assented to the execution of the former Hungarian premier, Imre 
Nagy, whom the Yugoslavs had earlier betrayed to the Soviets. 

The Yugoslavs secretly attended the first post-Stalin conference of 
bloc communist parties in November 1957 and openly attended the 
congress of sixty-four communist parties that followed it. Significantly 
the Yugoslav delegation to both conferences included Kardelj, who 
had been a Yugoslav representative to the Cominform; Ranko-vic, 
who was responsible for the Yugoslav security service; and Vla-hovic, 
who was responsible for relations with communist and socialist 
parties. At the bloc conference Stalin's mistrust of other parties and his 
interference in their affairs were condemned. New relations between 
the leaders and parties of the bloc were established, based on Leninist 
principles of equality and cooperation. Yugoslavia signed the Peace 
Manifesto of the sixty-four communist parties, but not the declaration 
of the bloc communist parties. The absence of Yugoslavia's signature 
from the bloc declaration contributed to Western acceptance of the 
subsequent Soviet-Yugoslav dispute as genuine. However, in his 
lecture at the KGB Institute in December 1957, General Kurenkov 
made it clear that the Yugoslavs fully agreed with the declaration but 
had abstained from signing it because they had reached a secret 
understanding with the Soviets that it would be tactically 
advantageous for them not to sign. 

Among the decisions of the conference to which the Yugoslavs 
secretly gave their support was the decision to formulate a long-range 
policy for the bloc. The agreement that the Yugoslavs should not sign 
the declaration established the pattern of secrecy and deception 
subsequently used to conceal Yugoslav collaboration in the 
formulation and adoption of the long-range policy and paved the way 
for Yugoslav participation in a joint disinformation effort in support 
of that policy. 

From conversations in 1959 with Colonel Grigorenko, the deputy 
head of the KGB's disinformation department, the author 



1 1 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

learned that there were consultations and agreements between the 
Soviets and Yugoslavs in late 1957 and early 1958 on political 
cooperation between them within the framework of the long-range 
policy. The agreements covered cooperation in three fields: in diplo- 
macy, particularly with regard to Egypt and India, and Arab and Asian 
countries generally; in dealings with Western socialists and trade 
unionists; and in the field of disinformation. 

According to Grigorenko, early in 1958 the Presidium of the 
CPSU's Central Committee had given instructions to Pushkin, the 
head of the party's newly created Department of Active Operations, to 
prepare disinformation operations on Soviet-Yugoslav relations in 
accordance with the requirements of bloc policy.'' This instruction 
preceded the outbreak of the dispute in April 1958. 

The dispute manifested itself mainly in the Soviet and Yugoslav 
party presses. Since in both cases the party press was under the full 
control of the party apparatus, such a dispute was easy to manufacture 
and easy to control. Nevertheless, it was clear at an early stage that, in 
order to capitalize on the operation and build for the future, new 
assets, channels, and forms of action would have to be developed in 
coordination with the KGB. This explains why, according to 
Grigorenko, the Central Committee decided to use, from the end of 
1959 onward, both the Department of Active Operations and the 
KGB's disinformation department to widen the scope of this particular 
operation. As a consequence of this decision, Shelepin issued 
instructions that a special group should be formed in the KGB's 
disinformation department under Grigorenko to work in cooperation 
with the Department of Active Operations on the one hand and with 
the Yugoslav and Albanian security services on the other. 



Open Evidence of Yugoslav Participation in the 

Formulation of the Policy 

Evidence that Yugoslavia accepted the application of Lenin's 
concepts and the lessons of the NEP period as the basis for the new 
bloc policy is to be found in the speeches and writings of Tito and 
Kardelj during the period of the formulation of the policy (from 1958 
to 1960). 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 111 

So much Western attention was focused on the polemics between 
Tito and Khrushchev in mid-1958 that the crucial statements in Tito's 
speeches, which are fundamental to an understanding of the actual 
state of Soviet-Yugoslav relations, were overlooked. Tito frequently 
referred to the relevance of the NEP. For example, in his speech at 
Labin, Yugoslavia, on June 15, 1958, in reply to Khrushchev's 
criticisms of Yugoslavia for accepting American aid, Tito said: "The 
Americans began to furnish aid to us after 1949, {as they did to the 
Soviet Union in 1921 and 1922) not that socialism might win in our 
country . . . but because on the one hand, we were threatened with 
famine and, on the other hand, Yugoslavia could thus more easily 
fight off Stalin's pressures and preserve her independence. And if 
perhaps some American circles cherished other hopes, this was not 
our concern."'' 

Tito committed himself to a new and broader concept of socialist 
internationalism that served to protect and support not just the Soviet 
Union as in the past, but all the communist countries and parties and 
socialist and other progressive movements. 

On relations between the sociahst countries, Tito said that there 
was a "new confidence and sincere exchange of opinions and experi- 
ences on the basis of which broad cooperation is developing." Yugo- 
slavia could play a more useful role outside the bloc than in it. As Tito 
put it in his Labin speech: "Refusal to sign the Moscow Declaration 
and to join the socialist camp does not mean that we are not for the 
greatest co-operation with all socialist countries. It means, on the 
contrary, that we are for such co-operation in all fields but that in the 
present tense international situation we believe it is more useful to 
follow a constructive peace policy, together with other peace-loving 
countries which also do not belong to either bloc, than to join the bloc 
and thus still more aggravate a world situation which is tense enough." 
In other words, by remaining formally outside the bloc, Yugoslavia 
could contribute more effectively to the furtherance of the objectives 
of the common long-range Leninist policy. 

Equally illuminating on the true nature of Yugoslavia's relationship 
with the bloc policy is Edvard Kardelj's book Socialism and War, 
published in Belgrade in 1960 shortly before the Eighty-one-Party 
Congress. The book attracted the attention of Western analysts at the 
time because of its polemics against China. In it Kardelj gives an able 
exposition of the policy of "active coexistence," 



112 NEWLIES FOR OLD 

a concept very close to Khrushchev's "peaceful coexistence," 
and takes the Chinese to task for their negative attitude toward this 
concept and their opposition to the thesis (again propounded by 
Khrushchev) that war is not inevitable despite the continuing exis- 
tence of imperialism. The West focused on this aspect of Kardelj's 
book and failed to understand the significance of his recommendation 
that differences between communists should be analyzed in terms of 
their substance, not in terms of the verbal polemics between them. 
The West also failed to appreciate Kardelj's numerous references to 
Lenin's doctrines, including clear, if not expHcit, references to Left- 
Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, and to the experience 
gained during Lenin's NEP in the use of concessions, diplomatic 
agreements with adversaries, and various other tactics; in other words, 
to the same historical sources that were used during 1958-60 in the 
formulation of the new bloc policy and international communist 
strategies. 

The implications of the references to Lenin by the Yugoslav leaders 
in defining their position cannot be ignored. They clearly establish 
that Tito and Kardelj regarded a return to Leninism and the use of 
activist diplomacy and tactics in conditions of "peaceful coexistence" 
as the most effective way of undermining the nations of the West and 
changing the world balance of power in favor of the communist 
countries. Their statements are not only compatible with the long- 
range policy; they are a clear expression of many of the most 
important elements in it. They are important evidence that Yugoslav 
policy and bloc policy as they developed between 1958 and 1960 were 
identical and had a common source of inspiration in the historical 
experience of Lenin and his NEP. They also suggest that the Yugoslav 
leaders made significant contributions to the long-range policy and 
communist strategy. The possibility should not be excluded that 
communist strategists from other bloc countries contributed to 
Kardelj's book. His and Tito's ideas were soHdly based on Leninist 
ideological doctrine, not on the form of revisionism the Yugoslavs had 
practiced during the Tito-Stalin split. Their concept of active 
coexistence was but one of the variety of tactics, including 
Khrushchev's variant of "peaceful coexistence" and Mao's tactic of 
protracted revolutionary war, approved by the Eighty-one-Party 
Congress of November 1960. The fact that Tito and Kardelj were 
developing these ideas during 1958-60 in itself 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 113 

exposes the unreality of their alleged dispute with the Soviets during 
that same period; it confirms the validity of the inside information on 
secret Soviet- Yugoslav cooperation. 

The tactic of publishing Kardelj's book on the eve of the Eighty- 
one-Party Congress, which approved the long-range bloc poHcy and 
strategy for the communist movement, recalled Lenin's tactic of 
publishing Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder on the eve 
of the Soviet adoption of the NEP and just prior to the adoption of 
new tactics by the Second Congress of the Comintern. 

A vague admission of the Soviet-Yugoslav cooperation against 
imperialism over questions on which their positions coincided was 
made by Khrushchev in his report to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress 
in January 1959.^ Although the official History of the CPSU, 
published in Russian in 1959, criticized the Yugoslav leaders for their 
refusal to attend the bloc conference in November 1957 and castigated 
the Yugoslav party program of 1958 as revisionist,^ it also said that 
normal relations between the USSR and Yugoslavia had been restored 
on the CPSU's initiative and that the CPSU's policy of friendship and 
mutual assistance had triumphed.' 

The reconciliation with Yugoslavia in 1957-58 went far beyond the 
bounds envisaged by the Soviets in 1955-56. It covered the Yugoslav 
leaders' relations not only with their Soviet opposite numbers, but also 
with the Albanians, Bulgarians, Chinese, and all the other bloc 
leaders. The Yugoslav leaders, in fact, voluntarily surrendered their 
ideological and political independence to the bloc at the conference of 
bloc parties in November 1957. This became possible for them 
because the conference adopted a resolution, which Kardelj and 
Rankovic no doubt helped to draft, permitting the bloc parties to 
pursue their own national roads to socialism, provided that they 
followed the basic principles of Marxist revolution and construction 
of socialism. 

Confirmation that all the bloc parties agreed that, for tactical 
reasons, Yugoslavia should not sign the main declaration of the 
conference is provided by the fact that, after the conference was over, 
there was no condemnation of Yugoslavia's refusal to sign by the bloc 
parties either individually or collectively. Indeed, since November 
1957 the real state of relations among all the leaders of the bloc has 
been excellent and there has been no basis for any serious disputes 
between them. 



114 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The true relationship between Yugoslavia and the rest of the bloc 
during the period 1958-60 was revealed in November 1960 when the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress (which continued to recognize Yugoslavia 
as a socialist country) publicly approved, as its most fundamental and 
crucial decision, a policy Manifesto that not only incorporated Tito's 
concept of broad international solidarity, so heavily criticized by the 
Soviets in 1958, but also Kardelj's recommendations on the revival of 
Lenin's activist policies and tactics during a period of "peaceful 
coexistence" and the use of the historical experience of the NEP to 
facihtate the construction of socialism. 

There was, of course, no public recognition of the Yugoslav contri- 
bution and the authors of the Manifesto were not named. In fact the 
congress officially announced that the Yugoslavs did not participate in 
the proceedings. "Yugoslav revisionism" was condemned in general 
terms in the Manifesto. Nevertheless, the evidence of secret 
agreements entered into between Yugoslavia and the rest of the bloc 
in November 1957, coupled with the arguments above, points to the 
conclusion that Yugoslavia's apparent nonparticipation in the congress 
in November 1960 was again no more than a tactical maneuver. The 
likelihood is that Yugoslavia agreed secretly in advance to the draft 
resolutions of the November I960 congress and that the bloc as a 
whole agreed that its interests would best be served by Yugoslavia 
continuing to appear to be an independent, nonbloc country. 



Further Anomalies in the "Dispute" 

Detailed examination of the Soviet criticisms of Yugoslavia and the 
course of the 1958-60 dispute against the background of the genuine 
Tito-Stalin split throws up a number of further points that either cast 
additional doubt on the authenticity of the later dispute and confirm 
that it was a disinformation operation or help to illustrate the 
disinformation technique used in it and the purposes the operation was 
intended to serve. 

The dispute opened in the spring of 1958 with criticisms in the 
Soviet press of the draft of the new Yugoslav party program, which 
included a statement about Yugoslavia's road to socialism. In fact the 
statement was fully in accord with the resolutions of 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 115 

the November 1957 conference of bloc communist parties. Conse- 
quently, Soviet criticism of it was not only strange, inconsistent, and 
unjustified, but contrary to the endorsement specifically given by the 
bloc parties of different national roads to socialism, provided that 
certain basic principles, such as the leading role of the communist 
party, were upheld. Later on, Khrushchev and Tito directly and 
indirectly admitted that Soviet criticism of the Yugoslav program was 
unfounded. In his report to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress in 
January 1959, Khrushchev said: "Questions of the methods and 
practice of socialist construction are the domestic affair of each 
individual country. We have no controversy with the Yugoslav leaders 
on the establishing of workers' councils or other matters of their 
domestic affairs. When the Declaration of the Conference of the 
representatives of the Communist and Workers' Parties of the Socialist 
Countries was being signed there were no arguments and no 
controversies on such matters."^ Thus Khrushchev repudiated the 
earlier Soviet criticisms of Yugoslavia's "road to socialism," but not 
before the attention of Western analysts had been successfully 
diverted by the polemics from what was really going on inside the 
bloc at that time. 

Soviet criticism of Yugoslavia for failing to support socialist soli- 
darity was equally unfounded. Yugoslavia's recognition of East Ger- 
many and expressions of solidarity with the East German Communist 
party and its leader, Ulbricht, demonstrated that Yugoslavia honored 
the promises of support that had been secretly given to the Soviets. It 
is noteworthy that neither the Soviets nor the Yugoslavs revealed 
during the 1958 polemics that they had reached this secret 
understanding. 

Officially, the Yugoslav party congress in April 1958 was boy- 
cotted by the rest of the bloc. But the boycott was strangely incom- 
plete because, although official party delegations from the bloc did 
not attend, ambassadors from the bloc countries were present as 
observers. 

There is room for considerable doubt about the reality of the 
economic pressure allegedly applied by the Soviets to the Yugoslavs 
following the 1958 dispute. The Soviets did not cancel agreements or 
sever economic relations, as they did when Stalin split with Tito. 
Trade, technical cooperation, and cultural exchanges continued. The 
Soviets did not cancel their 1956 credit commitments. 



116 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

deny them in principle, or arbitrarily delay the fulfillment dates. 
Rather, they suggested that there should be discussions about delaying 
the fulfillment dates from 1957-64 to 1962-69 and 1963-69. In 
December 1958 negotiations on Soviet- Yugoslav trade began in 
Moscow, and in April 1959 a cultural cooperation program was 
signed in Belgrade. In January 1960 the Yugoslav leader Vukmano- 
vic-Tempo met Khrushchev in Moscow. At the same time the Soviet 
Union and Yugoslavia signed a scientific cooperation protocol. 

Criticism of Yugoslavia for lack of revolutionary ardor helped to 
distract attention from the active support later given by Yugoslavia to 
liberation movements, especially in Africa. 

Criticism of Tito for accepting American aid preceded by only a 
matter of months Soviet attempts to obtain for themselves a two- 
billion-dollar credit from the United States for industrial mod- 
ernization. Tito pointed out the inconsistency himself in April 1959, 
referring to Mikoyan's visit to the United States in the previous 
January. 

Although Yugoslavia's position in the United Nations appeared to 
vacillate between support for the United States and support for the 
Soviet Union, on vital issues such as the German treaty (in February 
1959), colonialism, disarmament, reorganization of the structure of 
the UN, and the seating of communist China, Yugoslavia consistently 
supported the Soviet position. There were therefore sound reasons for 
Gromyko to say that the Soviets' relations with the Yugoslavs were 
"good" and that, on major issues, their positions coincided. 

Comparison of the dispute of 1958 with the split of 1948 shows 
how superficial the later differences were. The 1958 dispute failed to 
gather momentum. There were no clear breaches in political, 
economic, or cultural relations. Yugoslavia was not isolated poHti- 
cally by the bloc. Military action was not threatened against her nor 
was an economic boycott imposed. There were no major changes in 
diplomatic representation between Yugoslavia and the rest of the 
bloc. Exchanges of delegations between them continued. Yugoslavia 
asked to be admitted to the Comecon meeting in April 1959, but was 
allegedly refused an invitation. Nevertheless, in the same month a 
program of cultural cooperation between the Soviet Union and 
Yugoslavia was signed in Belgrade. 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 117 

Since details of protocol have often been cited by Western analysts 
in support of the existence of splits in the communist world, it is 
worth mentioning that, despite the existence of an alleged dispute, 
Khrushchev, while on his way to Albania, sent a greetings telegram to 
Tito on May 26, 1959, which Tito acknowledged on the following 
day. 

The final inconsistency in the dispute was the manner of its ending. 
For no apparent reason there was a sudden improvement in Soviet- 
Yugoslav relations in 1960, accompanied by closer diplomatic 
cooperation. An open reconciliation followed in 1961. The 
controversial Yugoslav party program, which Khrushchev and the 
Soviet press had criticized so vigorously in 1958 and 1959 and which 
the Yugoslavs had so obstinately refused to modify, ceased to be an 
obstacle to good relations in 1960 and 1961. 

To sum up, open, official information from communist sources 
confirms the validity of the inside information on secret Soviet- 
Yugoslav agreements and leads to the conclusion that the Soviet- 
Yugoslav dispute of 1958 — 60 was not a repetition of the genuine Tito- 
Stalin split, but the calculated product of a joint Soviet- Yugoslav 
disinformation operation in support of the long-range bloc policy to 
the formulation of which both sides to the dispute had made their 
contribution. 

Once the Soviet- Yugoslav dispute of 1958-60 is seen to have been 
artificial and once the polemics between the leaders are recognized as 
having been no more than shadowboxing conducted by agreement 
between them for the benefit of external observers, the explanation of 
other aspects of the controversy becomes clear. For example, in 
response to Chinese attacks on Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav press 
criticized the Chinese communes; then, in December 1 95 8, 
Khrushchev revealed to the late Senator Hubert Humphrey that there 
were differences between the Soviets and Chinese on the subject of 
the communes. The following month, in addressing the Twenty-first 
CPSU Congress, Khrushchev repudiated his own remarks and accused 
the "Yugoslav revisionists" of disseminating all sorts of inventions 
about differences between the CPSU and the CPC. As he put it: "And 
now the Yugoslav revisionists have taken this fabricator [Humphrey] 
unto themselves as a witness." Anticipating to some extent the 
argument of later chapters, this incident can be seen as a good 
example of disinformation technique. 



118 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

First, Western interest was aroused in nonexistent Sino-Soviet dif- 
ferences by a statement at the highest level. Then, Khrushchev's 
repudiation of his own statements drew further attention to them and 
suggested that they must indeed have represented a serious 
indiscretion on his part, which he was at pains to cover up. Apart from 
its significance in the Sino-Soviet context, the incident provided a 
further artificial issue with which to fuel an agreed-upon, controlled 
dispute between the Soviets and Yugoslavs; it was an instance not of 
antagonism between them, but of cooperation in fulfillment of their 
secret agreement to collaborate in the disinformation field. 



Objectives of the Soviet-Yugoslav Dispute of 1958-60 

The first objective of staging the dispute of 1958-60 was to conceal 
the true degree of reconciliation between the leaders of Yugoslavia 
and the other bloc countries. The reasons for concealment were 
twofold; bearing in mind the anti-Soviet stance taken up by 
Yugoslavia in the last five years of Stalin's Hfe and Yugoslav sympathy 
with the Polish and Hungarian rebels in 1956, a sudden, open 
reconcihation with Yugoslavia in 1958 could have had adverse 
consequences elsewhere in the bloc, which it was particularly impor- 
tant to avoid during the formulation of a new long-range policy. 
Bearing in mind also the strength of nationalist feeling in the Yugo- 
slav population and in the Yugoslav party itself, an open surrender by 
the Yugoslav leaders to the bloc and to the requirements of its long- 
range policy could have caused them severe problems with both their 
followers and their opponents inside Yugoslavia. 

The second major objective was to prepare the Yugoslav leaders for 
a special strategic role by building up their image as independents. In 
the advanced countries this was calculated to help the leaders to use 
their relations with European socialist and trade union leaders to 
promote the formation of united fronts between socialist and 
communist parties and, in the longer term, to contribute toward the 
dissolution of military pacts with the United States and toward the 
neutralization of Western Europe and Japan. In the developing 
countries it was calculated to gain acceptance for the Yugoslavs as 
genuine neutralist leaders of the nonaligned move- 



SOVIET-YUGOSLAV "DISPUTE," 1958-60 119 

merit, which in the long run they would be able to influence and turn against 
the West. Subsidiary objectives were: 

• To pin the revisionist label firmly on the Yugoslav party and to identify 
its policies and doctrines as one extreme of a variety of different brands of 
communism. 

• At a later stage, to project Khrushchev and the Soviet leaders as veering 
toward Yugoslav revisionism and thereby to assist Soviet activist, detente 
diplomacy in its dealings with the advanced countries. 

• To gain experience, to provide support, and to create a favorable 
atmosphere for the development of other disinformation operations, along 
similar lines, on Soviet- Albanian and Sino-Soviet splits and, at a later stage, 
on Romanian independence. 



14 



The Second Disinformation Operation: 

The "Evolution" of the Soviet Regime, 

Part One: The Major Changes in the USSR 



CERTAIN DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SOVIET UNION since 1958 have 
been widely interpreted in the West as reflecting a moderation in 
the rigors of communist ideology and a decline in its influence 
over the practical handling of affairs of state. These apparent trends 
are usually thought of as being associated with the growth of the 
Soviet Union into a great power increasingly pursuing its national 
interests along traditional lines and facing familiar internal political 
problems, in particular the emergence of a dissident movement. While 
it is true that changes have been made in various economic, political, 
diplomatic, and ideological aspects of the regime, a distinction must 
be made between the changes themselves and the manner in which 
they have been presented if the nature and purpose of disinformation 
about them is to be understood. 



Economic Changes 

From the late 1950s onward, changes in Soviet economic practice 
included the improvement of material incentives to production in 
industry and agriculture, the promotion of competition, and the 
broadening of the private market in the cities. Sensational evidence 
suggesting the revival of capitahsm appeared in the Soviet press in the 
form of articles on the black market and on underground capitalists in 
the Soviet Union. The confessions of a "former Soviet underground 
millionaire" appeared in Izvestiya in 1959 or I960. 

120 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 121 

It is true that there is and, on a varying scale, always has been a 
private market in the Soviet Union in which collectivized peasants and 
some private individuals have sold the agricultural produce grown on 
their lots. In the NEP period, when private ownership and private 
enterprise were permitted, this private market reached its 
postrevolutionary zenith. With the ending of the NEP and the 
collectivization of agriculture, it shrank to insignificant proportions. 
During and after the Second World War, it revived again for a short 
period, only to be drastically curtailed in the last years of Stalin's rule. 
Since his death, with the new emphasis on incentives and the abolition 
of deliveries of goods to the State by farmers from their private lots, 
the private market has once more grown in scale. It now exists in two 
principal forms: the main market, in the cities where collective 
farmers and some private individuals sell their agricultural produce; 
and a small black market, especially in Moscow and Leningrad, in 
which illegal transactions in currency and goods take place between 
Soviet speculators and foreign diplomats and visitors. 

The growth of the main market has been strictly limited because the 
introduction of greater incentives for farmers and other workers was 
not accompanied by the legalization of private enterprises; the 
emphasis throughout has been on increasing production and efficiency 
not in private enterprises, but in collective farms and state-owned 
industries and trading enterprises. There can be no significant 
widening of the private market in healthy competition with the state 
sector unless private ownership and enterprise are reintroduced. The 
Soviet government shows no sign of doing this; on the contrary, the 
regime maintains its hostile attitude to private ownership and the 
ultimate objective of party policy is still the total extinction of the 
private sector. 

As for the black market, it is, as foreign diplomats know, extremely 
limited and illegal. What is less widely known is that it is secretly 
controlled and actively exploited by the Anticontraband Department 
of the KGB. Significantly this department was created in 1959 on the 
lines of a similar department set up in the GPU during the NEP 
period. Its function is to control the activities of domestic speculators 
and foreign businessmen and to blackmail and recruit as agents 
members of the diplomatic colony and other foreign visitors who 
engage in illicit transactions. The head of this 



122 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

new department, Sergey Mikhaylovich Fedoseyev, was so successful 
in recruiting foreigners, including Americans, that in 1961 he was 
promoted to be Chief of the American Department, responsible for the 
recruitment of officials of the US Embassy in Moscow. 

Tendencies toward private enterprise have existed in the Soviet 
Union since the revolution. Arrests of embezzlers and speculators who 
have enriched themselves at state expense have not always been 
reported. If in the period 1959-62 such arrests were given wide 
publicity, this did not indicate, as some Western observers believed 
and as the Soviet regime wished them to believe, that capitalism in the 
Soviet Union was reviving; on the contrary, it indicated that the 
regime was stepping up its traditional ideological policy of 
eliminating the "remnants of capitalism" while at the same time 
promoting the myth that capitalism was being restored. 

Since the end of the 1950s a measure of industrial reorganization 
has been in progress. Greater powers of initiative have been given to 
local economic management without weakening central control. Local 
councils of people's economy have been created. The authority of 
economic officials has been enhanced. 

In Western terminology, these officials are described as "techno- 
crats," who are said to be increasingly taking over control. But what 
Western observers largely ignore is that these so-called technocrats 
are in reality party members who, having received industrial or other 
specialized training, are applying the party line in their place of work. 
Through them the party exercises a more efficient control over Soviet 
industry, which, despite the appearance of recent changes, is now 
more comprehensively planned and more effectively coordinated than 
before. 

From 1962 onward there was a protracted debate in the official 
Soviet press on the introduction of the profit motive, on the concept of 
a market -regulated economy, and on the creation of a trust system in 
industry. The Soviet economist Professor Liberman played a 
prominent role in the debate.' According to Liberman, factories 
should be given no more than basic production plans, which should be 
based mainly on commercial orders. Within the framework of the 
basic plan, factories should be free to determine their own wages, 
costs, and profits. A proportion of the profits should be paid into an 
incentive fund, which would pay bonuses to managers and workers. 
The introduction of state trusts that would function 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 123 

on a profit basis was encouraged by the government. In fact some 
trusts of this kind were created from 1962 onward; for example, small 
shoe factories were combined experimentally into one complex in the 
firm Progress in Lvov, and other trusts were set up in Gorkiy and 
elsewhere. 

The resemblance of these reforms to capitalism is only superficial. 
Their effect has been to strengthen, not to weaken, party control over 
industry. The fundamental differences between the Soviet and 
capitalist systems in their basic objectives, their principles of owner- 
ship and management, and the distribution of national income and 
political power remain. The emphasis in the Soviet capital investment 
program is still on heavy industry and especially on armaments, 
including military satellites and nuclear missiles. 

It should be noted that the economic reforms reflected to some 
extent the experience of the NEP. Some of Liberman's ideas, as well 
as the creation of trusts in industry, were directly modeled on the NEP 
pattern, but in fact the changes of the 1960s were less far-reaching 
than those of the 1920s. Private ownership of enterprises was not 
reintroduced after 1960; agriculture remained collectivized. Such 
reforms as were carried out in the 1960s and 1970s did not signal a 
fundamental change in the regime; they were carefully calculated 
steps taken by the regime within the framework of its long-range 
policy. Their object was not to change the nature of the system, but to 
stabilize it by making the economy more efficient and party control 
more effective. 

There are, in short, fewer objective grounds for concluding now 
that the economic nature of the regime has been evolving since 1960 
in the direction of capitalism than there were in the NEP period. In the 
1960s and 1970s, however, the same technique has been used as in the 
1920s to exaggerate and misrepresent the nature of such changes as 
have occurred to suggest a weakening of ideological influence and a 
tendency toward the restoration of capitalism. 

The KGB has played an active part in this misrepresentation. For 
example, the confessions of an underground millionaire were supplied 
to Izvestiya by the KGB at the personal instigation of Shelepin. A 
more widespread KGB technique has been used to influence directly 
the opinions of visiting Western tourists, businessmen, scholars, and 
correspondents. For instance. Western economists who visit the 
Soviet Union naturally wish to meet their Soviet 



124 NEWLIESFOROLD 

colleagues. It is normal practice for the latter to clear such meetings in 
advance with the party and the KGB. They are then briefed on the line 
to be taken in "frank" discussions with their Western colleagues on the 
faults in the Soviet system and the direction in which it is evolving. 

Given that there has been no restoration of capitalism in the Soviet 
Union, Chinese and Albanian charges to this effect in their polemics 
with the Soviet leaders in the 1960s were unfounded and can therefore 
be seen as part and parcel of an agreed bloc disinformation effort 
carried out in accordance with the long-range policy decisions 
reached, with Chinese and Albanian participation, in the period 1958- 
60. 



Political Changes 

Western belief in a moderation in the Soviet attitude toward internal 
and external political problems during the 1960s was based on various 
changes introduced from 1958 onward. They can be briefly listed. A 
new formula was evolved to replace the "dictatorship of the 
proletariat," in official communist language. This was the concept of 
the "state of the whole people."^ Certain legal changes were made. 
Steps were taken ostensibly to reduce the role and influence of the 
security service. The All Union Ministry of Internal Affairs was 
abolished in 1959 — but only for a short time. The Chairman of the 
KGB, the notorious police professional General Ivan Serov, was 
dismissed on December 9, 1958; he was replaced two weeks later by 
the former leader of the Soviet youth movement and alleged liberal 
Shelepin. The use of terror was reduced. It was decreed that "socialist 
legality" should be observed. The KGB was represented as a reformed 
organization, hard on the enemies of the regime but "humanistic" in its 
approach to the Soviet people, as was its forerunner in Dzerzhinskiy's 
days. Khrushchev told editors of the West German social democratic 
press that state security organizations were not really needed at all in 
the Soviet Union; they could at most be used to deal with cases of 
petty larceny.' Khrushchev and Shelepin repeatedly denied that there 
were political prisoners in the Soviet Union. According to 
Kommunist: "The state security organs are now laying more and more 
emphasis on 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 125 

preventive, educational work . . . they are expanding their prophy- 
lactic work."^ This line was in sharp contrast with the earher emphasis 
on repression in the work of the security services. 

A more tolerant attitude was ostensibly adopted toward religion. 
The Chairman of the Directorate for Affairs of the Orthodox Church, a 
KGB official named G. Karpov, was replaced by Kuroye-dov, a former 
secretary of a party provincial committee. More religious leaders were 
allowed to travel abroad. 

A more liberal attitude was adopted toward writers, scientists, and 
other creative workers. There were occasional, apparently independent 
and spontaneous, expressions of public opinion. Unofficial critical 
comments about the regime were sometimes published. While 
traditional socialist realism in art continued to receive official 
encouragement, well-publicized exhibitions of abstract painters were 
held in Moscow. They were roundly criticized by Khrushchev. As in 
painting, so in literature; alongside traditional hard-line writing, 
certain well-known Soviet poets and authors published controversial 
material in the Soviet and foreign press. Some were harassed and 
punished in consequence. A Yevtushenko poem including criticism of 
Stalin was published in the Soviet Union. So was Solzhenitsyn's One 
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a description of life in a Soviet 
prison by an author who had himself been a prisoner under Stalin. 
Works by other former prisoners, such as Dyakov and Georgiy 
Shelest, appeared in the early 1960s. More Soviet tourists traveled 
abroad, including writers who made critical and controversial 
comments about the regime. Some were allowed to leave the Soviet 
Union permanently. Within the Soviet Union the well-known writer 
Kochetov emerged as the leader of the "conservative" wing of the 
writers' union, while the late poet Tvar-dovskiy, who sponsored 
Solzhenitsyn's writings, led the "hberals." The liberals were joined by 
the poets Yevtushenko and Voznesen-skiy, also by prominent 
scientists and other dissidents. 

With the help of these apparently more liberal official attitudes, the 
image of the Soviet Union presented to the outside world was 
changed; the political fundamentals of the regime were not. The "state 
of the whole people" was still a dictatorship ruled exclusively, and 
now more effectively, by the communist party through the party 
apparatus and other organs, including the KGB. The KGB was still 
one of the pillars of the strength and stability of 



126 NEWLIESFOROLD 

the regime. True anticommunist political opposition was suppressed 
as before, but on a selective basis. The real nature of the Soviet 
regime and the KGB and their intolerance of ideological opposition 
were demonstrated in October 1959 by the assassination in West 
Germany by the KGB of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan 
Bandera. The regime was no less ruthless inside the Soviet Union 
when dealing with nationalist or other opposition movements. Despite 
Khrushchev's disclaimers, political prisoners still existed, though their 
numbers were reduced. Political trials were normally still held in 
secret. 

The scale of repression cannot be judged by the show trials, which 
were sometimes publicized, or by information that, following the 
example of the 1920s, was sometimes leaked for political or tactical 
considerations through samizdat and other sources. According to 
Mironov, its former chairman, the KGB branch in Leningrad in 1958- 
59 was still arresting 35 percent of the anti-Soviet elements it 
detected; the other 65 percent were let off with prophylactic warnings. 

Soviet intellectuals were still controlled officially through party 
organizations in the various institutes, academies, and writers' and 
other unions. Unofficially they were still controlled by the security 
services through secret agents. There was no free, independent, 
spontaneous expression of political views in the Soviet Union. Al- 
though the use of terror was diminished in comparison with Stalin's 
time, true reform went no further than in the thaw between 1953 and 
1956. 

The so-called political evolution of the regime can be understood in 
the light of Shelepin's secret report as the implementation of the long- 
range policy of stabilizing and strengthening the regime by adopting 
the methods used with success in the 1920s. The policy entailed not 
diminishing the power of the KGB, but giving it a wider, more active, 
sophisticated, and influential political role in shaping and conditioning 
the life of society. The statements by Khrushchev and others quoted 
above on the reduction in the KGB's importance were untrue and are 
in themselves evidence of the deliberate creation of a false image of 
Soviet society. The KGB itself participated with the party and the 
Soviet leadership in the creation of this false image. Prominent Soviet 
legal experts, including several from the KGB Institute like Professor 
of Law 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 127 

Viktor Chikvadze, helped the Soviet leaders to formulate the new 
concept of the "state of the whole people. " They also helped to prepare 
the false statements quoted above on the restricted role of the KGB 
and the nonexistence of political prisoners. When the puzzled staff 
and students at the KGB Institute (including the author) pointed out 
the inaccuracy of Khrushchev's remarks and asked for an explanation, 
they were told that such statements were required for political and 
tactical considerations. In fact, the statements were made in order to 
mask the KGB's new role. 

Further evidence of the role of the KGB in shaping the new, false 
image of the regime, evidence that illustrates the linkage in technique 
between the NEP period and the 1960s, can be found in the case of 
Shul'gin. 

Shul'gin was a former monarchist emigre leader who became a 
victim of the OGPU's Trust and unwittingly was used by the OGPU to 
influence Western views on Soviet evolution. In September 1925 he 
was lured by the Trust into the Soviet Union, and under Trust auspices 
visited Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad, meeting the defense, foreign 
affairs, and finance "ministers" of the Trust's "underground 
organization." In 1927 he wrote a book about his visit to the Soviet 
Union entitled Three Cities. After clearance with the Trust (in effect, 
with the OGPU), the book was published outside the Soviet Union. 
One of its main themes was that foreign intervention in Soviet affairs 
was superfluous, since communism was a declining force. 

After the Second World War Soviet security agents arrested 
Shul'gin in Belgrade. He was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his 
involvement with the Trust in the 1920s. In 1960 he was released from 
prison and was used by the KGB, this time wittingly, to publish a 
brochure in which he stated some of the reasons for suggesting that 
the Soviet regime was evolving toward a more tolerant and democratic 
system.^ 



Changes in Diplomacy 

From 1958 onward the Soviet leadership laid special emphasis on 
peaceful coexistence, trade and economic relations with the West, and 
a moderate and businesslike approach to negotiations 



128 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and agreements. Soviet diplomacy entered an active phase; top-level 
personal diplomacy became normal practice. Khrushchev and other 
Soviet leaders visited the United States and France; Western leaders 
were invited to the Soviet Union. Approaches were made to the 
governments of advanced capitalist countries, including Great Britain, 
the United States, West Germany, France, and Japan, for the purpose 
of improving political, economic, and cultural relations with them. 
The Soviets showed interest in summit conferences and international 
meetings on disarmament and trade. On December 4, 1958, the 
Soviets issued a declaration on the cessation of nuclear tests, preceded 
and followed by other proposals on disarmament.^ The Soviets 
expressed a desire to obtain capital equipment from the industrially 
advanced noncommunist world on the basis of long-term credits. 
Countries bordering on the Soviet Union received special attention. 
In May 1962 Khrushchev suggested a world conference on trade. 

These initiatives did not represent an evolution toward a less 
ideological and more conventional national form of diplomacy on the 
part of the Soviet government. They should be compared with Soviet 
diplomacy under Lenin during the NEP; they were similar calculated 
steps taken on the basis and within the framework of a long-range 
ideological policy. Similar emphasis on peaceful coexistence and 
businesslike relations with the capitalist world and a similar use of 
high-level contacts with noncommunist governments can be seen in 
Soviet diplomacy leading up to the Genoa conference of 1922. This 
was a period in which Lenin himself advocated the use of moderate 
language, avoiding in particular words suggesting that violence and 
terror played any part in Soviet tactics. 

The Soviet government's proposals to the UN General Assembly on 
full and complete disarmament and the call for a world conference on 
trade are even more strikingly similar to Soviet proposals in the 1920s. 
The so-called moderate Soviet diplomacy of the 1960s was a 
repetition of Lenin's activist foreign policy of gaining specific benefits 
for the Soviet Union by exploiting the contradictions within and 
between noncommunist countries. 

If this historical basis for Soviet diplomacy in the 1960s is taken 
into account together with Lenin's pamphlet. Left- Wing Communism, 
An Infantile Disorder, it is easier to understand why the emphasis on 
coexistence and businesslike cooperation between states 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 129 

with different social systems in the 1960s was accompanied by an 
intensification of the ideological struggle inside and outside the Soviet 
Union. Khrushchev's calls for peaceful coexistence and disarmament 
were combined with outspoken attacks on capitalism and predictions 
of upheavals in the West, which were made during and after his visits 
to the United States in 1959 and 1960.'" Even more important was the 
intensification of support for revolutionary and national liberation 
movements abroad, most conspicuously in Vietnam and Africa. The 
year 1960 saw the foundation in the Soviet Union of a new university, 
Lumumba University, intended for the training of revolutionary 
leaders for the developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin 
America. 

The resemblance between Soviet initiatives in the 1920s and those 
in the late 1950s and early 1960s did not escape the notice of all 
Western analysts. For example, David M. Abshire, in his contribution 
to the book Detente, said that more striking than any adjustment 
currently being made to meet changing conditions was the adjustment 
oftheNEPinthe 1920s." 

Similarly, Lazar Pistrak, in his book The Grand Tactician, observed 
that Khrushchev had "resumed Lenin's methods of an active foreign 
policy and the simultaneous spreading of world-revolutionary ideas by 
means of unprecedented propaganda devices."'^ 

A third Western observer, G. A. von Stackelberg, pointed out the 
inconsistency between peaceful coexistence and the foundation of a 
university for training revolutionary leaders for the Third World. He 
drew a direct comparison between Lumumba University and the 
Communist University of the Toilers of the East, set up almost forty 
years earlier under Lenin to train cadres for the Eastern Soviet 
republics of Turkestan, Kazakhstan, and the Caucasus. As he pointed 
out, it could also be compared with the Sun Yat-sen University, which 
trained cadres for the communist revolution in China. 

Despite the talk of peaceful coexistence, Soviet policy provoked or 
contributed to a series of crises in the decade following 1958, 
including the Berlin crisis of November 1958, when Khrushchev 
proposed to terminate the city's occupied status; the U-2 crisis in 
1960, which Khrushchev used to wreck the summit conference; the 
Soviet decision to resume nuclear testing in 1961; the Cuban crisis of 
1962; and the Middle East crisis of 1967. 



130 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Again the explanation is to be found in the experience of the NEP 
and the Leninist view of foreign pohcy as a form of ideological 
struggle in which both peaceful and nonpeaceful methods should be 
used. Peaceful coexistence was defined under Khrushchev, as it was 
under Lenin, as a form of class struggle between antagonistic social 
systems based on the active exploitation of the contradictions within 
and between noncommunist countries. 

The revival of an active Leninist foreign policy was confirmed, for 
example, in the Soviet military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda on July 
18, 1963, in an article that stated: "The Leninist foreign policy carried 
out by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Soviet government 
is a high-principled, flexible, active poHcy always on the offensive. It 
has fully justified itself and is bearing excellent fruit. . . Communists 
do not keep it a secret that coexistence is necessary for world-wide 
victory of Marxist-Leninist ideas, that there are deep-rooted 
differences between the two world systems of socialism and 
capitalism. To solve those differences, Marxists-Leninists hold, war is 
not an obligatory means in economic, political and ideological 
struggle." 

Soviet foreign policy in the 1960s was not moderate; it was more 
offensive than in the years preceding and following Stalin's death, 
when the crisis of the regime forced it onto the defensive. The notion 
that it was more moderate, more conventional, more nationalist, and 
less ideological is the product of deliberate disinformation and the 
systematic use of terms, such as peaceful coexistence, that are 
themselves intentionally misleading. 

The Soviet intelligence and security services played their part in 
misrepresenting the nature of Soviet foreign policy, in particular by 
projecting and underHning the common interests between communist 
and noncommunist countries. The participation of prominent Soviet 
agents of influence in the scientific field, like Academician 
Topchiyev, and the role they played in Pugwash and other 
conferences, recall the use of the Eurasian movement by Dzerzhin- 
skiyinthe 1920s. 

Chinese and Albanian accusations that the Soviet regime had 
departed from Leninist principles of revolutionary policy contributed 
to Western acceptance of the notion that this was so. Since, as this 
analysis has shown, the charge was without foundation and since the 
Chinese and Albanians were parties to the adoption of 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 131 

the long-range policy, their accusations should be seen as another 
element in a joint disinformation effort. 



The Influence of Ideology 

The changes in the economic, political, and diplomatic practice of 
the Soviet government, which have been described above, contributed 
to the belief in the West that the influence of ideology in the Soviet 
system had declined. This was not so. On the contrary, the changes 
and readjustments were calculated, controlled, and pragmatic. They 
did not touch the economic and political fundamentals of the regime; 
in fact, they contributed to the restoration and strengthening of 
ideology, as compared with the Stalin period. 

Similarly a not always consistently maintained moderation in the 
Soviet press line on the West and continuing emphasis on common 
interests between the communist and noncommunist worlds did not 
indicate revisionism or an increase in Western or nationalist 
influences in the Soviet Union, but rather a tactical shift within the 
framework of the long-range policy. 

It is true that the new, educated, postrevolutionary generation that 
grew up in the Soviet Union (as in Eastern Europe) presented a 
largely silent challenge to the basic principles of the communist 
system and its ideology; there was strong latent anxiety and opposi- 
tion, especially among intellectuals and young people, and a genuine, 
deep-rooted sense of nationalism among the Russian and other 
peoples of the Soviet Union hostile to the regime. The hostility of the 
young was aggravated by the repression to which the older generation 
had been subjected. This genuine opposition, and the decline in the 
influence of ideology that reached its nadir in the immediate post- 
Stalin years, presented the regime with a serious problem. It could 
either revert to mass repression on Stalinist lines or adopt a new, more 
flexible Leninist approach. Stalinist methods having clearly failed, 
Leninist methods were the obvious choice. 

The economic gap between the privileged "new class" and the 
workers and collective farmers was narrowed, the use of terror and 
repression was restricted, and more sophisticated methods were used 
to counter religious, nationalist, and Western influences. A more 
flexible, Leninist approach was adopted toward the "lost" 



132 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

younger generation. Using the techniques of the NEP period, the 
regime managed to increase its prestige, reheve the internal crisis, and 
neutrahze actual and latent internal opposition. The only real change 
in the ideological substance of the regime was its increased 
effectiveness. 

Among other factors that contributed to Western belief in the 
decline in the influence of ideology were, for example, the replace- 
ment of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" by the "state of the whole 
people"; the alleged degeneration of Soviet leaders from genuine 
revolutionaries into reformists and revisionists; the alleged growth of 
special interest groups in Soviet society, and the emergence of some 
kind of embourgeoise middle class; the revival of de-Stahnization; the 
increased accessibility of Soviet scientists, writers, and other 
intellectual and cultural figures; the larger numbers of Soviet Jews 
allowed to emigrate; and Chinese and Albanian accusations of Soviet 
revisionism. 

According to the 1961 program of the CPSU, the "dictatorship of 
the proletariat" (in other words, the dictatorship of the communist 
party) had served its purpose. The "state of the whole people" was to 
be maintained "until the complete victory of communism." Far from 
indicating a weakening of ideological party control, this new formula 
should be seen as part of the overall attempt to broaden the political 
base of the party and enhance its influence by giving it a more 
moderate and less exclusive image. The party retained its monopoly of 
power, policy, and ideas. The gulf between the Soviet and 
noncommunist social systems in fact widened even while the myth of 
common interests between them was being propagated. Intolerance of 
any genuine, uncontrolled political opposition in the Soviet Union was 
and is as severe as ever. All actions inside and outside the country are 
carried out with direct or indirect references to the abiding principles 
of Leninism. Ideological and political considerations override national 
and economic considerations as never before. Any expectation of a 
genuine increase in revisionist, nationalistic, or Western influences on 
the regime is unrealistic, especially given present Western attitudes 
toward the system. 

Even less well-founded is the notion that Soviet leaders and party 
members are less ideologically motivated than before and have 
abandoned revolution for reformism and revisionism. Although 



MAJOR CHANGES E^ THE USSR 133 

to some extent the adjustments after 1958 were introduced under 
pressure from a discontented population, among whom the influences 
of ideology had suffered a genuine decline, those adjustments were 
also in line with the ideological long-range policy objectives to which 
all the leaders were committed. 

The up-and-coming younger generation of leaders like Shelepin, 
Polyanskiy, and Andropov were not and are not revisionists or 
"Young Turks," as some Western commentators dubbed them. 
Shelepin's report and the KGB activity for which he and Andropov 
have been responsible demonstrate that they are zealous revolution- 
aries who are committed to an ideological, Leninist policy and are 
qualified to take over the burden of power from the older generation 
because of their commitment to that policy and because of their 
achievements in implementing it. There are no liberals, moderates, or 
conservatives in the Soviet leadership; there are only communists 
whose actions are determined by the requirements of the long-range 
policy. They may take on a public guise of liberals or Stalinists, but 
only if required to do so by the Presidium of the party in the interests 
of that policy. 

Equally unfounded is the notion that the professional strata of the 
Soviet Union are becoming less ideologically minded or more 
independent of the party. The fact is that, normally, leading officials, 
generals, scientists, and professional bureaucrats are party members 
who know that their well-being depends on their standing with the 
party and the government and that they would suffer if the regime 
were to be weakened. In general they are less sceptical about 
communist doctrine than they were in Stalin's years. Since arrests 
among them are now unusual and take place only if they participate 
actively in opposition to the regime, they are in fact more loyal than 
before. They know that the authority of the party leadership is 
unchallengeable. Since everything is under the control of the party, 
there are no divisions between the party leadership and the 
professionals. If the professionals play a more important role in the 
implementation of policy, they do so under party control. It is 
erroneous to suppose that the professionals in any field can be 
independent politically, as they are in the West. They have significant 
influence, but no independence. Unofficial evidence that military and 
economic professionals or technocrats play an independent role in the 
policy-making process can be discounted. If some 



134 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

professionals resign or express critical views in the Soviet press or in 
contact with foreigners, it can be assumed that they are doing so on 
the instructions of the party. The adjustments in economic poHcy were 
not a response to pressure from economists, technocrats, or scientists, 
as is sometimes supposed, but were planned and implemented on the 
initiative and under the control of the party apparatus acting in 
accordance with the requirements of its ideological long-range policy 
based on NEP experience. The adjustments were not intended for the 
enrichment of individuals or groups, but for the enrichment and 
stabilization of the regime and the fulfillment of communist policy. 
The technocrats and other professionals have not lost their ideological 
zeal; they remain leading party officials who have simply received 
new assignments from the party. If any of them depart noticeably 
from communist norms of life or degenerate into middle-class 
revisionists, they are removed from their positions and replaced. Their 
ideological zeal is maintained through nonviolent purges, systematic 
ideological education, and strict party control. 

Soviet workers and collective farmers are not becoming middle- 
class, as some observers Hke to think. The improvement in the lot of 
rank-and-file workers is still modest. They have a long way to go yet 
until they reach a decent standard of living. Furthermore, in Soviet 
conditions the emergence of a middle class is impossible because the 
party has different objectives and, when necessary, intensifies the 
ideological struggle against middle-class philosophy and practice to 
exclude such developments from Soviet society. 

The major party and bloc documents of lasting significance, such as 
the record of the CPSU's Twenty-first Party Congress, the Manifesto 
of November 1960, Khrushchev's report of January 6, 1961, and the 
1961 program of the CPSU, confirmed the fundamental principles of 
the Soviet regime and its ideology, as well as the final ideological 
objectives of the Soviet Union and the bloc. These documents directed 
the communist movement to an intensification of the ideological 
struggle against alien ideologies domestically and externally; they 
called for more and better communist ideological education. 

The evidence does not support the conclusion that, despite these 
documents, the Soviet regime has been evolving into a less ideological 
and more conventional national system. On the contrary, it 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 135 

points to a deliberate decision by the regime to pursue its acknowl- 
edged ideological goals the more effectively by distracting Western 
attention from them. This it has sought to do by misrepresenting 
tactical, pragmatic shifts in its practices as fundamental and sponta- 
neous, thereby projecting a false image of a system evolving in a 
direction opposite to its declared purposes. In planning and executing 
this misrepresentation it has used the doctrine and historical 
experience of Lenin's NEP. 



The Revival of De-Stalinization 

Perhaps the most important technique used to project a moderate 
image of Soviet policy in the late 1950s and early 1960s was the 
revival of de-Stalinization and the related issue of "revisionism." This 
can be seen, for example, in the appointment of Pervukhin as Soviet 
ambassador to East Germany in 1958; the replacement of Serov by 
Shelepin as Chairman of the KGB; the renewed denunciation at the 
Twenty-second CPSU Congress in October 1961 of the antiparty 
group as Stalinists for their past role in the repressions; the revived 
criticism of Stalin himself for these repressions, and the removal of 
his body from the Lenin mausoleum; the special exploitation of the 
Molotov affair; and the display of differences in attitudes toward 
Stalin between the Soviet leaders on the one hand and the Albanians 
and Chinese leaders on the other. 

Pervukhin had been a member of the opposition to Khrushchev in 
June 1957. He was therefore identifiable in the West, though wrongly, 
as a hard-liner. He was appointed as ambassador to East Germany at a 
time when the BerHn crisis of 1958 was being prepared by the bloc's 
strategists. His appointment can be regarded as the first calculated 
attempt to provide the West with a plausible explanation of an 
international crisis being provoked by the influence of the hard-liners 
within the Soviet system. In fact, the crisis was created within the 
framework of long-range policy and the major spokesman on it was 
none other than Khrushchev himself. 

Serov's case was different in that he had long been a supporter of 
Khrushchev, but, as has already been explained, his notorious past 
involvement in repressions and his narrow-minded attitudes made him 
unsuitable for a leading role in the implementation of 



136 NEWLIESFOROLD 

the new long-range policy. The background of Shelepin, a former 
leader of Soviet youth, provided a useful contrast, which in turn 
contributed to Khrushchev's and Shelepin's liberal images. 

The renewed criticism at the Twenty-second Party Congress of the 
antiparty group of Molotov, Malenkov, Buiganin, Voroshilov, and 
others for their role in past repressions and of Pervukhin's "resistance 
to the policy of reform" were perhaps the most striking and persuasive 
instances of the calculated use of spurious de-Stalini-zation. The issues 
involved had been settled with the ending of the power struggle and 
the establishment of a homogeneous team of leaders committed to a 
long-range policy. The display of "differences" between moderates 
and Stalinists was linked with the decision of the Twenty-second 
Party Congress on November 1, 1961, to remove Stalin's body from 
the Lenin mausoleum and rebury it in the Kremlin wall. Another 
staged display was the conspicuous refusal by KGB bodyguards, in 
front of foreign diplomats and journalists, to allow Voroshilov to join 
other Soviet leaders on top of the Lenin mausoleum for the official 
parade in November 1961. 

One purpose of these staged displays of de-Stalinization was to 
create a favorable climate for the conversion of former internal 
enemies of the regime into active allies in the promotion of its long- 
range policy. Khrushchev in person had meetings with several 
children of the rehabilitated officials. In the effort to involve all 
sectors of Soviet society with the new policy, rehabilitation was 
extended outside the political field. Khrushchev had a well-publicized 
meeting with a thief who had been released from prison. The KGB 
was given a special role in rehabihtating former prisoners and 
returning them to the party ranks. The KGB helped such people to 
obtain apartments and jobs through its contacts in factories and other 
institutions. Those who were considered suitable were recruited by the 
KGB for political assignments. 

The explanation of the Molotov affair is more complicated and 
deserves detailed examination. According to official and semiofficial 
accounts, Molotov used his appointment as ambassador to Mongolia 
to establish contact with the Chinese leaders. When the Soviet leaders 
found out about this liaison, Molotov was recalled and appointed in 
1960 to be the chief Soviet representative at the International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA) in Austria. According to Satyukov, the chief 
editor of Pravda, and other communist leaders 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 137 

including Kuusinen, on the eve of the Twenty-second Party Congress 
in October 1961, Molotov circulated a letter to the members of the 
Central Committee of the CPSU criticizing the draft of the new party 
program as "revisionist, nonrevolutionary and pacifist.""' Molotov 
allegedly knew that the Chinese leaders shared his views. Molotov 
was recalled from Vienna to Moscow at the time of the Twenty- 
second Congress, but he played no part in it. Shortly afterward he 
returned to Vienna, where he was said to be under house arrest. A few 
days later he was back in Moscow. On January 8, 1962, the Soviet 
foreign ministry announced that he would be returning to Vienna. 
Within days, this statement was withdrawn. 

There are many curious anomalies in this story. Molotov was sent 
to Mongolia by Khrushchev to isolate him and to lower his prestige in 
the Soviet diplomatic service. He was kept under surveillance there by 
informers controlled by General Dobrynin, chief adviser to the 
Mongolian security service and former head of the KGB's surveillance 
directorate. Continuing unauthorized contact between Molotov and 
the Chinese would have been virtually impossible. If such contact had 
taken place and had been reported, it is most unlikely that Molotov 
would have been posted to the IAEA in Austria. Like Malenkov, 
Bulganin, and others, he would have been sent off to retirement in a 
small town in the Soviet Union. Moreover, misconduct of this kind on 
Molotov's part would have been made known as before to party 
members in a secret letter as further evidence of his antiparty 
behavior. This did not happen. There was no reference to Molotov, in 
the confidential party explanation of the decisions of the congress, 
containing such criticisms. Furthermore, the criticisms attributed to 
him look most unlikely. The draft program was based on the decisions 
of the Eighty-one-Party Congress of November 1960, which ratified 
the new, revolutionary bloc policy and strategy. For Molotov to have 
criticized the program on the grounds alleged would have made him a 
laughingstock within the communist movement. 

Molotov did, however, criticize Khrushchev's policy on the eve of 
the Twenty-first Party Congress two years earlier, in January 1959, 
and this was stated in the confidential circular to party members in 
Moscow on the decisions of that congress signed by Vladimir Ustinov, 
who had become a Moscow party secretary. Molotov's 



138 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

criticisms were described as a mixture of dogmatism and quotations 
from Lenin. This episode was not mentioned by Satyukov and in fact 
has never been disclosed to the public by the Soviet leadership. 

It is therefore reasonable to deduce that Molotov's actual criticisms 
in 1959 were modified and only disclosed at a time suited to meeting 
the needs of poHcy in 1961. It is also possible that use was made of 
Molotov in this way with his knowledge and consent; as a party 
member, he would have had no option but to agree. 

The unusual publicity given to Molotov's movements between 
Moscow and Vienna may well have been intended to attract Western 
attention to the affair at a time of alleged Sino-Soviet differences. In 
this connection it should be noted that Satyukov, supported by 
Mikoyan and other speakers, accused Molotov of predicting political 
conflicts with imperialism that would mean war. Mikoyan accused 
Molotov of rejecting peaceful coexistence. Another party official said 
that Molotov was opposed to high-level diplomatic contacts between 
Soviet and Western leaders. Satyukov summed up with this emphatic 
statement: "We say to Molotov — 'no!' The CPSU has done its best ... 
to guarantee peace for the USSR ... on the basis of the Leninist policy 
of peaceful co-existence." Clearly this exposure of Molotov's alleged 
warmongering could have been intended to support the moderate 
image of the Soviet leadership and the sincerity of their interest in 
peaceful coexistence and detente, in contrast with the "warmongering" 
of Molotov and the Chinese leadership. 

Two further aspects of Satyukov's attack on Molotov should be 
mentioned. He accused Molotov, first, of trying to assume the role of 
an interpreter of Lenin, and second, of criticizing the new party 
program as pacifist and insufficiently revolutionary. Both these 
criticisms were to be used by the Soviets against the Chinese leaders, at 
first without naming them, but later explicitly. It can therefore be 
suggested that the Molotov affair was used to support the authenticity 
of the alleged differences between the Soviets and Chinese on the 
issue of peaceful coexistence. 

The conspicuous revival of the de-Stalinization issue at the Twenty- 
second Congress and Khrushchev's public attack on the Albanians 
apparently angered the Chinese to such an extent that Chou En-lai, the 
leader of the Chinese delegation, withdrew from 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 139 

the congress. As has already been explained, the issues of revisionism 
and Stalin's distortions of communism had already been settled 
between the leaders of the communist bloc at the end of 1957. 
Because they had been settled, there was no foundation for differ- 
ences between communist parties on them. The conclusion may 
therefore be drawn that the revival of the issues at the Twenty-second 
Congress was artificial and that the differences between the Soviet 
and the Albanian and Chinese parties on Soviet "revisionism" and 
Chinese and Albanian "Stalinism" were calculated and agreed within 
the terms and in the interests of the long-range policy. 

It should be noted that one of the objects of the display of 
differences was to add credibility to the notion of Soviet "moderation" 
and to present Khrushchev as a revisionist. The conclusion that the 
display was staged provides another argument for regarding the notion 
of Soviet moderation as unfounded. 



The Position of Soviet Scientists and Other Intellectuals 

Extensive preparations were made by the Central Committee and 
the KGB in 1958-60 to use scientists, writers, and other intellectuals 
for political and disinformation purposes in accordance with the 
requirements of the new long-range policy. '^ This new approach to 
the intellectuals had its internal aspect; by seeking their collaboration 
in some form of political activity, the regime sought to forestall 
opposition from them. But it is with the external, strategic implica- 
tions of the intellectuals' role in bringing influence to bear on Western 
public opinion and governments that the present chapter is concerned. 
Fadeyev's posthumous advice to the Central Committee to use 
intellectuals for exerting influence, not for spying on one another, had 
been well taken and was put into effect. 

The use of scientists in particular as agents of influence and 
channels for disinformation involved certain changes in their status. 
The Central Committee apparatus and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
as well as the KGB, developed closer relations with them. Many of 
them were given intelligence training individually and in schools. The 
regime, instead of keeping them in isolation at home as before, began 
to promote both their accessibility at home 



140 NEWLIESFOROLD 

and their travels abroad with a view to widening and exploiting their 
contacts with Western scientists. 

The complaints of Academicians Kapitsa and Sakharov and the 
biologist Zhores Medvedev about the difficulties encountered by 
Soviet scientists wishing to travel and meet their Western colleagues 
were incomplete, and distract attention from the real grounds for 
complaint by Western and Soviet scientists alike, which lie in the use 
of these contacts by the Central Committee and the KGB for 
collecting intelligence, conveying disinformation, and exercising 
political influence.'^ In fact, the majority of Soviet scientists lend 
themselves willingly to intelligence work against foreign scientists 
because of the opportunities it gives them to increase their knowledge 
and advance in their careers. Like Fadeyev, they find it in better taste 
to spy on foreign associates than on their Soviet friends and 
colleagues. 

The use of Soviet scientists as agents of influence and channels for 
disinformation entailed changes in Soviet practice over the disclosure 
of secret information. Although the most significant areas, especially 
the process of policymaking and the technique of its implementation, 
remained as secret as ever, certain aspects of Soviet science and 
society were opened up; the obsession with secrecy appeared less total 
than in Stalin's days. 

The greater accessibility of Soviet scientists made its own contri- 
bution to the impression of evolution in the Soviet system. More 
important, however, was the promotion through Soviet scientists of 
the notion of common interests between the Soviet Union and the 
West. The attendance of KGB agents, such as Academicians 
Topchiyev, Artobolevskiy, and Khvostov, at international scientific 
conferences and their role in promoting the idea of the Soviet Union's 
common interest with the United States in avoiding nuclear conflict 
deserve the closest scrutiny for the bearing they may have had on 
American willingness to engage in strategic arms control and 
disarmament negotiations with the Soviet Union and the voluntary 
decision by the United States in the early 1960s to surrender its 
nuclear superiority in the naive belief that if the Americans reduced 
the rate of development of their nuclear arsenal, the Soviets would do 
the same. 

As in the case of the scientists, the KGB's use of its expanded 
assets among Soviet writers (especially among those with well-known 



MAJOR CHANGES IN THE USSR 141 

names) had its internal and external aspects. Shelepin's plans to introduce 
false opposition on Dzerzhinskiy's lines found concrete expression in the 
controlled debates between the "conservative" and "liberal" writers, in which 
the main protagonists on both sides, Kochetov and Tvardovskiy, were 
collaborating with the Central Committee and the KGB. This debate, 
together with the general increase in East-West cultural contacts, made a 
useful contribution to the myth of "evolution." 



Objectives of Strategic Disinformation on Soviet "Evolution" and 
"Moderation" 

The main external objective of strategic disinformation in the early 1960s 
on the "evolution" and "moderation" of the Soviet regime and its "common 
interests" with the West was to create a suitable climate for activist, detente 
diplomacy by the Soviet Union and other communist states and to condition 
favorable, and erroneous. Western responses to communist initiatives. The 
five specific aims of communist diplomacy were to: 

• Undermine Western unity. 

• Induce the advanced industrial nations to contribute to the growth of the 
economic and mihtary potential of the bloc by agreeing to increase East- 
West trade, grant long-term credits, and supply advanced technology. 

• Distract Western attention from the growth in the military strength of 
the bloc and the Soviet Union in particular. 

• Engage the West, especially the United States, in arms control and 
disarmament negotiations, with a view to swinging the mihtary balance of 
power in favor of the communist bloc. 

• Create favorable conditions for communist parties to form united fronts 
with socialists and trade unionists in the advanced countries and with 
nationalist movements in the developing countries. 

At home the main objective of the adjustments to the regime and the 
exaggeration of their significance through disinformation was to create 
favorable conditions for the further construction of socialism and the 
eventual transition to communism by neutralizing internal opposition and 
securing a reduction in external pressure 



142 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

on the regime from the West. 

Subsidiary objectives of the revival of de-Stalinization were to: 

• Provide a foundation for open reconciliation and cooperation between 
the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia without revealing the full extent of 
Yugoslavia's membership in the bloc and commitment to its long-range 
policy. 

• Provide grounds for Soviet- Albanian and Sino-Soviet "differences" in 
preparation for the pursuit of coordinated, dual foreign pohcies by the Soviet 
Union and China. 

• Support further disinformation operations concerning disunity and 
disarray in the world communist movement ostensibly brought about by the 
dechne in the influence of ideology and the resurgence of independent 
nationalist tendencies in communist parties inside and outside the bloc. 



15 



The Third Disinformation Operation: The 
Soviet-Albanian "Dispute" and "Split" 



The Overt Picture of Soviet- Albanian Relations 

Esoteric evidence indicated to Western observers of the communist 
scene that disagreements between the Soviet and Chinese and 
Albanian party leaders had developed by 1959 into a serious cleavage 
on policy issues. In 1960 the dispute came out into the open; "The first 
international communist confrontation where the Sino-Soviet dispute 
and Albanian support for China publicly emerged was at the June 5- 
9,1960, meeting in Peking of the General Council of the World 
Federation of Trade Unions." 

According to evidence published in the West some time after the 
event, there were furious polemics, mainly between the Soviets on the 
one side and the Chinese and Albanians on the other, at the closed 
sessions of the Romanian party Congress in June 1960 and the Eighty- 
one-Party Congress in Moscow in November 1960. The dispute 
acquired the status of a split when Khrushchev denounced the 
Albanian leaders publicly at the Twenty-second CPSU Congress in 
October 1961 for their criticisms of the Soviet party program, for their 
dogmatic Stalinism, and for their rejection of peaceful coexistence. 
Chou En-lai, the leader of the Chinese delegation, withdrew from the 
congress as an apparent gesture of support for the Albanian position. 
Hoxha, while expressing through the Albanian party press his party's 
continuing solidarity with the CPSU, responded to the Soviet attack 
with bitter criticism of "Khrushchev and his group" for their public 
attack on the Albanian party and for their revisionism. He said that 
they had betrayed 

143 



144 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Leninism; that they were restoring capitahsm in the Soviet Union; that 
they were conducting an opportunistic policy of concessions to, and 
cooperation with, imperialism; and that they were conspiring with the 
leading revisionist, Tito. A break in Soviet-Albanian diplomatic 
relations followed in December 1961, and from 1962 onward Albania 
refused to attend Warsaw Pact and Comecon meetings. Chinese 
support for and alignment with the Albanian position against the 
Soviets can be traced back at least to 1959 and possibly even earlier in 
the esoteric evidence. 



Inside Information and Its Interpretation 

The author's information contradicts this generally accepted version 
of the development of Soviet- Albanian relations between 1959 and 
1962. Briefly, this information was to the effect that relations between 
all the communist states, including Albania and China, had been 
normalized by the end of 1957; that the Soviets had successfully 
mediated in the secret reconciliation of the Yugoslav and Albanian 
leaders in 1957-58; and that, from late 1959, the KGB's 
disinformation department was actively collaborating with the Central 
Committee's Department of Active Operations and with the Yugoslav 
and Albanian security services in joint disinformation operations. 

The effect of Shelepin's instructions was to make Albania a party to 
a triangular disinformation operation with the Soviet Union and 
Yugoslavia, an ingenious method of turning to the advantage of the 
bloc's long-range policy the earlier genuine disputes and difficulties in 
relations between the three countries. The strategic considerations the 
bloc leaders would have had in mind when planning this operation 
would probably have been both internal and external. 

Internally both the Yugoslav and Albanian regimes would have 
faced major political problems if the radical step of immediately and 
publicly normalizing their relations had been taken by those same 
leaders under whom the hostilities between the parties had originated 
and developed. In the case of Yugoslavia it was predictable that public 
reconciliation would have carried with it a grave risk of factionalism 
within the Yugoslav party because of the 



SOVIET-ALBANIAN "SPLIT" 145 

Strength of feeling against Albania that had built up in the Stalin 
period. For the Albanian leaders the problems would have been even 
more acute. They were the same leaders who had been responsible for 
executing their own Albanian colleagues, including the former 
minister Koci Xexe, for their pre- Yugoslav sympathies. Open 
reconciliation with Yugoslavia might well have released pressure for 
the posthumous rehabilitation of Xexe and his friends and for an 
admission by the leadership that they had committed crimes against 
loyal and innocent fellow-countrymen on Stalin's orders. In other 
words, there might have been a popular and inner-party reaction in 
Albania similar to that in Hungary which accompanied the 
rehabilitation of the former minister, Laszlo Rajk, in 1956. 
Furthermore, for strategic reasons, Yugoslavia's true role as an active 
participant in the formulation and execution of long-range bloc policy 
had to be kept a closely guarded secret known only to the inner circle 
of Albanian party leaders. An open Yugoslav- Albanian reconciliation 
could not have been fully explained to the Albanian rank and file and 
might well have led to a revival of genuine revisionism in the party. A 
disinformation operation to which both the Yugoslav and Albanian 
leaders were parties offered substantial advantages by providing scope 
for intimate secret collaboration between the party leaders in an 
operation of importance to the whole bloc while at the same time 
providing a means of delaying open acknowledgment of their secret 
reconciliation to the party rank and file and to the populations at large. 
In the Soviet Union Khrushchev had been enlightened enough to 
see that the best way to solve the problem of genuine dissent from and 
opposition to the regime among intellectuals and victims of Stalin's 
persecution was to involve them actively in one or another aspect of 
the new long-range policy. The same principle could be applied to 
healing splits in the bloc and preventing their recurrence. For this 
reason Yugoslavia was allowed to contribute significantly to the 
formulation of the long-range policy and was given an important role 
to play in its execution. The inclusion of the Albanian leaders was the 
logical next step. They too could be actively involved in, and 
committed to, the new policy. A disinformation operation embracing a 
calculated, spurious dispute with the Soviet Union gave them the 
opportunity to project themselves to their own people and to enhance 
their own and their party's prestige as an indepen- 



146 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

dent national force robust enough to stand up to Khrushchev's 
bullying interference in their affairs. In addition, they were given a 
chance to play a strategic role in a disinformation operation to 
misrepresent relations between members of the bloc, and especially 
those between the Soviet Union and China, as degenerating into a 
state of rivalry and hostility, the object of the misrepresentation being 
to widen the openings for the bloc countries to develop their political 
strategies vis-a-vis the noncommunist world. 

Given Albania's past ahgnment with Stalin in the genuine Tito- 
Stalin split and Western knowledge of that alignment, it would have 
seemed logical and convincing to make Albania a "Stalinist" country 
in partnership with the Chinese in a calculated and controlled dispute 
with the Soviets. It also served as a useful preliminary move toward a 
more open and official Soviet- Yugoslav alignment from 1961 onward, 
in apparent opposition to the Sino- Albanian partnership. The 
realignment of Yugoslavia with the Soviet Union after 1961 would be 
less likely to prejudice her independent image and her political and 
economic relationships with the advanced and developing countries if 
the Soviets themselves were to be seen by those countries as 
revisionists, in comparison with the militant Chinese dogmatists. 

The fact that Albania was the smallest and most isolated of the 
communist countries made her a particularly suitable choice to be the 
first full member of the bloc to split away from the Soviet Union after 
1958. The Soviet-Albanian "split" should in fact be regarded as a pilot 
project for the much more significant Sino-Soviet split, which must 
already have been in the preliminary stages of development. It gave 
the bloc strategists an opportunity to test the validity of their 
disinformation concepts and techniques and to examine the internal 
and external consequences of a spurious minor split before 
committing themselves finally to a spurious major split between the 
Soviet Union and China. If the West were to see through the Soviet- 
Albanian split, the minimum of political and strategic damage to the 
bloc would have been done. If, on the other hand, the West were to be 
successfully taken in by it, if there were no uncontrollable 
repercussions of the split elsewhere in the bloc, if it proved possible to 
arrange for the political and economic survival of the Albanian 
regime, and if the West concluded from the Soviet- Albanian split that 
the Eighty-one-Party 



SOVIET-ALBANIAN SPLIT 147 

Congress in November 1960 was indeed a watershed in the disinte- 
gration of the communist monolith rather than the reverse, then there 
would be every justification for moving ahead with the Sino-Soviet 
split, to the credibility of which the Soviet- Albanian split would have 
made its contribution. The Sino-Soviet split would help to build up the 
moderate image of both the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 
1960s, to the advantage of their strategic political rapprochement with 
the advanced and developing countries. The last, but not the least 
significant, of the reasons for bringing the Soviet-Albanian dispute out 
into the open as a split would have been to provide the West with 
confirmation of the reliability of information on intrabloc relations 
derived from esoteric evidence, from retrospective leakages, from 
articles in the communist press, and from "secret" Western 
intelligence sources. 



Anomalies in the "Dispute" and "Split" 

Detailed examination of the origins and development of the Soviet- 
Albanian dispute and split, using the new methodology, brings to light 
a number of additional points casting doubt on the authenticity of the 
differences between them and confirming that the dispute was 
manufactured in the interests of long-range policy. 

According to the esoteric evidence, the Soviet-Albanian dispute 
began in the very period during which the long-range policy was 
being formulated. Hoxha himself, and other Albanian leaders, par- 
ticipated in the process. In January -February 1959, Hoxha led the 
Albanian delegation to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress, which 
discussed the roughly simultaneous transition to communism in all the 
countries of the bloc. This entailed an attempt to level up the 
economics of the more backward communist countries, including 
Albania, at the expense of the more advanced countries, including the 
Soviet Union. 

In May 1959 an official Chinese delegation, which included Chang 
Wen-tien, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, formerly a Comintern 
official and Chinese ambassador in Moscow, and Peng Te-huai, the 
minister of defense, visited Tirana. Their visit coincided with the visit 
of a Soviet delegation, headed by Khrushchev, that included Marshal 
Malinovskiy, the Soviet minister of defense. 



148 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

It is generally supposed in the West either that meetings were held in 
an unsuccessful attempt to iron out the differences between the three 
countries, or that the opportunity was taken by Peng and Chang to 
conspire with Khrushchev against Mao. The reception Hoxha gave the 
delegations, the course of the negotiations, and the official 
communique issued after the meeting provided clear evidence that 
there were no differences between them and that their relations were 
extremely close. Bearing in mind also that these high-level meetings 
in Tirana took place at the same time as the joint Soviet- Yugoslav 
disinformation operation was being launched, it is more likely that the 
leaders discussed the development of the Albanian disinformation 
operation than that they discussed differences between them for which 
there were no solid grounds. 

In the same month of May 1959, Comecon met in Tirana. The fact 
that the Soviet delegation was headed by Kosygin, then chief of the 
Soviet Planning Commission, indicates the importance of the session 
and gives weight to the supposition that it dealt with long-range 
economic planning. Despite the esoteric evidence of a Soviet- 
Albanian dispute, the Albanians continued to participate in both 
Comecon and Warsaw Pact organization meetings in 1960 and 1961 
up to and including the plenary session of Comecon in Moscow in 
September 1961, the month before Khrushchev's first public attack on 
them. 

Most significant of all, Hoxha was among the signatories of the 
Manifesto of the Eighty-one-Party Congress in November 1960. In a 
special resolution approving the participation of Albania in the 
congress, the Albanian party stated that the CPSU was "the most 
experienced and competent body of the international communist 
movement," and added that "the hopes of the imperialists, headed by 
the USA, to split the communist camp are doomed to failure." Hoxha's 
official report to the Fourth Congress of the Albanian party, published 
on February 14, 1961, attacked the US and NATO and was replete 
with praise for the Soviet Union, China, and the decisions of the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress; it acknowledged the "general 
collaboration" between Albania and the Soviet Union. 

The esoteric evidence of a Soviet- Albanian dispute between 1959 
and 1961, relying mainly on a detailed comparison of the Soviet, 
Albanian, and Chinese press during these years, was developed in the 
West. From this comparison different approaches by the differ- 



SOVIET-ALBANIAN "SPLIT" 149 

ent parties to certain issues could indeed be deduced. At the same 
time, it should be remembered that none but a privileged few in either 
the Soviet Union or Albania were able to obtain and read the press of 
the other country and make the sort of comparison which is the stock- 
in-trade of Western analysts. Given the existence of a disinformation 
program, the clear implication is that much of the esoteric evidence 
was specifically directed at Western analysts and was not intended for 
domestic consumption. 

Nevertheless, Khrushchev's pubhc attack on the Albanians at the 
Twenty-second CPSU Congress, in October 1961, seemed to most 
observers to confirm that the esoteric evidence had all along reflected 
a genuine dispute. It is interesting to note, however, that press 
coverage of the exchanges between Khrushchev and Hoxha varied 
widely in the bloc. The Soviet press did not name China or give any 
indications of Chinese support for Albania. Some East European party 
leaders openly critized Chinese support for Hoxha's position. The 
Chinese press refrained from editorial comment on the Kremlin but 
printed the Albanian attacks on Khrushchev. Press coverage of the 
dispute was incomplete throughout the bloc; some documents and 
speeches were not published, even by the Soviets or the Albanians. 

In contrast, official information on Albanian attendance between 
1958 and 1961 at Comecon and Warsaw Pact meetings, at the 
Twenty-first CPSU Congress, and at the Eighty-one-Party Congress 
was published at the time in the press of every communist country. 
Commitments by communist parties to the decisions of multilateral 
meetings are taken extremely seriously. The point applies as much to 
the Albanian commitment to the Manifesto of the Eighty-one-Party 
Congress as to any other. The day-to-day official evidence of 
continuing Albanian cooperation with the rest of the bloc in the years 
1958 to 1961 should be considered as reflecting far more accurately 
the true state of affairs than the esoteric, unofficial, incomplete, and 
retrospective evidence from communist sources pointing to a dispute. 



Comparison with the Tito-Stalin "Split" 

In the case of the genuine Tito-Stalin split in 1948 and the 
continuing Soviet- Yugoslav differences in 1956 and early 1957, con- 



150 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

fidential briefings and guidance on the subject were given to CPSU 
members. The author was a CPSU member in good standing until his 
break with the Soviet regime in December 1961. He received no such 
party briefing on the state of Soviet- Albanian relations. 

Tito and other leading Yugoslavs could not and did not visit 
Moscow during the Tito-Stalin split, but Hoxha and other Albanians 
had no fears of visiting Moscow as late as November 1960. Even 
Khrushchev's attack on Hoxha in October 1961, which might have 
been expected to have the most serious consequences, did not prevent 
an Albanian delegation from attending the Fifth World Congress of 
the WFTU in Moscow in the following December, the month in 
which Soviet- Albanian diplomatic relations were broken off. 

In contrast with the Tito-Stalin split, there was no formal con- 
demnation of Albania by any bloc or international communist meeting 
or conference. There was no systematic, overall communist bloc 
boycott of Albania, ideologically, politically, economically, or 
diplomatically, despite attacks and critical comments by individual 
parties or their leaders. These cannot be considered as binding on the 
communist movement as a whole or as overriding in importance the 
common obligations and commitments made at the international 
communist conferences in 1957 and 1960. 

Only the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Albania. 
Even in this case the circumstances were peculiar, in that the note to 
the Albanians was delivered by the Soviet deputy foreign minister, 
Firyubin, a former ambassador to Yugoslavia who was responsible at 
the time, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for relations with the 
nonahgned countries, not with other communist countries in the bloc. 
The use of Firyubin for this purpose suggested that the breach had 
more to do with bloc strategic interests in the outside world than with 
intrabloc relations. Although the other East European countries 
withdrew their ambassadors, they did not break relations. Even 
Yugoslavia retained a diplomatic mission in Tirana. 

Although Albania ceased, by its own account, to attend Warsaw 
Pact and Comecon meetings in 1962 and claimed to have terminated 
its membership in both organizations, neither took formal action to 
expel Albania, which therefore retains its de jure membership. 



SOVIET-ALBANIAN "SPLIT" 151 

The Soviet- Albanian Friendship Society survived the split. Its 
board meeting in Moscow on January 9, 1981, celebrated the thirty- 
fifth anniversary of the Albanian People's Republic.^ 

No economic pressure was brought to bear on Albania by the rest 
of the bloc. Albanian trade representatives stayed on in Czecho- 
slovakia, East Germany, and Hungary despite criticism of Albania by 
the party leaders in those countries. In 1962 Poland, Hungary, 
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany all signed trade agree- 
ments with Albania. After the split, as before, 90 percent of Albania's 
trade was with other communist countries. The main difference was 
that China replaced the Soviet Union as Albania's principal supplier. 
So smooth was the transition that it might well have been jointly 
planned by the Soviets, Chinese, and Albanians in advance. 



Conclusion 

Western interest in splits in the communist world is understandable. 
The potential benefits of genuine splits would be enormous. 
Moreover, the esoteric evidence on which so much Western analysis 
is based was genuinely valid so long as Stalin was alive. But the 
failure to understand the changes that took place in the seven years 
after his death, especially the reintroduction of strategic disin- 
formation, has rendered the old methodology acutely vulnerable. So 
intense is the interest in actual and potential splits that conflicting 
evidence is undervalued or ignored. For example, few if any 
commentators have remarked on the continuing high level of Alba- 
nian trade with Eastern Europe, despite the fact that Eastern Europe 
aligned itself with the Soviet Union against Albania and China. The 
same bias is evident in the analysis of communist documents. The 
passages containing mutual criticism are exhaustively discussed; those 
expressing solidarity are ignored. But Hoxha was not just uttering 
empty phrases when he reported to the Fourth Congress of his party in 
February 1961 that 'Triendship with the Soviet Union has been, is, and 
will always remain the cornerstone of the foreign policy of the new 
Albania [stormy applause, ovations]. . . . This friendship is expressed 
and tempered every day by the fraternal relations and general 
collaboration between our two countries. . ."'' 



152 NEW LIES FOR OLD 



If all the evidence given above is weighed objectively, it leads to the 
inescapable conclusion that, in this instance, Hoxha was telling the truth and 
that the Soviet-Albanian dispute and split were and are no more than the 
products of bloc disinformation. 



Objectives of the Disinformation Operation 

The objectives of this disinformation were to: 

• Avoid the adverse internal consequences of an open reconciliation 
between the Albanian and Yugoslav leaders. 

•-Enhance the prestige of the Albanian leaders and their parties in the eyes 
of their own people as an independent, national force. 

• Support the projection of Yugoslav revisionism as a Trojan horse within 
the communist bloc. 

• Suggest that, after 1961, Khrushchev himself was under revisionist 
influence, and thus to build up his image as a moderate in contrast to the 
militant Chinese and Albanian Stalinists. 

• Confirm that efforts to unite the communist bloc and movement at the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress in November 1960 had failed and that the bloc 
and movement were disintegrating over the unresolved issues of Stalinism, 
revisionism, national communism, and the pursuit of conflicting national 
interests. 

• Test reactions inside and outside the bloc to a minor split before the 
further development of the nascent Sino-Soviet dispute. 



16 



The Fourth Disinformation Operation: 
The Sino-Soviet "Split" 



CPSU-CPC Collaboration, 1944-49 

Historically relations between the Soviet and Chinese Communist 
parties have been the subject of much confusion. To a significant 
extent, this was due to a wide-ranging and successful wartime and 
postwar disinformation effort designed to mislead the West on the 
nature of Chinese Communism and to conceal the steady buildup of 
Soviet diplomatic, intelligence, and military help to the CPC in the 
final years of the civil war in China. The similarities between Soviet 
and Chinese comments on the nature of Chinese Communism are 
strongly suggestive of a coordinated disinformation operation. 
Western journalists who visited Yenan during the war were told that 
the Chinese Communists were not traditional communists, but 
agrarian reformers who admired the West and had more in common 
with Christian socialism than Soviet Communism.' Similar remarks 
were made by Soviet leaders. For example, in June 1944 Stahn told 
Averell Harriman, then US ambassador in Moscow, that the Chinese 
Communists were not real, but "margarine" communists." In August 
1944 Molotov, then Soviet foreign minister, told Patrick Hurley and 
Donald Nelson, President Roosevelt's two personal representatives to 
Chungking, that many of the so-called Chinese Communists were 
simply desperately poor people who would forget this political 
inclination when their economic condition improved.' In a 
conversation with Harry Hopkins on May 26, 1945, Stalin made some 
contemptuous remarks about Mao and discounted the CPC as a 
serious factor in the situation; 

153 



154 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

he said he thought the Chinese Communist leaders were less capable 
than Chiang Kai-shek and would be unable to unite their country/ In 
the course of negotiations with Wang Shih-chieh, the Chinese foreign 
minister, in the summer of 1945, Stalin said that Chinese Communism 
did not amount to much. Assurances that Chinese Communists were 
not real communists were given by the Soviet leaders to Secretary of 
State Byrnes at Potsdam in July 1945 and to a group of American 
congressmen visiting Moscow in September 1945.^ 

Another indication of an agreed Sino-Soviet disinformation theme 
was Mao's inaccurate statement, after the dissolution of the 
Comintern, that China had received no assistance or advice from it 
since its Seventh Congress in 1935.* 

Stalin's apparent ignorance of the situation in China was of course 
feigned. There was close collaboration throughout between the CPSU 
and the CPC Soviet intelligence coverage of the Chinese Nationalist 
government and its policies was at least as good as its coverage of 
American and British policy. 

While serving in the section of the Committee of Information that 
was responsible for counterintelligence work in Soviet organizations 
in China, Korea, and Mongolia, the author learned of a Soviet 
decision, taken after secret negotiations with a high-level CPC dele- 
gation to Moscow in the autumn of 1946, to step up Soviet military 
aid to the CPC; the Soviet general staff, military intelligence, and the 
Ministry of Transport were all instructed to give priority to the 
Chinese Communist army. In addition to the Japanese arms captured 
by the Soviets in Manchuria, large quantities of Soviet arms and 
ammunition, including American weapons received by the Soviet 
Union from the United States during the war, were secretly shipped 
by train to China between 1946 and 1949. In a lecture to students of 
the High Intelligence School in Balashikha in 1949, General 
Roshchin, the head of Soviet intelligence and Soviet ambassador in 
China, claimed that Soviet assistance had enabled the Chinese 
Communist army to swing the military balance in its favor and to 
launch its fmal and successful offensive against the Nationalist army 
in 1947-48. 

Further assistance was sent to China through Sinkiang. Soviet 
control over Sinkiang had been lost in 1943 when the Governor, 
Sheng Shih-tsai, a Soviet agent, broke with the Soviet Union. In 



S I N O - S O V I E T '■ S P L I T " 155 

order to restore the situation, a revolt in the Hi region of Sinkiang was 
organized by Fitin from Moscow, Pitovranov from Kazakhstan, 
Ogol'tsov and Byzov from Uzbekistan, and Langfang and Ivanov from 
Outer Mongolia, all of them generals of the Soviet security and 
intelligence service. The revolt was successful and an independent 
East Turkestan Republic was proclaimed under the leadership of 
Saifudin, a Soviet agent. Thereafter Sinkiang was used by the Soviets 
as a supply route to the CPC until they had taken over complete 
control of the province. The camel track to Ningsia from Outer 
Mongolia was also used as a supply route. 

A major Soviet intelligence effort went into obtaining military 
information on the Kuomintang army for the benefit of the CPC and 
into the subversion of the Nationalist administration and police. When 
the Soviet embassy followed the Nationalist government to Canton, it 
did so not, as is often supposed, to demonstrate Soviet allegiance to 
the Treaty of Friendship with the Nationalist government, but, 
according to Soviet intelligence telegrams between China and 
Moscow, to facilitate contact with Soviet agents in the Nationalist 
administration. It is worth noting that Soviet recognition of the new 
Chinese Communist government and the establishment of diplomatic 
relations with it were conducted through the head of Soviet 
intelligence and consul-general in Peking, Colonel Tikhvinskiy.^ It was 
the same Tikhvinskiy who, in answer to Nationalist charges that the 
Soviets were helping the CPC, issued an official denial on behalf of 
the Soviet government, carried in an Associated Press dispatch 
datelined Peking, December 30, 1947, to the effect that "my 
government recognizes only one government in China — the 
Nationalist government — and is not supplying the communists with 
anything. This is a 100 percent denial." The denial was, of course, 100 
percent false. It was but one aspect of a major joint Sino-Soviet 
intelligence and disinformation operation designed to help the CPC to 
power while concealing from the West that Soviet aid was being 
given. After his defeat Chiang Kai-shek frankly and correctly admitted 
that the CPC "stole intelligence from our government and at the same 
time closed all avenues of intelligence to the government. That was to 
be expected. But they went one step further by furnishing the western 
nations with false intelligence about the Chinese government in order 
to create wrong impressions of our country."^ If the United States 
administra- 



156 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

tion had not fallen victim to communist disinformation and had 
realized at the time the scope and scale of Soviet aid to Chinese 
Communism, more decisive American aid might have been given to 
the Chinese Nationalists. Even if it had failed to save China from 
communism, at least the reaction of American public opinion to the 
failure of United States policy might have been more balanced than it 
was in the McCarthy era. 



Sino-Soviet Friction, 1950-57, and Its Removal 

The changed character of Sino-Soviet relations after the CPC came 
to power found expression in the thirty-year Treaty of Friendship 
signed during Mao's state visit to Moscow in February 1950.^ Soviet 
support for the "liberation" of Tibet and Taiwan was promised. Mao 
was told by Stalin that all Soviet intelligence work in China had 
ceased and that the names of former Soviet agents in China would be 
disclosed to the Chinese intelligence service. 

Despite the success of Mao's visit, there were still unsolved prob- 
lems and maladjustments in relations between the two countries. It 
would be quite wrong to regard China at that time as a Soviet satellite. 
The extent of Soviet infiltration and control over the Chinese party 
and government was small, compared with that over the East 
European satellites; it was, broadly speaking, limited to Sinkiang and 
Manchuria. Nevertheless, the relationship was not one of equals, and 
at times the Soviets continued to interfere in Chinese internal affairs, 
especially in Manchuria, the Liaotung peninsula, Sinkiang, and the 
border areas. Many Soviet agents, especially in Sinkiang, were 
disclosed to the CPC, among them Saifudin, who had been one of the 
leaders of the Soviet-organized revolt, in East Turkestan in 1945. He 
was a member of the first government of Communist China and 
remained in power in Sinkiang for many years after the development 
of the Sino-Soviet split. 

Despite Stalin's assurances, some Soviet agents in China, such as 
the long-standing Soviet agent in Shanghai, a Chinese citizen named 
Kazakov, were not declared to the Chinese. Nor were the Soviets 
entirely frank about properties they owned secretly in China in 
connection with their intelligence operations; when the Chinese 
caught the Soviets out, as they sometimes did, there was friction 



S r N O - S O V r E T ■' S P L I T " 157 

between them. Another source of tension in 1950 arose from deahngs 
with Russian emigre groups in China. Either the Soviets highhandedly 
carried out arrests using local Chinese security officials without 
informing Peking, or the Chinese refused to carry out arrests 
themselves on the scale demanded by the Soviets. 

A serious disagreement arose when the Soviet advisers, concerned 
over the unusual Nationahst background of Li K'u-nun, the head of 
Chinese political intelligence, demanded his dismissal. The Chinese 
flatly refused to comply. 

Since there was no formal machinery in existence for dealing with 
Sino-Soviet disagreements, they showed a tendency to fester. 

The most serious disagreement of all arose over the Korean War, on 
which Stalin embarked without having taken Mao fully into his 
confidence. When the war started to go badly from the communist 
point of view as a result of the unexpectedly prompt and effective UN 
intervention, the Soviets suggested that the Chinese should send 
troops to the aid of the North Koreans. Not surprisingly, the Chinese 
at first refused. Only after severe Soviet pressure had been brought to 
bear, culminating in a secret and personal letter from Stalin to Mao, 
did the Chinese agree to send "volunteers" into Korea. 

The uneasiness in Sino-Soviet relations, though carefully concealed 
from the West, remained in being as long as Stalin was alive. As soon 
as he was dead, the Soviets took steps to improve matters. Settlement 
of the Korean War was a priority objective of Stalin's immediate 
successors and was first discussed with Chou En-lai when he attended 
Stalin's funeral. Another thorny problem, which was quickly solved, 
centered on Kao Kang, the unofficial "Governor of Manchuria," with 
whom the Soviets had maintained secret contact even during the 
Korean War. After Beriya's arrest, the Chinese leadership was told in 
confidence that Kao Kang had been one of Beriya's agents. In 
February 1954 the Chinese government dismissed Kao Kang "for 
separatist tendencies and plotting to establish an independent 
Kingdom of Kao Kang in Manchuria." Kao Kang was imprisoned 
without trial and hanged himself. 

In October 1 954 Khrushchev and Bulganin visited China for 
discussions that led to the voluntary surrender to China of all Soviet 
extraterritorial rights. The age-old problems of Manchuria and Sin- 
kiang having been solved, the Sino-Soviet boundaries were then 



158 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

finally settled. Soviet economic and military aid to China was stepped 
up. On January 17, 1955, the Soviet government announced that it 
would assist China in setting up nuclear research establishments. Later 
the USSR undertook to construct a nuclear reactor in China that 
would be operational by March 1958. 

In the intelligence field the Soviets climbed down over Li K'u-nun. 
Li retained his position, and the Soviet adviser who could not get on 
with him was replaced. The earlier decision to disclose to the Chinese 
all former Soviet agents in China was put fully into effect without 
exceptions. Among the Soviet agents thus declared to the Chinese was 
Soong Ch'ing-ling, the widow of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. This lady was 
admitted to the CPC and made an honorary President of the Chinese 
People's Republic shortly before her death in May 1981. She was 
given an impressive state funeral attended by the CPC leadership. 
Another declared agent was Kuo Mo-jo, the well-known poet and 
scientist. President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an active 
member of the World Peace Council. Probably few, if any, of the 
names of Soviet agents came as a surprise to the Chinese leaders, but 
the Soviets' evident frankness finally removed this potential source of 
friction. Thereafter, at Chinese request, the Soviet intelligence service 
sent to China a number of its leading experts on such subjects as 
scientific intelligence, the penetration of Western embassies in 
Moscow, the physical protection of nuclear and rocket installations, 
the production of audio-surveillance equipment, and the conduct of 
sabotage and assassination operations. 

During the turbulent events in Eastern Europe in 1956, there were 
signs of a divergence between Soviet and Chinese views on Stalin. 
While the Chinese agreed that Stalin had made mistakes, particularly 
on Yugoslavia, they seemed inclined to a more balanced view of his 
place in history than that given in Khrushchev's report to the 
Twentieth Party Congress. Toward the end of October 1956, a high- 
level Chinese delegation paid a secret visit to Moscow, criticized the 
Soviet leaders for their handling of satellite affairs in general, and 
urged immediate Soviet military intervention in Hungary. One of the 
consequences of the Chinese visit was a pubhc undertaking by the 
Soviet government to review the status and functions of Soviet 
advisers in all the countries of the bloc. 

Mao and Teng Hsiao-p'ing led the Chinese delegation to the 



SINO-S V IE T "SPLIT" 159 

conference of bloc leaders in Moscow in November 1957. A joint 
assessment of Stalin was unanimously agreed upon. Mao said that 
Stalin's principal mistakes were his repression of party members and a 
tendency towards "great-nation chauvinism." The latter had found 
expression in Stalin's policy in Manchuria and in the behavior of some 
of the Soviet advisers in China. The only criticism Mao had of the 
Soviet decision in 1956 to admit Stalin's mistakes was that the Soviets 
had failed to consult other communist parties properly in advance. 
Khrushchev accepted the criticism as justified. The Soviet leaders 
undertook not to repeat Stalin's mistakes; in particular, they agreed 
that repressive measures would not be taken against former members 
of the opposition. They were to be treated as Lenin would have treated 
them. This explains why Malenkov, Molotov, and Bulganin were not 
shot. 

The status and functions of Soviet advisers, including intelligence 
and security advisers, was settled to Chinese satisfaction. The advis- 
ers' roles were limited to consultation and coordination. Interference 
in the internal administrative affairs of the Chinese services was 
excluded. The Soviets genuinely treated the Chinese services as 
equals in status, if not in experience. The Soviets had at last dealt 
frankly with them in declaring to them all their agents of Chinese 
nationality. The question of Soviet bases in China for "illegal" 
intelligence operations into noncommunist countries was solved. New 
bases for "illegals," together with the necessary support facilities, 
were provided to the Soviet intelligence services by the Chinese in 
several of their ports, including Shanghai. There were other instances 
of practical cooperation. At Chinese request the Soviets built a special 
factory to manufacture highly sensitive eavesdropping devices. Soviet 
advisers with experience of pohtical intelligence work against the 
United States and Britain were provided. These included Colonel 
Smirnov, a former Soviet intelligence resident in New York, and 
Colonel Voronin, a former head of the British Department of Soviet 
Counterintelligence. At the end of 1957 the Chinese asked for an 
adviser on pohtical assassinations and sabotage. The Soviets 
responded by sending their best man. General Vertiporokh, a former 
head of their own assassinations and sabotage department and former 
intelligence resident in Iran. Vertiporokh worked as a KGB adviser in 
China until his death in January 1960. 

Regular personal consultation between the leaders of the Soviet 



160 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and Chinese services was established. Shortly after taking over as 
chairman of the KGB in December 1958, Shelepin paid a visit to 
China, from which he returned much impressed with Chinese skill in 
dealing with opposition to the regime from young people, 
intellectuals, religious leaders, and national minorities, especially 
during the elimination of the "thousand weeds" in the summer of 
1956. Shelepin recommended that the KGB study and learn from 
Chinese experience in these matters. General Sakharovskiy, the head 
of Soviet intelligence, paid a visit to China at about the same time as 
Shelepin. At the first conference of the heads of bloc security and 
intelligence services in Moscow in mid-1959, the Chinese were 
represented by the minister of public security, Lo Jui-tsin. The 
conference decided to put security and intelligence liaison within the 
bloc onto a multilateral footing, and established a joint security and 
intelligence coordinating center for the purpose. 

Early in 1960 General Pitovranov, one of the most experienced of 
all KGB generals and a former deputy minister of state security, who 
was known to and respected by the Chinese for his wartime work 
against the Chinese Nationalists in Sinkiang, was appointed chief 
KGB adviser to China. 

In 1959-60 there was a regular exchange of secret political and 
military intelligence between the Soviets and the Chinese. This 
covered in particular Western views and predictions on Sino-Soviet 
relations. The KGB passed on to the Chinese confidential and top 
secret intelligence from its sources in NATO and Western Europe. 
The Polish intelligence service obtained and passed on to the KGB a 
set of papers recording the discussions at a meeting in 1958 or 1959 of 
the Bilderberg group of distinguished Western statesmen and 
commentators concerning the possibilities of a Sino-Soviet split, the 
likely consequences of such a split for the communist bloc, and the 
ways in which it might be exploited for the benefit of the West. These 
were among the documents taken to China by General Sakharovskiy 
in person. Among other documents sent to the Chinese by the KGB 
were secret US State Department assessments of Sino-Soviet 
differences over communes and the Chinese reaction to Khrushchev's 
visit to the United States in 1959. A copy of a secret report dehvered 
to NATO in 1959 by its former secretary-general, Spaak, on Sino- 
Soviet differences and their implications for NATO was also given to 
the Chinese by the KGB. 



S I N O - S O V I E T " S P L I T " 161 

It is of course a deliberately propagated myth that the Soviet and 
Chinese leaders are ignorant of the situation in the outside world and 
incapable of understanding it even if provided by their intelligence 
services with texts of official Western documents. Intelligence 
material is in fact carefully studied, absorbed, and used in the 
planning of communist political strategy. 

In addition to secret intelligence material, it is likely that the 
communist strategists would have studied books like The Prospects 
for Communist China, by Walt Rostow, which openly speculated as 
early as 1954 on the possibilities of the Sino-Soviet alliance breaking 
up.'" 

It is therefore probably no coincidence that Mikoyan, in his speech 
to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress in February 1959, said that 
Western hopes and expectations of a split were doomed," a line 
echoed in the basic communist documents of the period — the Eighty- 
one-Party Manifesto of November I960'" and Khrushchev's strategic 
report of January 6, 1961.'' The theme of unbreakable Sino-Soviet 
friendship was also to be found in speeches and interviews by Chou 
En-lai and the Chinese foreign minister, Chen Yi, ^ despite the 
accumulating evidence of a dispute. 

More than a year after the reported withdrawal of Soviet economic 
and technical specialists from China, in July-August 1960, at least 
some of the KGB advisers were still in place there. A former 
colleague and friend of the author who had been sent to China to 
advise on the physical protection of Chinese nuclear installations was 
still in China in November 1961, the month after Khrushchev 
denounced the Albanians at the Twenty-second CPSU Congress and 
Chou En-lai walked out in apparent protest. By way of contrast, the 
Soviet military, intelligence, and counterintelligence advisers were the 
first to leave Yugoslavia when the genuine Tito-Stalin split occurred 
in 1948. The intimacy of the intelligence and security connection 
between the Soviets and Chinese up to the end of 1 96 1 was 
incompatible with a serious deterioration in their overall relations 
before that date. 

The discrepancies between the evidence of a split and the open and 
inside information on continuing good relations must be viewed 
against the past history of intimate collaboration between the Soviet 
and Chinese parties in disinformation operations in 1944-49, which 
effectively concealed the extent of Soviet aid to the Chinese party 



162 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

in the final years of the civil war and successfully misrepresented 
Chinese Communism as a relatively harmless agrarian reform move- 
ment. 

Against this background, the fact that Sino-Soviet relations in 1959- 
61 closely followed the pattern of Soviet- Yugoslav and Soviet- 
Albanian relations in the same period — a period in which the grounds 
for tension and splits between the members of the bloc had been 
removed and all members, including the Chinese, contributed to the 
formulation of the new policy — suggests that the Sino-Soviet dispute 
was, like the others, the product of bloc disinformation. The fact that 
China continued to send observers to meetings of Comecon and the 
Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact up to the end of 
1961 supports this conclusion. 



The Historical Evidence of Sino-Soviet Differences 

Since the Sino-Soviet "split" became common knowledge, it has 
become fashionable, with some encouragement from Soviet and 
Chinese sources, to seek an explanation for it in traditional rivalries 
and disputes between the two countries dating back as far as the 
sixteenth century. It would be no more farfetched to try to explain the 
deterioration in Franco- American relations in the 1960s by reference 
to the French colonization of Louisiana. Given the nature of 
communist ideology, the acquisition of power by communist parties, 
whether in the Soviet Union, China, or elsewhere, entails in every 
case a radical break with a country's political traditions.'^ 

It would be more relevant to seek the origin of the current split in 
differences between the Soviet and Chinese Communist parties since 
1917. Such differences have undoubtedly existed. There were 
differences between the Soviet and Chinese Communists on the 
tactics to be used toward workers and peasants in the 1920s. Stalin 
was opposed to Mao's leadership of the CPC in the period 1932-35; 
but these were transient differences that did not prevent close 
cooperation between the parties in the period 1935-49. The alleged 
differences between them on united front tactics with the Kuomintang 
and in their attitudes to the Chinese Nationalist government were false 
differences deliberately projected by joint disinformation designed to 
conceal Soviet support for the 



S I N O - S O V r E T '■ S P L I T ■' 163 

CPC, to contain the scale of American aid to the NationaHst govern- 
ment, and to enable the Soviets and Chinese to subvert that govern- 
ment the more effectively through the development of a duality in 
their pohcies toward it. Soviet military support for the CPC may well 
have tipped the balance in favor of the communist victory in China. 
After the communist victory, differences and sources of friction once 
more appeared between the Soviet and Chinese parties. The 
insensitivity of Stalin's handling of Sino-Soviet and other intrabloc 
relations, if it had remained uncorrected, might have led to a genuine 
Sino-Soviet split analogous to the split with Tito. But in fact the 
necessary corrective measures were taken in time. By the end of 1957 
there were no outstanding differences left between the members of the 
bloc. It is noteworthy that the Chinese, in justifying their attitude in 
their polemics with the Soviet Union, did not base themselves on the 
real difficulties they encountered with the Soviets in the period 1949- 
53, but on alleged differences with Khrushchev after 1957 over issues 
that had in fact been settled by that date. Khrushchev's contribution to 
the elimination of past mistakes in Sino-Soviet relations was 
recognized by Mao himself in 1957.'^ 



The Form of Sino-Soviet Differences 

Roughly speaking, three periods can be distinguished in the devel- 
opment of the split: the first from 1957 to mid-1963, the second from 
1963 to 1969, and the third from 1969 onward. For most of the first 
period official communist sources aimed gt communist audiences gave 
no recognition to the existence of Sino-Soviet differences; on the 
contrary, the record of Chinese participation in the world conferences 
of communist parties held in Moscow in 1957 and 1960 and in the 
Twenty-first CPSU Congress in February 1959, and also Chinese 
attendance as observers at meetings of the Warsaw Pact and 
Comecon, all indicated continuing and even increasingly close 
collaboration at a high level between the Soviet and Chinese 
governments and parties. The same conclusion could be drawn from 
the exchange of delegations. In 1959 alone no less than 125 
delegations visited China from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; 
over 100 Chinese delegations paid return visits. 



164 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The evidence of disagreements was to be found in unofficial commu- 
nist sources: different lines on various issues in the Soviet and Chi- 
nese press, remarks by communist leaders to Western journalists and 
statesmen, and retrospective accounts of polemics at closed meetings 
of, for example, the Romanian party congress in June I960 and the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress in November 1960. This unofficial 
evidence, much of it retrospective, pointed to a deterioration in party 
and diplomatic cooperation in 1959, to a termination of Soviet 
military and nuclear collaboration in that year, and to the cessation of 
Soviet economic aid to China in 1960. 

From late 1961 onward indications of Sino-Soviet differences 
began to appear in the official communist sources. There was sym- 
bolic Chinese support for Stalin and the Albanian position when 
Khrushchev denounced them both at the Twenty-second CPSU 
Congress. Friction and competition between the Soviet and Chinese 
delegations at the meetings of international front organizations be- 
came conspicuous. The flow of information from official communist 
sources on the subject of Sino-Soviet collaboration dwindled. 

During the second period of the split, the existence of differences 
was fully acknowledged. An ostensible attempt to settle them was 
made when a high-level Chinese party delegation visited Moscow for 
talks in July 1963. The talks apparently failed and public polemics 
between the parties began. Hitherto secret party letters revealing 
differences between the parties were disclosed in the Soviet and 
Chinese press. Some Chinese diplomats were expelled from the Soviet 
Union for distributing leaflets. China withdrew from the international 
front organizations. Some communist parties in the noncommunist 
world openly took up pro-Soviet or pro-Chinese positions; in some 
cases pro-Chinese spHnter groups broke away from pro-Moscow 
parties. 

In the third period, beginning roughly in 1969, the apparent 
deterioration in Sino-Soviet relations was expressed in actions as well 
as words. Troop levels were built up on the Sino-Soviet frontier. 
Border incidents took place between the two countries against a 
background of mutual accusations of "hegemonism." China began 
publicly and systematically to take up an opposite position to the 
Soviet Union on NATO, the Warsaw Pact, the EEC, detente, 
disarmament, European security, and many Third World issues, 
including Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. After the communist 



SINO-SOVIET "SPLIT" 165 

victory in Vietnam, the Vietnamese aligned themselves more closely 
with the Soviet Union. The Soviets and Chinese backed opposite sides 
in the conflict between rival communist factions in Kampuchea. In 
1979 the Chinese "punished" the Vietnamese with a brief invasion of 
their territory. But, despite all the apparent violence of Chinese 
hostility to the Soviet Union and her close Vietnamese ally, by 1980 
the split had still not led to a breach in diplomatic relations with the 
Soviet Union, as did the Soviet-Albanian dispute in 1961 . Nor was the 
Sino-Soviet treaty of friendship, mutual cooperation, and assistance 
abrogated. Up to 1980 each side remained committed to support the 
other in an emergency. 

From this brief outline survey of the split, it will be seen that for 
most of the first period there was a total conflict between the evidence 
from unofficial communist sources and the evidence from official 
communist sources supported by the author's inside information. In 
the second period there was a closer coincidence in the evidence from 
official and unofficial communist sources, although there was still a 
conflict between the official sources in the first period and the 
evidence of differences leaked retrospectively in the second period. 
The new methodology, taking into account the launching of a 
disinformation program in 1958-60 and the historical precedents on 
which it was based, gives greater credence to the evidence from 
official communist sources and calls into question the authenticity of 
the secret party letters and polemics pubHshed in the second period of 
the spht. 

Several inconsistencies can be pointed out. First, the official evi- 
dence of close Sino-Soviet relations was carried in the press of both 
countries. The Manifesto of the Eighty-one-Party Congress, in 
November 1960, specifically underlined that Western hopes of a split 
in the bloc were doomed. By signing it the Chinese specifically 
endorsed the tactic of peaceful coexistence as one of the options in a 
common long-range policy. The Chinese president, Liu Shao-chi, who 
led the Chinese delegation to the congress, subsequently toured the 
Soviet Union in the company of the Soviet president, a curious thing 
to do if there was a serious rift between them. Khrushchev's report of 
January 6, 1961, widely distributed in the Soviet Union, emphasized 
the closeness of Sino-Soviet relations. 

Second, although the Soviet and Chinese press and radio must be 
regarded as official communist sources, they should also be re- 



166 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

garded as subordinate to official sources, such as the Manifesto of the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress, or the decisions and declarations of 
Soviet and Chinese party congresses. These decisions and declarations 
should not be regarded as being controverted by statements in the 
press and radio of individual parties, especially in the light of all the 
evidence of a decision in 1958-60 to support the new long-range 
policy with a program of disinformation operations. 

Third, neither the Russian nor the Chinese public was informed of 
the existence of a dispute before the end of 1961, and even then, up to 
mid-1963, only indirectly and by implication. Neither the Russian nor 
the Chinese public is in a position to study the press of the other 
country and to note the divergences between them on foreign policy or 
doctrinal issues. It is doubtful whether the reduction in the coverage of 
each other's affairs in their national presses, even if noticed, would 
have been accorded much significance. Furthermore, as the author can 
personally testify, the Soviet party was not briefed on the dispute up to 
the end of 1961. In contrast, as already recorded above, confidential 
guidance was given to the party from the beginning in the case of the 
genuine Tito-Stalin split in 1948. 

Fourth, although it would be impossible to assess how much of the 
polemical material was made available and how widely it was 
distributed within the Soviet Union and China, it can at least be said 
that a proportion of the material available in and directed at the West 
would not have reached the Russian or Chinese public. For example, 
much of Novosti's material on Sino-Soviet relations was distributed in 
English and in magazine supplements, which may or may not have 
been distributed in the Soviet Union. According to the Soviet press, 
the Chinese distributed polemical material to communists in the 
Soviet Union in English, which would have been pointless if it was 
really aimed at a Soviet, rather than a Western, audience.'^ This, along 
with the esoteric evidence, supports the conclusion that the evidence 
of the dispute was deliberately made available to the West either 
directly to Western statesmen and commentators or indirectly in such 
a manner that Western analysts would be likely to pick it up. The 
question arises: Why would the Soviet and Chinese leaders 
dehberately draw Western attention to the existence of a dispute that 
they were at pains to conceal from their own parties and populations 
unless by so doing 



S I N O - S O V I E T " S P L I T '■ 167 

they could serve their mutual interests in promoting their recently 
agreed upon long-range policy for the bloc? 

Fifth, the polemics between the Soviets and Chinese were not 
continuous, but intermittent. They could well have been coordinated, 
rather than spontaneous. In the Soviet press they began in July 1963, 
continued until the beginning of October, and were then dropped until 
April 1964. They were revived in that month with the publication of 
material on the meeting of the CPSU Central Committee in February 
1964, allegedly because the Chinese had continued to publish 
polemical material despite appeals from Khrushchev and the Soviet 
leadership to desist.'^ 

The new methodology further suggests that the Sino-Soviet hostil- 
ities of the third period, however convincing they may appear, should 
be reexamined to see whether they could have been staged, and if so, 
with what strategic object. At this stage, four general points may be 
made. First, frontier incidents in a remote corner of the world, like on 
the Ussuri river, though spectacular and convincing evidence of 
hostility, can very easily be staged — particularly if, as will be shown 
later, means of coordinating action between the two "opponents" are 
readily available. Second, the hostilities, like the verbal polemics, 
have been intermittent as well as pointless. Third, despite all the 
apparent violence of Chinese hostility to the Soviet Union and her 
close Vietnamese ally, by 1980 the split had still not led to a breach in 
diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, as did the Soviet-Albanian 
dispute in 1961. Nor was the Sino-Soviet treaty of friendship, mutual 
cooperation, and assistance abrogated. Up to 1980 each side remained 
committed to support the other in an emergency. Fourth, the hostilities 
can be correlated in timing with important communist initiatives or 
with the opening of East- West negotiations — for example, SALT — or 
with the visits of Western statesmen to the Soviet Union and China. 
Like the verbal polemics, therefore, minor hostilities cannot be 
accepted as evidence of a genuine dispute, and in the hght of the new 
methodology should be examined for the possible relevance they may 
have to communist political and strategic aims in furtherance of a 
common long-range policy. In the same light must be seen the 
adoption of opposing positions on international issues by the Soviet 
Union and China. The question must be asked whether the ultimate 
goal of a worldwide communist victory cannot be 



168 NEWLIESFOROLD 

achieved more expeditiously by the two leading communist powers 
adopting dual foreign policies in apparent opposition to one another 
than by pursuing a single policy in open solidarity. 



The Content of Sino-Soviet Differences 

Differences between the Soviets and Chinese have allegedly arisen 
since 1958 in the ideological, economic, military, political, and 
diplomatic fields. To many observers it appeared that the differences 
stemmed from a clash of national interests between the two leading 
communist powers. The various types of difference must be examined 
in turn to see what substance, if any, there is to each of them. 



Ideological Differences 

Historically, as already noted, one of the first indications of the 
Sino-Soviet dispute was an apparent difference over the subject of the 
introduction of communes in China, which Khrushchev mentioned to 
the late Senator Humphrey in December 1958. According to some 
Western interpretations of communist theory, communes are the 
highest form of organization of sociaHst agriculture, and their 
introduction ought therefore to be preceded by industrialization and by 
a lower form of socialist agricultural organization, such as collective 
farming. The attempt to introduce communes in Soviet Russia in 
1918-20 failed because the time was not yet ripe. By introducing 
communes before collectivization, the Chinese, according to this line 
of argument, were sinning against orthodoxy in two respects: They 
were not abiding by communist theory, and they were implicitly 
rejecting the Soviet model in their agricultural development. By so 
doing, it was argued, they had incurred Soviet displeasure. 
Furthermore, comparisons were drawn between the "leftist" policy of 
the Chinese in setting up communes and the "rightist" policy of the 
Soviets in permitting collective farms in 1958 to purchase state-owned 
farm machinery. 

This reasoning was outdated. The 1957 conference of bloc com- 
munist parties reached agreements, endorsed by the Eighty-one- 



sino-soviet" split" 169 

Party Congress in November 1960, on the basic laws of communist 
development, which legitimized the Chinese course of action. As far as 
agriculture was concerned, the basic law was that it should be collective. The 
exact type of organization, whether commune or collective farm, was not 
specified; it was left to be determined by the specific national conditions in 
each country. In China the specific national conditions and problems 
confronting the CPC were how to break up the strong family ties in the vast 
mass of the Chinese peasantry; how to overcome the lack of agricultural 
machinery and to use mass manual labour to best advantage; and how to 
appropriate the land, which belonged not (as in the Soviet Union) to the state, 
but to the peasants. The commune provided the best solution to all three 
problems. In addition the Chinese leaders would undoubtedly have taken into 
consideration, in agreement with their Soviet colleagues, the high cost in 
human and material terms of Stalin's method of collectivization, the obloquy 
it had brought on his regime, and the impossibility of contemplating a 
repetition of that experience with the even greater numbers of Chinese 
peasants. The Chinese choice of communes was no more unorthodox than the 
continued existence of private agriculture in Yugoslavia, Poland, and 
Hungary, which was accepted by the bloc leaders as a temporary 
phenomenon until the specific conditions in those countries could be 
changed. 

Scant Western attention was paid to the speech of the then Soviet 
ambassador to China, Yudin, in which he told the Twenty-first CPSU 
Congress in February 1959 that "the Chinese peasantry, in alliance with the 
working class, is advancing confidently and resolutely toward socialism 
under the leadership of the Communist party and has achieved enormous 
successes. The Communist Party of China — a glorious detachment of the 
international Communist movement — is wisely leading the Chinese people 
along the path of socialism, despite tremendous difficulties and constant 
threats and attempts at interference on the part of American imperiahsm." 

Chinese allegations of a restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union were 
unfounded. Economic reform in the Soviet Union was aimed at increasing 
the efficiency of the economy and improving party control over it. The 
impression of a return toward capitalism was deliberately fostered by 
disinformation for tactical and strategic purposes. The Chinese would have 
been aware of this. Similaiiy, 



170 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" was dropped by the CPSU, 
not as the result of any dilution of the party's monopoly of control, but 
to widen the party's political base and to suggest an "evolution" of the 
regime. The notion that the Soviet regime was less ideological than 
the Chinese was unfounded. It is interesting to observe how the 
Chinese, following the Soviet example, have themselves introduced 
economic incentives and other elements of capitalism. 



Economic Differences 

The disparity in the levels of economic development between China 
and the Soviet Union — or, in wider terms, between the Asiatic and 
European communist zones — presented the communist strategists 
with a dilemma. In 1960 the Chinese, saddled with a backward 
industry, lack of capital, a population explosion, and a low level of 
trade with the advanced noncommunist world, could hardly expect to 
carry out ambitious industrialization and military programs without 
help from the European zone; and help from the European zone could 
only make a significant impact on the rate of Chinese industrial 
development if the European zone severely curtailed its own 
development programs and abandoned its aim of outstripping the level 
of production in the United States. 

The difference in economic levels between the Soviet Union and 
China was a potential source of tension within the communist bloc, 
but it is worth noting that the problem existed at the time of the 
communist victory in China and did not lead to a Sino-Soviet split in 
the decade thereafter. 

As late as October 1958, the year in which the formulation of long- 
range bloc policy got under way, a leading Soviet theoretician, T. A. 
Stepanyan, took the view that the European socialist states, led by the 
Soviet Union, and the Asiatic socialist states comprised "particular 
economic zones" and that the former, being more advanced, would be 
the first to "enter communism. "^*^ However, at the Twenty-first CPSU 
Congress in January-February 1959, Khrushchev in a speech that must 
be regarded as authoritative, overrode this view and announced that 
all socialist countries would achieve communism "more or less 
simultaneously on the basis of 



S INO -S O V lET "SPLIT" 171 

the planned and proportionate development" of the economy of the 
bloc. A month later he went on to speak of the future economic 
integration of a communist bloc without internal frontiers.^' 
Khrushchev's points were underlined by Yudin, the Soviet ambassador 
to China, who referred to the socialist camp as a "single economic 
system" and said that the economic plans of the socialist countries 
would be more and more coordinated and that "the more highly 
developed countries will help the less developed countries in order to 
march in a united front towards communism at an increasingly faster 
pace."^" Khrushchev referred to the "unity of the socialist camp" as 
one of the advantages enjoyed by the Soviet Union in its struggle to 
overtake the United States in economic power. Chou En-lai, who led 
the Chinese delegation to the congress, and Soviet Deputy Premier 
Mikoyan both spoke of the unbreakable friendship between the Soviet 
Union and China. 

The period around the Twenty-first CPSU Congress was one in 
which there was a shift of emphasis toward long-range economic 
planning in Comecon. These discussions took place in the presence of 
Chinese observers. It seems that, at the time, a decision was taken to 
step up Soviet industrial aid to China. As a result of Khrushchev's 
visit to Peking in August 1958, the Soviet Union agreed to build forty- 
seven additional industrial projects in China. Chou En-lai's visit to 
Moscow for the Twenty-first CPSU Congress resulted in another 
Soviet agreement to build seventy-eight additional projects in China 
between 1 959 and 1 967 at a total cost of $ 1 .25 billion.' ^ 

In July 1960 the picture of closer Sino-Soviet relations changed 
abruptly. The conventional view is that the Soviet Union terminated 
its economic aid to China, withdrew its technical and economic 
advisers, and took steps to curtail Sino-Soviet trade drastically. Sup- 
port for this view came from reports on the departure of Soviet 
technicians from China (later confirmed in Sino-Soviet polemics in 
1963-64), from the widely different treatment given the subject of 
bloc assistance to China in the Soviet and Chinese press, and from 
statistics on Sino-Soviet trade. There were also reports on the 
economic damage done to China by the cessation of Soviet economic 
aid, which came on top of the introduction of communes and the 
failure of the Great Leap Forward. Letters from the communes to the 
outside world and Chinese grain purchases in Australia 



172 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and Canada underlined the point. 

The alleged withdrawal of Soviet economic and technical special- 
ists in July 1960 was not accompanied by, or even followed by — at 
least up to the end of 1961 — a withdrawal of Soviet inteUigence and 
security advisers. 

On the evidence available, the most likely interpretation of what 
occurred in mid-1960 is that a switch took place in Chinese thinking 
on economic development in favor of self-reliance and concentration 
on small-scale projects. As a consequence of the completion of some 
projects and the cancellation of others, a proportion of the Soviet 
technical experts was withdrawn from China in July 1960. If some 
were replaced by Czechoslovaks and other East Europeans, this would 
have been done to reinforce the impression of a split. Soviet and East 
European aid continued to be given after 1960, but on a narrower 
front and with a concentration on the scientific and technical fields. It 
can further be surmised that these changes took place by agreement 
between the Soviets and the Chinese and that the extent and the 
consequences of the contraction in Soviet economic aid were 
misrepresented by each side in accordance with their common 
disinformation program. Apart from the wider strategic purpose of 
supporting the authenticity of the split, the publicity on the withdrawal 
of Soviet technicians could have been intended, in line with historical 
precedent, to hide continuing Sino-Soviet collaboration in sensitive 
key areas — in this case, the development of Chinese ballistic missiles 
and nuclear weapons. 



Military Differences 

It is often thought that the real nub of the Sino-Soviet split was a 
decision by the Soviets in 1959 to withhold assistance to China over 
nuclear weapons. According to a secret Chinese party letter, which 
was made public by the Chinese on August 15, 1963, the secret Sino- 
Soviet agreement on the sharing of military nuclear secrets and the 
provision to the Chinese of the necessary help in developing their own 
nuclear potential, which was concluded on October 15, 1957, was 
broken by the Soviets on June 20, 1959. 

The letter is tantamount to an admission that collaboration in the 
military nuclear field, up to June 1959, was close. It would 



S I N O - S O V I E T " S P L I T ■' 173 

have been unconvincing to deny it, given the earher pubhcity about 
Sino-Soviet nuclear collaboration in general?^ But there are several 
anomalies in the statement that this secret agreement was repudiated 
by the Soviets in June 1959. The most important is that, in spite of the 
alleged decision and the fury it is supposed to have generated in 
China, the Chinese continued to be represented at meetings of the 
Warsaw Pact in 1960. It is difficult to believe that a Soviet decision 
with such profound implications would not have been reflected 
immediately and across the board in the field of Sino-Soviet military 
relations. In fact, not only did the Chinese continue to send observers 
to Warsaw Pact meetings for more than a year afterward, but several 
years of virtually open Sino-Soviet military collaboration followed 
over the supply of military assistance to North Vietnam. The 
references to Chinese military students returning from the Soviet 
Union in 1964-65 indicate that at least some Soviet military training 
continued to be given to the Chinese armed forces after the split had 
developed. 

It is also more than surprising that if, as alleged, there was an 
abrupt cancellation of Soviet nuclear help to China, the Soviets should 
have continued to provide, and the Chinese to accept, advice on the 
physical protection of their nuclear installations. As already recorded, 
a KGB officer known to the author was still in China in November 
1961, having been sent there as one of a group of Soviet advisers on 
nuclear security requested by the Chinese. 

Sino-Soviet cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy 
continued after June 1959. There are references in the Chinese press 
to a prominent Chinese scientist, Professor Wang Kan-chang, serving 
as vice-director of the Joint Nuclear Research Institute at Dubna, near 
Moscow, in April I960."* 

Many observers at the time believed that within the Chinese 
military leadership there were differences on strategy, which were 
associated with the Sino-Soviet split and which led to the dismissal of 
the Chinese defense minister, Peng Te-huai, allegedly for conspiring 
with the Soviet leaders against Mao. Part of this conspiracy 
supposedly took place during the visit of Khrushchev and Peng to 
Albania in May 1959, but this visit is far more easily explicable in 
terms of preparation for the spurious Soviet-Al banian split and the 
need to coordinate the replacement of Soviet by Chinese military, 
political, and economic support for Albania. The suggestion 



174 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

that Peng and other Chinese leaders were disgraced for acting as 
Soviet agents is inconsistent with the declaration by the Soviets to the 
Chinese in 1954-55 of all their intelligence assets in China and with 
the close Sino-Soviet intelligence relationship that persisted at least up 
to the end of 1961. In any case, as Edgar Snow pointed out, Peng 
neither led a conspiracy against Mao nor suffered arrest in 1959.^^ He 
was still a member of the Chinese Politburo in 1962. 

Interestingly enough, there does seem to have been a genuine 
discussion, in China, between two schools of military thought between 
1955 and 1958.'* Settlement of the argument occurred in the same 
period in which many other problems were resolved in the Soviet 
Union and the bloc, such as the elimination of the anti -Khrushchev 
opposition in July 1957; the ousting of Marshal Zhukov in the 
following October; and the first conference of bloc parties in 
November, at which relations between them were normalized and the 
decision was taken to formulate a new long-range policy for the bloc. 
In his speech to the conference, Mao argued in favor of using the 
whole potential of the bloc, especially its nuclear missile potential, to 
swing the balance of power in favor of the communist world. By their 
own account the Chinese agreement with the Soviets on collaboration 
over nuclear arms dated from the end of 1957. It is tempting to 
suggest, therefore, that in line with the basic technique of reviving 
dead issues and using them for disinformation purposes the argument 
in the Chinese armed forces was artificially revived, together with 
allegations of a Khrushchev-Peng conspiracy, to support joint Sino- 
Soviet -Alba-ni an disinformation on their mutual relations. 
Furthermore, in view of his long services to Sino-Soviet strategy, 
Peng would have been an obvious candidate to continue to serve in a 
secret Sino-Soviet or bloc policy coordinating center. His "disgrace" 
could have been designed to cover up a secret assignment of this kind. 

In parallel with the alleged differences in the Chinese army, there 
were allegedly differences in the Soviet army that led to, among other 
changes, the dismissal of Marshal Sokolovskiy as chief of general 
staff in April I960 and the dismissal in the same year of Marshal 
Konev as commander in chief of the Warsaw Pact forces. Sokolovskiy 
was replaced by Zakharov and Konev by Grechko. 



SINO-SOVIET "SPLIT" 175 

If there had in fact been genuine differences in the Soviet general 
staff, the author would have expected to pick up some reflection of 
them from two former GRU officers, Bykov and Yermolayev, who 
served with him in the NATO section of the KGB's Information 
Department and kept in close touch with the general staff. If 
Sokolovskiy was really in disgrace in 1960, it is curious that he was 
chosen by the Soviet Ministry of Defense to edit a basic book on 
Soviet military strategy two years later. 



Differences in National Interest 

Many factors have been cited as contributory causes of the split. 
The list includes the racial and cultural differences between the 
Russian and Chinese peoples; the Chinese population explosion; the 
dechne in the influence of communist ideology; the reassertion of 
purely national interests; and hegemonism, or the desire of the Soviet 
and Chinese parties to dominate others. 

No one could deny the existence of racial differences. The Chinese 
in particular have used the racial issue for pohtical purposes. But 
these differences did not prevent the closest possible alliance between 
the Soviets and Chinese between 1957 and 1959, nor were they 
responsible for the Sino-Soviet friction between 1949 and 1955. If 
they are now thought to have been important in the causation of the 
split, it is largely because of the evidence provided by the Soviets and 
Chinese themselves in the course of their polemics in the mid-1960s. 

For the same reason attempts were made to reinterpret Khrush- 
chev's virgin lands campaign of 1954-56 as inspired by Soviet concern 
over China's population explosion and designed to preempt any future 
Chinese expansion into Siberia. As Professor W. A. Douglas Jackson 
rightly pointed out, the motives for the campaign were domestic. 

Cultural differences undeniably exist, but it is interesting that 
cultural relations between China and the Soviet Union and Eastern 
Europe should have survived the Sino-Soviet split. The Chinese 
Friendship Association still exists in the Soviet Union and the Sino- 
Soviet Friendship Association still exists in China.'" Cultural visits 
were exchanged at least until November 1966. 



176 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

National rivalry is seen by the West as the force behind the 
apparent struggle between the Soviets and Chinese for influence in the 
developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The 
assertion of Chinese national interests is seen in Chinese claims on 
Taiwanese, Indian, and Outer Mongolian territory and in demands for 
revision of "unequal treaties," dating from the nineteenth century, 
which awarded certain Chinese territories to Russia. Soviet national 
self-assertiveness was seen in Soviet attempts to incite revolt in 
Sinkiang and among tribal groups straddling the frontier with China 
and in Soviet complaints about Chinese border violations, which, 
according to Soviet official sources, amounted to five thousand in 
1962 alone. The clash of Soviet and Chinese national interests was 
seen in short-lived and sporadic outbreaks of border hostilities, 
especially on the Ussuri River, which were intensified in 1969 — 70. 
Border clashes were sometimes accompanied by Soviet and Chinese 
student demonstrations outside each other's embassies and in 
ostentatious walkouts by Soviet and Chinese representatives from 
international gatherings. 

The manner in which the traditional problems over Manchuria and 
Sinkiang were solved after Stalin's death has been described, as has 
the normalization of relations between the members of the bloc, 
including the Soviet Union and China, in 1957. Khrushchev's 
contribution to this achievement was recognized by Mao in 1957.^'' 
Against this background it would have made no sense for the Soviet 
Union to meddle in Sinkiang. Chinese confidence that they would not 
attempt to do so is demonstrated by the continuance in high office in 
Sinkiang throughout the 1960s of a known former Soviet agent, 
Saifudin. Far from trying to "liberate" areas of one another's territory, 
the two powers cooperated in a war of national liberation in a third 
country, Vietnam. 

Before the outbreak of the Sino-Soviet split, the border area had 
been converted, in Professor Jackson's words, from a zone of tension 
into a zone of cooperation and stabilization.'^ The split was not 
therefore the culmination of a continuing series of border problems; 
the frontier incidents cannot be seen as a cause of the dispute. In this 
connection attention should be drawn to articles on the border 
problem published in 1964-65 by Academician Khvostov, whose 
connection with the KGB was known to the author. Equally, anything 
said or written on the subject by Tikhvinskiy, 



SINO-S OV iET "SPLIT" 177 

the former Soviet intelligence resident in Peking and Britain, should 
be regarded as reflecting the communist disinformation Hne. 

Western belief that nationalism is the driving force behind Soviet or 
Chinese policy fails to take into account the nature of communist 
theory and the distinction that must be made between the motives of a 
communist regime and the sentiments of the people which it controls. 

In communist theory nationahsm is a secondary problem. The 
fundamental political force is the class struggle, which is international 
in character. Once the "victory of the international working class" has 
been achieved, national differences and national sentiment will 
disappear. Meanwhile, the "class enemy" is not nationalism, but 
capitalism and its adjunct, imperialism. It is in large part because of 
communism's claims to an international, rather than a national, form 
of loyalty that it has managed to retain its appeal and its hold over its 
acolytes. The main point, however, is that the disinformation about the 
Sino-Soviet spHt provides a new, more effective way for fighting 
nationalism by investing the communist parties with a nationahst 
image in the eyes of their people. 



Differences in Political and Diplomatic Strategy and Tactics 

Marked differences have existed since I960 in what the Soviets and 
Chinese have said on subjects such as detente, peaceful coexistence, 
and the inevitability of war. In the 1960s the Soviet press defended 
peaceful coexistence, the Chinese press attacked it. Under the banner 
of peaceful coexistence, the Soviet leaders established personal 
contact with Western statesmen, sought an expansion of East-West 
trade, and adopted a generally moderate and businesslike approach to 
negotiations with the West. The Chinese denounced the Soviet 
approach as a betrayal of Leninism and a capitulation to the forces of 
imperialism and capitalism. Eschewing closer contacts with the West, 
the Chinese advocated implacable, militant revolutionary policies 
toward it. Khrushchev's visit to the United States in 1959, Soviet 
detente with Western Europe, and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 
1963 all came in for their share of Chinese communist abuse. The 
Chinese and Soviets took diametrically op- 



178 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

posing lines on the Sino-Indian conflict in 1959, the Cuban crisis of 
1962, and other matters. In relation to the developing world, the 
Soviets emphasized the importance of diplomacy and economic aid; 
the Chinese advocated wars of national liberation. 

Was there any real substance to this war of words? The thesis that 
war is not inevitable was formulated by Khrushchev at the Twentieth 
CPSU Congress in February 1956. At the time the Chinese frequently 
expressed their agreement with it.^^ It was only in I960 that divergent 
views on the topic began to appear in the Soviet and Chinese press, to 
be followed by open polemics, beginning in 1963. Broadly speaking, 
the Soviets maintained that, although the causes of conflict between 
the two different social systems had not disappeared, the strength of 
the communist bloc was such that nuclear war, which would mean the 
destruction of both sides, was no longer inevitable; communists 
should seek the victory of their cause through peaceful coexistence 
and peaceful competition. The Chinese argued that the communist aim 
was world revolution. Communists should not fear world war because 
it would mean the final victory of communism, even if at the sacrifice 
of many million lives. 

The unreality of the dispute is clear when the record of the two 
sides is examined. The Soviets were far from moderate in their 
approach to the Berlin problem from 1958 onward, in their disruption 
of the summit conference in 1960, in their supply of weapons to 
Indonesia and their resumption of nuclear testing in 1961, in their 
provocation of the Cuban crisis in 1962, and in their Middle Eastern 
policy in 1967. The Chinese were no more aggressive than this in 
practice. They were not even consistent in their maintenance of an 
aggressive posture, sometimes maintaining that they did not want 
world war and would fight only if attacked." Indeed, without Soviet 
backing the Chinese were in no position in the 1960s to wage an 
aggressive war. 

On the question of support for wars of national liberation in the 
developing countries, which the Chinese accused the Soviets of 
betraying, there was nothing to choose between the two sides in 
practice. Khrushchev's verbal support for this form of war was given 
practical expression in the foundation of Lumumba University and in 
support for guerrilla movements in Vietnam, the Middle East, and 
Africa.'^ 

There was, in fact, duality both in Soviet and Chinese policies 



SINO-SOVIET "SPLIT" 179 

and in the interaction between them. Both countries, in different areas 
or at different times, used provocation and negotiation, aggressiveness 
and moderation. In the 1960s Chinese militancy provided a helpful 
backdrop to Soviet detente diplomacy; there was an apparent common 
interest between the Soviets and the West in confronting the "Yellow 
Peril" from the East. In the 1970s the roles were more or less reversed. 
Soviet aggressiveness in Africa, her menacing stance in Europe, her 
domestic neo-Stalinism, and her intervention in Afghanistan all helped 
to create a favorable climate for the Chinese to extend their relations 
with both advanced and developing countries as a potential ally 
against Soviet expansionism. 



Differences over Tactics for Nonbloc Communist Parties 

Sino-Soviet differences spilled over into questions of the tactics of 
the international communist movement. Despite the mutual 
accusations of hegemonism and despite the alignment of extremist 
communist groups with China and the more moderate communist 
parties with the Soviet Union, rivalry between the Soviets and 
Chinese was not carried as far as it might have been in practice. There 
was no serious Chinese attempt to disrupt the international communist 
movement. China withdrew from the international front organizations 
in the 1960s, but did not set up rival organizations under Chinese 
auspices. 

The accusations of hegemonism were false. Neither the CPSU nor 
the CPC seeks to impose its diktat on the communist movement. 
Neither needs to do so. At the same time, the rejection of hegemonism 
in principle is not incompatible with recognition of the undeniable fact 
that the CPSU has the longest and widest experience in power of any 
communist party and is the best placed to play a leading role. It was 
the Chinese themselves who insisted on this point in 1957. 



The Technique of the "Split" 

It will be objected that, even if there is no substance to the 
differences that are alleged to divide the Soviets from the Chinese, it 
is inconceivable that they could have sustained a fictitious spHt 



180 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

for over twenty years without being found out and without doing 
serious damage to their own cause. If the Soviet Union and China 
were democracies, that would be a correct judgment; but in commu- 
nist states, controls over the communications media, the discipline 
imposed on party members, and the influence of the inteUigence and 
security services are combined to provide unparalleled facilities for 
practicing disinformation. It should not be forgotten that the closeness 
of CPSU-CPC relations between 1935 and 1949 was successfully 
concealed from the outside world. Communist victory in China was 
achieved more swiftly through the duality of Soviet and CPC policies 
toward the Nationalist government and the United States than it would 
have been through an outward show of solidarity between them. 

The technique of the Sino-Soviet split was not developed overnight. 
Historical precedents drawn on in developing disinformation on false 
splits and secret coordination, such as Lenin's Far Eastern Republic, 
have already been cited in this and earlier chapters. The genuine Tito- 
Stalin split was also obviously of prime importance, and it is 
interesting to note how the published texts of the alleged secret party 
letters between the Soviet and Chinese parties recall the genuine party 
letters on the Tito-Stalin split and how the spurious allegations that 
Peng and Lin Piao, both Chinese ministers of defense, were Soviet 
agents echo the well-founded accusation that the Yugoslav chief of 
staff in 1948 was working for the Soviet intelligence service. 

There is also a certain parallel between the Mao-Khrushchev 
polemics in the 1960s on the subject of peaceful coexistence and the 
Lenin-Trotskiy argument over the issue of war and peace after the 
revolution of 1917. This earlier controversy could well have been 
used as a model for the later polemics. 

The Eighty-one-Party Congress Manifesto of November 1960, to 
which the CPC acknowledged its commitment, spoke of the need for 
"unity of will and action" of all communist parties, not for unity of 
words. ^'^ It also spoke of "solving cardinal problems of modern times 
in a new way" (author's italics). What it meant by this in practice was 
that centralized, Stalinist control over the movement having proved a 
failure, the aim of a worldwide federation of communist states would 
be pursued in the transitional stage by an agreed variety of different 
strategies and tactics to be followed 



S 1 N O - S O V I E T " S P L I T ■' 181 

by different parties, some of which would appear to be at loggerheads 
with one another. Traces of Chinese communist thinking about splits 
can be found in the Chinese press. The analogy is drawn between 
growth in nature, which is based on division and germination, and the 
development and strengthening of the communist movement through 
"favorable splits." The creation of two or more communist parties in 
one country was advocated openly.'^^ One Chinese paper used the 
formula: "Unity, then split; new unity on a new basis — such is the 
dialectic of development of the communist movement." Problems of 
Peace and Socialism referred disparagingly to Ai Sy-tsi, a Chinese 
scholar well versed in dialectics, who developed the idea of the 
contradiction between the left and right legs of a person, which are 
mutually interdependent and move in turn when walking. All of this 
suggests that the communist leaders had learned how to forge a new 
form of unity among themselves through practical collaboration in the 
exploitation of fictitious schismatic differences on ideology and 
tactics. 

It would be erroneous to attempt to separate the Sino-Soviet split 
from the four disinformation operations already described and those 
that will be described in succeeding chapters. The disinformation 
program is an integrated whole. The Chinese have played an 
important part in every operation. As Chapter 22 will argue, the Sino- 
Soviet split is the underlying factor in all the different strategies 
developed in support of long-range policy. 

Mutual criticism between two parties should be seen as a new way 
of supporting the credibility of the disinformation each is trying to 
spread about itself. For example, Chinese criticism of Soviet and 
Yugoslav revisionism, the decay of ideology, and the restoration of 
capitalism in the Soviet Union helped to build up the illusion that 
Khrushchev was truly moderate and that Tito was truly independent. 
The Soviet and Chinese lines on different issues should be seen as the 
left and right legs of a man, or better still, as the two blades of a pair 
of scissors, each enhancing the other's capacity to cut. 

The communist strategists proceeded cautiously and pragmatically 
with the development of the Sino-Soviet split. The second period of 
open polemics was not introduced until 1963, which gave time for 
thorough study of the consequences of the Soviet-Yugoslav dispute of 
1958-60, the Soviet- Albanian split, and the 



182 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

first period of the Sino-Soviet split. Even now, precedents exist for the 
further extension of the Sino-Soviet spHt that have not yet been 
exploited. The Soviet -Albanian split was carried to the point of a 
breach in diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The Sino- 
Vietnamese split was carried to the point of a major Chinese incursion 
into Vietnamese territory in 1979. Either of these could presage 
similar developments in Sino-Soviet relations. 



Strategic Objectives of the "SpHt" 

The strategic exploitation of the split will be described in Chapter 
22. Its overall objective can be defined briefly as the exploitation of 
the scissors strategy to hasten the achievement of long-range 
communist goals. Duality in Sino-Soviet polemics is used to mask the 
nature of the goals and the degree of coordination in the communist 
effort to achieve them. The feigned disunity of the communist world 
promotes real disunity in the noncommunist world. Each blade of the 
communist pair of scissors makes the other more effective. The 
militancy of one nation helps the activist detente diplomacy of the 
other. Mutual charges of hegemonism help to create the right climate 
for one or the other to negotiate agreements with the West. False 
alignments, formed with third parties by each side against the other, 
make it easier to achieve specific communist goals, such as the 
acquisition of advanced technology or the negotiation of arms control 
agreements or communist penetration of the Arab and African states. 
In Western eyes the military, political, economic, and ideological 
threat from world communism appears diminished. In consequence 
Western determination to resist the advance of communism is 
undermined. At a later stage the communist strategists are left with the 
option of terminating the split and adopting the strategy of "one 
clenched fist." 



17 



The Fifth Disinformation Operation: 
Romanian "Independence" 



BELIEF IN THE EXISTENCE OF SERIOUS DIFFERENCES between the 
Soviet and Romanian leaders and, consequently, in the 
independence of Romania is based on evidence that varies from 
the sensational to the insignificant. 

Allegedly the differences between the Soviet and Romanian parties 
had their roots in wartime, or even prewar, history. The difficulties 
were intensified in the period 1962-64, when Gheorghiu-Dej was still 
alive and the leading figure in the Romanian communist party and 
government. At that time the differences were more or less concealed 
from view, but from 1964 onward they came out into the open and 
became generally known to the West. Gheorghiu-Dej and Khrushchev 
were believed to be at odds. There were stories that Khrushchev had 
tried to unseat Gheorghiu-Dej and suggestions that Gheorghiu-Dej had 
played some part in securing the removal of Khrushchev in 1964. 
Their disagreements were said to have been based on differences of 
view between the Soviets and Romanians on long-term economic 
planning and the Soviet approach to Comecon. It was suggested that 
Romania's insistence on proceeding with its own speedy 
industrialization program had prevailed with difficulty over Soviet 
opposition. 

Gheorghiu-Dej died in March 1965. Nicolae Ceausescu, who had 
for long been Gheorghiu-Dej 's right-hand man, took over as first 
secretary of the party. Before this event, public but muted 
manifestations of Soviet-Romanian differences and Romanian inde- 
pendence were detected in the West. Examples were: Romania's 
refusal, in contrast with other East European communist states, 

183 



184 NEW LIES EOR OLD 

to align itself with the Soviet position in the Sino-Soviet conflict; 
efforts by the Romanian leaders to play down the extent of Soviet 
influence in their country by measures such as the removal of Russian 
street names; publication by the Central Committee of the Romanian 
Communist party in April 1964 of a statement on its independence; 
Romanian efforts, apparently launched without the prior agreement of 
the bloc, to increase trade ties with Western countries, particularly 
France and the US, through the exchange of trade delegations; and, at 
a later stage, Romanian diplomatic conduct in such matters as the 
maintenance of diplomatic relations with Israel after 1967 and 
Ceausescu's involvement in the arrangements for Sadat's visit to 
Jerusalem in 1977, which contrasted with Soviet behavior and 
indicated the independence of Romanian foreign pohcy from that of 
the Soviet Union and the rest of the bloc. This impression of 
independence was reinforced by occasional alleged refusals on the 
part of the Romanians to cooperate with the Soviet Union and the bloc 
in joint political, economic, or military projects within Comecon and 
the Warsaw Pact; and the adoption of an independent position by the 
Romanians on Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. 

Critical examination of these manifestations of independence 
against the background of the normalization of intrabloc relations in 
1957 and the adoption of a long-range bloc policy and strategic 
disinformation program in 1958-60 shows that, as with the splits 
already examined, there is no substance in the alleged differences 
between Romania and other communist countries. The differences can 
be explained as the product of a bloc disinformation operation. 



Special Relations between the Romanians and Soviets 

As already argued, the normalization of intrabloc relations removed 
the grounds for splits between the members of the bloc in general. 
But, in the Romanian case, there were special reasons, according to 
inside information available to the author, why a split was an 
impossibility under Gheorghiu-Dej and why it is still an impossibility 
under the present leader, Ceausescu. 

Gheorghiu-Dej was an agent of Soviet intelligence. At the time of 
the liberation of Romania from the fascists by Soviet troops, 



ROMANIAN "INDEPENDENCE" 185 

he was directed by the head of Soviet intelligence in Romania, 
Colonel Fedichkin. The Romanian Communist party was then small in 
relation to the social democratic party. Under Fedichkin's guidance, 
Gheorghiu-Dej worked on the elimination of Romanian social 
democratic leaders who were unreliable from a Soviet point of view 
and who threatened to acquire influential positions in the new 
Romanian government. The shedding of the blood of noncom-munist 
Romanian politicians and the ousting of the Romanian king, actions 
undertaken jointly by Gheorghiu-Dej and the Soviet government, 
created unbreakable ties between them. 

The head of Soviet intelligence in the late 1950s and 1960s, 
General Sakharovskiy, was chief adviser to the Romanian security 
service from 1949 to 1953. He was in official contact with Gheorghiu- 
Dej. Through Gheorghiu-Dej and his staff, Sakharovskiy carried out 
the Romanian purges of 1951 -52 and, in particular, the arrest of Anna 
Pauker and other leading communists, who were accused of being 
Yugoslav and Zionist agents. Relations between the Soviets and 
Gheorghiu-Dej and other Romanian leaders were sealed with blood. If 
there had been any really spontaneous or uncoordinated attempt by 
Gheorghiu-Dej to break with the Soviet Union, the Soviet regime 
would have had enough evidence, including personal correspondence, 
to destroy him and his associates morally and politically both inside 
and outside their country. This fact must be kept in mind when 
assessing the genuineness of the later differences between the Soviets 
and the Romanians. 

If a Soviet-Romanian split was impossible under Gheorghiu-Dej, 
there were even fewer grounds for expecting one under Ceausescu, 
who had been his right-hand man and who replaced him after his 
death in March 1965. As has already been explained, Stalinist 
"colonial" practices toward Romania and other satellites had been 
abandoned by the Soviet Union under Khrushchev in 1957. Soviet- 
Romanian party relations were normalized on a Leninist basis of 
equality. From 1958 to 1960 Romanian leaders played an active role 
in consultations between the Soviet and other bloc leaders in the 
Soviet Union, Romania, and elsewhere. Ceausescu, as one of the 
secretaries of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist 
party, took part in some of these consultations. He was a member of 
the Romanian delegation to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress. 



186 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

There was also secret collaboration between the Romanian security 
and intelligence services and the KGB under its chairman, Shelepin, 
over the preparation of joint operations in support of the bloc's long- 
range pohcy. The heads of the Romanian intelligence and security 
services attended the bloc conference of intelligence and security 
services in the Soviet Union in 1959. A new KGB chief adviser was 
sent to Romania in 1960. He was Colonel Skomo-rokhin, a specialist 
not on Romania, but on Western Europe and, in particular, France, 
who was sent to assist the Romanian services in the implementation of 
joint political operations. 

Important evidence that Ceausescu continued to cooperate actively 
with the Soviet leaders within the framework of the long-range bloc 
policy is to be found in the Soviet press coverage of his official visit 
to the Soviet Union in 1964, when he was already in the process of 
taking over from Gheorghiu-Dej. This shows that during his four- or 
five-day visit to the Soviet Union he was accompanied by Shelepin in 
his capacity as a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 
Bearing in mind that it was Shelepin who, between 1958 and 1960, 
launched the use of disinformation in support of the long-range policy 
and from 1961 onward appears to have become the coordinator of its 
use in bloc operations, it is reasonable to conclude that the opportunity 
was taken to discuss with Ceausescu his role in sustaining the myth of 
Soviet-Romanian differences. 



The "Evidence" of Soviet-Romanian Differences 

The so-called evidence of differences between the Romanian and 
Soviet leaders in Comecon in 1962-63 cannot be taken seriously. 
Romania's insistence on its own speedy industrialization fitted in with 
the objectives of the long-range policy; hence there was no reason for 
the Soviets to oppose it. Against Romania's alleged opposition to the 
creation of the Executive Committee of Comecon and its long-range 
planning concepts must be set the official evidence indicating that the 
Romanian leadership under both Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu was 
committed to long-term economic integration of the bloc under the 
auspices of Comecon and its executive committee — on which, in fact, 
Romania was represented. 



ROMANIAN "INDEPENDENCE" 187 

Official records of the period 1960 to 1964 reflect close relations 
between the Soviet Union and Romania and an active exchange of 
party and governmental delegations between them, suggestive of 
coordination in the implementation of policy. The fact that the 
evidence of Soviet-Romanian differences during this period was 
based on esoteric and confidential sources and was in conflict with the 
official record of Soviet -Romanian cooperation suggests that it was 
the product of disinformation. The conflict between the official and 
esoteric evidence became especially obvious in the 1970s, when 
Romania, along with other members of the bloc, was involved in 
concrete measures of economic integration. 

Among the manifestations of Romania's neutrality in the Sino- 
Soviet dispute were: the return of a Romanian ambassador to Albania 
in 1963, which was out of step with the Soviet Union and other East 
European communist states; the visit of the Romanian Prime Minister, 
Ion Gheorghe Maurer, to Peking in the spring of 1964, a year after 
open Soviet polemics against China had begun; and a statement by the 
Romanian party leadership, described below, that was interpreted in 
the West as a "declaration of Romanian independence." 

Once it is realized that the Soviet-Albanian and Sino-Soviet splits 
are joint disinformation operations prepared and launched in 1958 — 
60 with the approval of all the leaders of the bloc, it is easy to see that 
Romania's neutrality is a posture calculated to support the authenticity 
of both splits, and that Romanian independence can be misrepresented 
as one of their consequences. 

Given that the West had accepted the authenticity of the Soviet- 
Albanian split, the return to Albania of a Romanian ambassador 
supported the myth of Romanian independence. It also had the 
practical advantage of providing an additional East European channel 
for bloc diplomatic consultation with Albania. The step may 
reasonably be assumed to have received the bloc's blessing in ad- 
vance. Maurer's visit to Peking can be interpreted as a visit to discuss 
and coordinate this combination of disinformation operations with the 
Chinese leaders, an interpretation supported by the fact that Maurer 
went on from Peking to North Korea and then returned to Romania 
via the Soviet Union, where he presumably also had discussions. 

When Maurer returned from his tour, the Romanian Communist 



188 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

party's Central Committee held a week-long secret meeting, at the end of 
which it issued a statement on the party's attitude to the situation in the world 
communist movement. The statement was sixteen thousand words in length. 
It was given wide publicity in Romania and was immediately translated into 
Russian, Spanish, English, French, and German for distribution abroad. The 
points in it that were singled out and interpreted in the West as expressions 
of Romanian independence included the following: 

• It is the sovereign right of each socialist state to work out, choose or 
change the forms and methods of socialist construction. 

• The planned management of the national economy is one of the . . . 
inahenable attributes of the sovereignty of the socialist state. 

• Communist countries should co-operate and help each other in eco- 
nomic matters [only on the basis of| fully equal rights, observance of national 
sovereignty and interests, mutual advantage and comradely assistance 
[mainly] through bilateral and multilateral agreements. 

• The idea of a single planning body for all Comecon countries has the 
most serious economic and political implications. 

• To hand over [the levers of management of economic and social life] to 
the competence of some supra-state or extra-state bodies would be to turn 
sovereignty into a concept without any real content. 

• Romania favours the strengthening of co-operation with all "socialist" 
countries and achieving an "international division of labour" provided that 
this does not mean that the communist countries have to isolate themselves 
from "the general framework of world economic relations"; it is natural for 
communist states to "display initiative and to manifest themselves actively on 
the international arena." 

Remarks of this kind aroused lively Western interest, but it should be 
pointed out that other parts of the statement were more significant. There 
was, for example, a reaffirmation by the Romanian party leadership of their 
commitment to the basic decisions and objectives formulated at the Eighty- 
one-Party Congress in November 1960, such as the strengthening of 
economic cooperation between the socialist states, the emphasis on peaceful 
coexistence combined with support for national hberation movements, the 
effort to attract new members into Comecon, and the quest for the final and 
inevitable victory of communism throughout the world. 



ROMANIAN "INDEPENDENCE" 189 

Western commentators overlooked the fact that statements about 
the maturity of the communist parties, their capacity to develop their 
own domestic and foreign pohcies, and their eagerness to take their 
own initiatives in the international arena were not in contradiction 
with the decisions of the Eighty-one-Party Congress, which 
specifically approved tactical flexibility in the pursuit of an activist 
foreign policy. The Romanian statement in fact not only does not 
conflict with the Eighty-one-Party Manifesto; it emphasizes the point 
that communist parties, in developing their own policies, should do so 
within the framework of the "socialist community." 

The evidence used to support the notion of personal animosity 
between Khrushchev and Gheorghiu-Dej is both flimsy and selective. 
Gheorghiu-Dej's failure to attend the celebrations in Moscow in honor 
of Khrushchev's seventieth birthday is given more weight by Western 
commentators than the more significant fact that, on this same 
occasion, Khrushchev was awarded Romania's highest decoration. It 
can scarcely be argued, as Floyd attempts to do, that the level of 
Soviet representation at the Romanians' twentieth anniversary 
celebrations was downgraded if Mikoyan, at that time a member of the 
Presidium of the Central Committee and President of the Soviet 
Union, attended rather than Khrushchev, who was "not invited."^ 
Against the background of the bloc's disinformation program, it is 
interesting to note that the "Romanians were at no pains to deny" 
rumors that Khrushchev had tried to remove Gheorghiu-Dej from the 
leadership of the Romanian party. 

Against the same background, Gheorghiu-Dej's visit to Tito and his 
well-advertised friendship with him in 1964 can be seen as a 
dehberate attempt to build up the image of Gheorghiu-Dej's inde- 
pendence in Western eyes by associating him with Tito. 

The evidence of disagreements between the Soviets and Romania 
under Ceausescu's leadership is equally unconvincing. Insofar as it 
comes from the communist side in the form of official statements, 
these can be easily tailor-made by the party apparatus and intelligence 
services to suit the needs of the disinformation program. 

Evidence of Romanian independence has been seen in the re- 
placement in the 1960s of Russian street names by Romanian, and in 
other attempts to play down the extent of Soviet influence in 
Romania. But in the post- 1 957 atmosphere in the bloc, such 



IQO NEW LIES FOR OLD 

measures were not grounds for disagreement with the Soviets; they 
would have met with the Soviets' full understanding and approval. The 
tactless attempts by Stalin to impose a Soviet mold on all aspects of 
life in the East European satellites had been rejected. Variety in the 
national aspects of each country had been taken into account, and 
communist parties had been given latitude by the Eighty-one-party 
Manifesto to vary their tactics in accordance with the conditions 
facing them. Romanian claims to be fighting Soviet interference in 
their country were and are no more than a pretense adopted with 
Soviet connivance, and are intended to invest the party and its leaders 
with a nationalist and independent image in the eyes of the internal 
and external public. Despite the development of an apparently 
heterodox Romanian foreign policy, the internal regime remained as 
rigidly orthodox and repressive as before. 

That Romania increased its commercial, economic, and political 
ties with the West in the 1960s and 1970s is beyond question. What is 
questionable is whether it did so without the prior agreement of the 
Soviet Union and other communist states. The Come-con conference 
in June 1962 called for an expansion of bloc trade with the West. The 
Romanians have done no more than give effect to this decision. 
Moreover, by pretending to be acting independently and by exploiting 
their so-called independence while in reality acting with the bloc's 
connivance, they have contributed more to the achievement of the 
bloc's objectives of increasing trade and securing long-term credits 
and advanced technology from the West than they could have done by 
acting as an orthodox member of the bloc. To take one specific 
example, Romania's "independence" enabled her to import Rhodesian 
chrome, whether on her own or the bloc's behalf, without the bloc 
collectively incurring the political odium of so doing. 

Romania's independent foreign policy should be regarded as a 
device characteristic of Lenin's activist diplomacy as exhibited in his 
use of the Far Eastern Republic. It offers various advantages for the 
bloc in the diplomatic field. For example, a communist diplomatic 
presence has been maintained in Israel since 1967 through the 
Romanian Embassy in Tel Aviv, while the bloc as a whole has gained 
favor with the Arab world through its severance of diplomatic links 
with Israel. The close coordination between 



ROMANIAN "INDEPENDENCE" 191 

the diplomacy of Romania and the other members of the bloc has 
gone largely unobserved. 

The surest signs of disinformation in action are to be seen in the 
contrast between the well-advertised, superficial Romanian dis- 
agreements with Comecon and the binding effect of her continued 
membership in the organization and her participation, for example, in 
joint energy projects in Eastern Europe. Similarly, occasional well- 
publicized Romanian refusals to participate in military exercises 
should blind no one to the fact that Romania remains a member of the 
Warsaw Pact. The Romanians' ostensible rejection of Soviet influence 
must be seen alongside the continuing exchanges of friendly visits 
between the Soviet and Romanian leaders and the award to Ceausescu 
of an Order of Lenin in Moscow in January 1 978. 

The Motives for the Projection of Romanian 
"Independence" 

It is not difficult to reconstruct the economic and political thinking 
behind the decision to misrepresent Romania as an independent 
member of the communist bloc, taken perhaps as early as 1958 — 60 
when the long-range policy was being formulated. The long-range 
policy called for industrialization and a gradual leveling up of the 
economies of the entire communist bloc. The effort to swing the world 
balance of power in communist favor entailed nuclear armaments 
programs; massive conventional armed forces; a vast propaganda, 
intelligence, and security bureaucracy; military and economic aid to 
developing countries; and worldwide support for communist parties 
and national liberation movements. At the same time living standards 
in the communist world needed to be raised if further popular 
explosions were to be avoided. The policy as a whole could be 
sustained only with Western technical and economic help. That help 
was unlikely to be given to an apparently aggressive, monolithic 
communist bloc. Some inducement was needed to procure a change in 
Western attitudes. 

The strategic -political case for presenting the bloc as disunited has 
already been argued. The addition of a further brand of communism, 
distinguishable from the Soviet, Chinese, Albanian, and Yugoslav 
varieties, would have recommended itself to the communist 



1 92 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Strategists because it would help to authenticate the disagreements, 
which had already begun to be displayed within the bloc, and would 
give further encouragement to Western illusions that national senti- 
ment and national interest were achieving dominance over ideology as 
the driving force behind the communist world. These illusions would 
raise Western hopes and expectations that, with cautious and selective 
help and political encouragement, the fissures in the communist 
monolith could be gradually enlarged until the monolith disintegrated 
altogether. 

Although a united Western world, improving the living standards of 
its peoples without suppressing their political freedom, sets an 
example for those living under communism, breeds discontent among 
them, and causes them to exert pressure on their leaders, the 
experience of the NEP had shown that the dangers to a communist 
system from close Western ties could be contained; efficient secret 
police control and ideological countermeasures were capable of 
neutralizing the risks of political and ideological contamination of the 
public from the presence of Western businessmen and experts in their 
midst. Western expectations of expanding Western influence in 
communist countries through economic links could once more be 
disappointed if the necessary adjustments to the communist system 
were to be properly calculated, controlled, and deceptively presented. 
Visible evidence of foreign economic support for communist regimes, 
far from stimulating internal opposition to them, has the opposite 
effect. Genuine would-be opponents of the regime can anticipate little 
support from Western powers committed to helping the established 
system. Knowing this, the communist strategists would have 
calculated that Western technical and economic help could safely be 
used to support their long-range policy. In the long run, having 
benefited from that help, they would hope to demonstrate to their own 
subjects and to the world at large the superiority of the communist 
system. 

The Tito-Stalin split provided further precedents and lessons. Tito's 
defiant rejection of Soviet interference sent his prestige soaring, both 
at home and overseas, and won for his country generous Western 
military and economic aid without obliging him to" abandon 
fundamental communist principles. After Stalin's death it was a richer 
and more stable Yugoslavia that was reconciled with the communist 
bloc. 



ROMANIAN "INDEPENDENCE" 193 

Lenin's creation of an independent Far Eastern Republic, whose 
policies were closely but secretly coordinated with those of Soviet 
Russia, had demonstrated the advantages of using a diversity of forms 
in the pursuit of "activist diplomacy." Lenin had also said that "what 
we need is a great orchestra" with the different parties, like different 
instruments, playing different roles. The Yugoslavs, with their 
background of independence, were particularly suited for the role of 
developing relations with European socialists and the nonaligned 
developing countries. Their spurious dispute with the Soviets in 1958- 
60 was intended to prepare them for that role. But there would also 
have been arguments for using an existing member of the Warsaw 
Pact and Comecon to play a similarly independent role. 

Several factors probably influenced the choice of Romania for the 
purpose. It may have been thought likely that Romania's longstanding 
ties with France and hnguistic and cultural affinity with other Latin 
countries would help to ensure a favorable European response to a 
show of Romanian independence. The Latin background fitted 
Romania to play a special role in relation to the influential European 
communist parties in Italy, France, and Spain. But probably more 
important was the fact that the Romanian regime, next to the Polish 
and Hungarian, was the weakest and most despised by its subject 
population. Given Tito's experience between 1948 and 1953, it was 
reasonable to expect that a repeat display in public of differences with 
the Soviet Union — even if, on this occasion, spurious ones — would 
enhance the domestic and international prestige of the Romanian 
Communist party and its leaders; they would be able to present 
themselves not as Soviet puppets, but as bold, national leaders willing 
to challenge the authority of the Soviet Union. But the weakness of 
the regime and the contempt in which it was held internally meant that 
the appearance of a split could not be carried very far. A relaxation of 
internal control might have endangered the regime; hence the decision 
to combine, however incongruously, an apparently heterodox and 
independent foreign policy with a rigidly orthodox, oppressive, 
Brezhnev-style domestic system. 

Basing themselves on the Yugoslav example, the communist strat- 
egists would have calculated correctly that Western commercial and 
political interests would combine in pressing for more open- 



194 NEWLIESFOROLD 

handed trading policies toward Romania in the hope of weaning her further 
away from the bloc. Since Romanian independence was a myth, such hopes 
would prove illusory. Meanwhile, more liberal trading policies would 
certainly be of benefit to Romania and probably to the bloc as well. 



Objectives of the Disinformation Operation 

This disinformation serves primarily the development of Romania's 
special strategic role, especially in promoting, in association with Yugoslavia 
and the Eurocommunist parties, the idea of the dissolution of military pacts 
and the creation of a neutral socialist Europe. In summary form the objectives 
of disinformation on Romanian independence may be defined as follows: 

• To support other disinformation operations on the theme of the 
disintegration of the bloc; to establish a new form of "independent commu- 
nism" within the bloc. 

• To raise the internal and international prestige of the Romanian party 
and its leaders. 

• To enable Romania to obtain more generous Western technical and 
economic help. 

• To allow her to take advantage on the bloc's behalf of diplomatic and 
commercial openings that would be closed to more orthodox communist 
states. 

• To prepare her for a special strategic role. 

• To build up Western confidence in her as a potential ally or confidant 
within the communist world. 

• To support, at a later stage, the independence of the Eurocommunist 
parties. 

• To prepare her, probably, for a shift to a more "liberal" domestic regime 
in the final phase of long-range bloc policy. 



18 



The Sixth Disinformation Operation: 

The Alleged Recurrence of Power Struggles 

In the Soviet, Chinese, and Other Parties 



THE WEST HAS BEEN SEEING EVIDENCE since the early 1960s of 
recurrent power struggles in the leadership of the Soviet, 
Chinese, Yugoslav, Czechoslovak, and other parties. In the 
Soviet Union it has been seen in the alleged dismissal of Khrushchev 
in October 1964 for his policy failures and "adventurism"; in the 
alleged power struggle between the moderate and Stalinist factions 
that followed his dismissal; in Brezhnev's switch to neo-Stalinist 
practices since 1968 and in opposition to him from the liberals in the 
Soviet leadership. 

In China it has been seen in the alleged struggle for power between 
the militant, radical, Stalinist, Maoist faction (Mao, Lin Piao, Chen 
Po-ta) and the moderate, pragmatist faction (Chou En-lai, Teng Hsiao- 
p'ing, Peng Te-huai, Peng Chen, Liu Shao-tsi, Lo Jui-tsin); in the 
dismissal of Teng Hsiao-p'ing, Peng Te-huai, Liu Shaochi, Peng Chen, 
and others; in the alleged cult of Mao; in unexplained phenomena in 
China, such as the activity of the Red Guards during the Cultural 
Revolution; and in the reemergence of pragmatists, like Teng Hsiao- 
ping, since Mao's death in 1976. 

In Yugoslavia it has been seen in the alleged power struggle 
between Tito and his deputy premier and minister of the interior, 
Rankovic, which resulted in the ousting of Rankovic in 1966. In 
Czechoslovakia it has been seen in the struggle between the conser- 
vative Novotny faction and the liberal Dubcek faction, which resulted 
in the victory of the liberals and the alleged dismissal of Novotny in 
1968. 

195 



196 NEWLIESFOROLD 

In order to demonstrate that this semblance of recurrent power 
struggles is a misrepresentation of the facts directed principally at 
Western observers and intended to serve communist strategic 
purposes, the developments in these struggles in the Soviet Union and 
elsewhere must be examined in the light of both official and inside 
information about them. 



Succession in the Soviet Leadership: New Stabilizing Factors 

The problem of succession in the leadership of the Soviet Union 
and other communist countries is of great importance, since on it 
depends the solution of many other practical problems. The question 
that has to be answered is whether or not a one-party, communist, 
dictatorial system can settle the problem of succession without 
recourse to a struggle for power, as has happened in the past. Another 
related question is whether Khrushchev was forcibly removed in 1964 
or whether, on the contrary, he succeeded in transferring his power 
and solving the succession problem without a crisis. 

Most noncommunist observers are inclined to regard communist 
parties as incapable of finding a solution; they think that the recur- 
rence of power struggles is inevitable. The most dramatic confirma- 
tion of this view was the allegedly forcible removal of Khrushchev 
from the Soviet leadership in 1964.' 

The present study will attempt to distinguish between the facts 
surrounding Khrushchev's departure from office, the deliberate mis- 
representation of them by the Soviet strategists, and the unfortunately 
erroneous interpretation of them by reputable Western scholars. In 
order to make the distinctions clear and to explain how and why the 
facts were misrepresented by the Soviet strategists and why reputable 
Western scholars continue to accept uncritically information on the 
continuing existence of power struggles, it is helpful to compare the 
succession situations of 1924 and 1953 with the events of 1960-64, 
using for the purpose official information as well as inside knowledge 
and the new methodology. 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 197 

The Failure of Lenin and Stalin to Solve the Succession Problem 

There are similarities between the situations in 1924 and 1953. 
Lenin's death in January 1924 left a political vacuum. There was 
no single recognized successor with a ready-made team of 
supporters: instead, there were several rival leaders, each with his 
own claim on power. The situation in the country was still 
critical. Lenin's adopted policy, the NEP, was still in force, but 
many practical problems within that policy awaited their 
solutions. 

Stahn's death in March 1953 left an even greater political vac- 
uum. The dictator left no designated heir, nor was there a single 
recognized successor with a supporting team; as in 1924, there 
were several leaders with rival claims on power. There was a 
critical situation in the Soviet Union and in other communist 
countries. No long-range policy had been adopted despite the 
need for long-term solutions to the crisis in the bloc. 

All these circumstances invited succession crises. Power 
struggles were inevitable in both cases because of the rivalries 
among the new groups of leaders. The membership of the new 
generation in each case was fortuitous, unstable, and divided, its 
individual members ambitious to play a leading role and at the 
same time faced with the necessity of formulating a policy for the 
party. The critical situation in the Soviet Union in 1924 and in the 
bloc as a whole after 1953 demanded new solutions to burning 
issues. The struggle for power became at the same time a struggle 
for policy, which added to its bitterness. In each case the struggle 
ended with the elimination from political hfe of all but one of the 
contenders. 

Lenin's death was not unexpected, in view of his long illness. 
The struggle for power began while he was still alive. Stalin took 
the opportunity to strengthen his position to some extent even 
before Lenin's death. In 1924 there was still an atmosphere of 
inner-party democracy. The party rank and file, as well as the 
party and government apparatus, participated in the struggle and 
exerted some influence over it, which explains why the struggle 
after 1924 lasted longer than that after 1953. 

Lenin revealed his concern about the succession in letters to 



1 98 NEWLIESFOROLD 

the party congress, written in December 1922 and January 1923, in 
which he warned against the concentration of too much power in 
Stalin's hands. He also warned against the possibility of a split in the 
leadership and the need to prevent "conflicts between small Central 
Committee groupings which would gravely affect the fate of the party 
as a whole." He advocated a dispersal of his powers not to a few 
leaders, but rather to an enlarged Central Committee with enhanced 
authority, whose membership should be increased from twenty-seven 
to as many as a hundred members.^ 

Of necessity, some dispersal of power did occur. Lenin's personal 
rule was followed for a few years by an oligarchic rule. But there were 
no constitutional means of deciding the succession and no provision 
for popular participation in the process. The problem was one for the 
leader of the party himself to solve; only the leader had the authority 
to put his recommendations into effect. The difficulty was that, 
although Lenin gave a theoretical solution to the succession problem, 
he did not solve it in practice because of his illness. Moreover, 
although he was worried about a split in the leadership after his death, 
he himself invited a power struggle in his ambiguous testament, in 
which he did not indicate who should be his successor. Had he not 
been ill, he could have made his testament effective; in the event, it 
was not fulfilled after his death. 

Partly because Stalin needed time to take control over the govern- 
ment apparatus, the struggle after Lenin's death lasted until the mid- 
1930s, by which time all Stalin's rivals and real or possible opponents 
and even some of his supporters had been eliminated physically. Not 
infrequently, Stalin adopted the policies of his victims. 

The emphasis on physical elimination was not irrational. Because 
the whole party apparatus was involved in the struggle and because 
some vestiges of inner-party democracy survived, he was obliged 
when removing leaders to purge all of their supporters from the party 
by mass repressions to forestall possible opposition from them. He 
dispensed with collective leadership and established his own total, 
personal dictatorship. This was a backward step, which weakened the 
communist system and gave rise to the succession crisis and many 
other problems. After the physical ehmination of his 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 199 

rivals and the mass repressions of their followers, he could no longer 
rely on his colleagues or the party, but only on the security bureau- 
cracy. He ruled by watching potential rivals, dividing them, and 
exploiting one against the other. By eliminating Zhdanov, the most 
promising of his possible successors, he invited a crisis in the succes- 
sion. Up to his last days he ignored the problem, and his negligence 
left a vacuum after his sudden death that further contributed to the 
intensity of the ensuing struggle. 

Stalin's rigid personal dictatorship and his destruction of inner -party 
democracy meant that the party membership was not involved in the 
power struggle after his death; it took place only in the upper reaches 
of the party and government hierarchy. In 1953 the bureaucracy 
would have been prepared to serve any leader who was capable of 
taking control over it; unable to appeal directly to the party or the 
people, the bureaucrats had become nobodies in Stalin's final years. 
For these reasons the struggle after his death was relatively short and 
was not accompanied by mass repressions, except in the case of 
Beriya's supporters. 

There were similarities and differences between Stalin and 
Khrushchev. Like Stalin, Khrushchev, after the removal of Malen-kov 
in 1955, began as a communist dictator. He established his 
preeminence in 1956-57, using nonconstitutional means and tactics, 
and wielded his power, though not for long, in dictatorial fashion. 
From 1956 to 1959 he replaced Stalin's cult of personality with one of 
his own. The darker side of Khrushchev's career is still kept hidden 
from the public by the Soviet leaders. 

Unlike Stalin, Khrushchev did not physically eliminate his rivals, 
apart from Beriya; since they had no followings, it was unnecessary. 
Unlike Stalin, Khrushchev, though he remained supreme, managed to 
establish collective leadership during his final years in power. But the 
most important difference between him and Stalin was that he 
succeeded in accomplishing the transfer of power to a successor he 
had chosen. The view that he shared Stalin's disregard for the 
succession problem is erroneous. Like Lenin, he was concerned about 
it. Moreover, according to the present analysis, he found what Lenin 
tried but failed to find — a practical solution to the problem. Probably 
with the help of Mao's influence, he solved it on the lines of Lenin's 
recommendations and by committing 



200 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

his followers to a long-range policy for the whole communist bloc, 
and in so doing he established the model for the leaders of other 
communist states to follow. 



Khrushchev's "Removal" an Agreed Transfer of the Leadership 
to Brezhnev 

The view that Khrushchev was removed in a palace revolt is 
probably mistaken; it is not supported by the available evidence. In 
1964 the situation differed radically from that in 1924 or 1953. 

After Khrushchev's departure from the leadership, there was no 
political vacuum. The same united team of active Khrushchev sup- 
porters carried on. The internal crisis of the regime and the problems 
of intrabloc relations had been solved. The long-range policy for the 
whole bloc had been adopted and was in operation. There were no 
grounds for expecting political crisis or power struggle. 

The tragic consequences of the two previous succession crises were 
not lost on Khrushchev and the other Soviet leaders. Lenin's death had 
been followed by the liquidation of a generation of party leaders, by 
mass repressions in the party, and by splits in the Communist 
International and its affiliates. The struggle after Stalin's death had 
delayed the formulation of a long-range policy and threatened the 
continued existence of the communist bloc. It was vital that there 
should be no further repetition of these disasters. 

In 1964 favorable conditions existed for a calculated transfer of 
power by Khrushchev to a leader or group of leaders of his choice 
because of the existence of collective leadership, as practiced under 
Khrushchev since 1959; the increased influence of the Central 
Committee and party apparatus; the absence of opposition in the 
leadership; the greater stability of the regime; improved relations with 
the leaders of other communist countries; the establishment of 
collective leadership in the Chinese party under Mao; and, above all, 
the adoption of the long-range policy. Khrushchev had a personal 
interest in the implementation of this policy through his successors 
because it was adopted during his rule and with his active participa- 
tion. His role in its initiation offered him promise of greater posthu- 
mous respect and recognition than Stalin had been accorded, for all 
the power and glory of his reign. 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 201 

In his concern for long-range policy, Khrushchev would naturally 
have considered the question of succession. He was in a perfect 
position to arrange it, since he controlled the situation in the party and 
the government and he had time in which to act. He had packed the 
Presidium and the Central Committee with his men; he had his 
nominees in the KGB and the army and at key points in the party and 
government apparatus; he retained his own leading position in the 
party secretariat, the Presidium, and the government. In the light of 
his claims to be another Lenin, it seems likely that he gave serious 
thought to the problem, as Lenin did in 1922-23. Following Lenin's 
example, he probably made recommendations to the Central 
Committee in the form of secret letters or speeches on the eve of the 
Twenty-second Party Congress. 

Such indications as there are support the conclusion that he was 
thinking about and acting on the succession problem on the eve of his 
"removal." Signs of this can be detected from the Twenty-second 
Party Congress in October 1961 onward. Speaking about Lenin's 
advice on the cult of personality, he called on the party to be worthy 
pupils of Lenin in this matter. He confirmed Stalin's mistakes and 
warned about the consequences of the cult of personality for leaders 
who forget their duties to the party. ^ According to his definition, the 
chief evil of the cult of personality lay in the leader's being outside the 
control of the party.* He claimed that collective leadership had been 
achieved and asked that his own personal role should not be 
emphasized.' 

The new party statutes adopted at the congress provide that, at 
every regular election of the CPSU Central Committee and Presidium, 
not less than one quarter of the members must be new; of the central 
committees of the republic parties, not less than one third must be 
new; and of committees of other party organizations, not less than one 
half. The alleged purpose of these reforms was to foster "inner-party 
democracy." The new regulations and other decisions of the congress, 
which were complied with thereafter, were defined by Khrushchev as 
guarantees against recurrence of the cult of personality.^ At the same 
time the Soviet party press recalled a quotation from Lenin stating that 
"the revolutionary movement cannot be stable without an organization 
which maintains the succession of leaders." 

Two other significant decisions of the Twenty-second Congress 



202 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

were obviously modeled on Lenin's recommendations, namely, the increase 
in the membership of the Central Committee in comparison with the Twenty- 
first Congress from 125 to 175 members and the transfer from the Presidium 
of Ignatov, Furtseva, Mukhitdinov, Belyayev, and Aristov, and their 
replacement by new party activists in accordance with the statutes. 

In the author's view Khrushchev's was a short-term personal dictatorship 
which was replaced, wisely and in time, by collective leadership in order to 
avoid a succession crisis and a further struggle for power. Various new 
circumstances contributed toward, and conditioned, the reorganization of the 
system. They were: 

• The condemnation of Stalin's cult of personahty and the practice of 
physically eliminating rivals. 

• The incompatibility between personal dictatorship and the active, 
constructive, and harmonious collaboration of a bloc of communist countries 
in pursuit of a common long-range policy. 

• Mao's voluntary and exemplary decision in 1959 to give up all his 
positions of power except the leadership of the party in order to concentrate 
on problems of long-range policy and communist strategy. 

• The concern of the bloc leaders as a whole to avoid a repetition of the 
painful events after 1924 and 1953. 

• The personal interest of Khrushchev and Mao in avoiding subsequent 
condemnation of their activities resulting from a further power struggle, and 
hence their wilhngness to yield power voluntarily to the party apparatus and 
bureaucracy. 

• The stabihzing effect of the long-range bloc policy. 

Given past experience, given the establishment of collective leadership, 
and given these new circumstances, the bloc's leaders had already begun by 
1960 to make advance arrangements within their Central Committees to 
ensure a smooth, timely, and peaceful transfer of power — as was the case, in 
the author's view, with the succession to Khrushchev in 1964. 

The Western version of Khrushchev's removal was based on inadequate 
and unreliable evidence. The main items taken into account were that: 
Khrushchev was given no recognition for his services; his portraits 
disappeared in Moscow; his son-in-law and associate in pohcy, Adzhubey, 
was dismissed {it became known 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 203 

later that he had been demoted to a less important position in a Soviet 
newspaper); references appeared in the Soviet press to the cult of 
personality, which, though they did not directly mention Khrushchev's 
name, were interpreted in the West as a campaign of "de- 
Khrushchevization"; Khrushchev was allegedly living in humble 
obscurity with a small retinue of servants; according to unconfirmed 
reports, he was dismissed for nepotism at the end of an eight-hour 
meeting of the Presidium on the strength of a report by Suslov; he was 
responsible for numerous policy mistakes and failures, such as the 
withdrawal from Cuba, the begging of wheat from the United States, 
the quarrel with China, the ill-conceived decentralization of the Soviet 
economy, his proposed visit to West Germany, and his unsuccessful 
personal style of diplomacy with its mixture of insults to and cajolery 
of the West. 

This evidence is unconvincing and contradictory. The first argu- 
ment against Khrushchev's having been forcibly removed is the fact 
that it was his team that continued, without significant changes, to 
dominate the Soviet leadership. Brezhnev, who replaced him as the 
party leader, was his most trusted, obedient, and experienced assistant, 
friend, and colleague. He owed his career to Khrushchev and was a 
link between the Ukrainian and the Moscow party groups. Kirilenko 
and the former President, Podgornyy, were almost as close to 
Khrushchev as Brezhnev. Other faithful lieutenants and appointees of 
Khrushchev, like Shelepin, Biryuzov, Malinovskiy, Semichastnyy, 
and Patolichev, retained their key positions in the party and the 
government. 

Even more important, two of Khrushchev's relatives continued to 
hold power in the leadership and government; one of them was even 
promoted later on. The two were Polyanskiy, who stayed on as a 
member of the Presidium and premier of the Russian Republic, and 
Marshal Grechko, who remained as first assistant of the minister of 
defense and chief of the Warsaw Pact forces; a few years later, he was 
promoted to the major post of minister of defense.'** The fact that 
Khrushchev's relatives retained their key positions after his departure 
is inconsistent with Western belief in a palace revolution and 
Khrushchev's abrupt dismissal; it supports the conclusion that it was a 
smooth and agreed transfer of power. Furthermore, it disposes of the 
story that Khrushchev was dismissed for nepotism, because his 
relatives, apart from Adzhubey, were 



204 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

not affected by his loss of office. Here it is important to point out that 
the relationship of Grechko and Polyanskiy to Khrushchev has never 
been pubHciy revealed by Brezhnev or other party leaders. Such 
information is normally kept secret and is known to very few within 
the party. 

If Khrushchev had in reality been dismissed for his cult of person- 
ality or his policy mistakes, open criticism of him could have been 
expected in the communist press. In fact there was very little, and 
such as there was was oblique and indirect. There were no revelations 
about his complicity in Stalin's crimes or about the ruthlessness of his 
struggle for power in 1955-57. There was no criticism of his 
"adventurist" foreign policy over the Berlin and Cuban crises or of his 
exploitation of Soviet writers. There was some vague criticism in the 
Soviet press about cult of personality and other rather minor aspects of 
policy, which was interpreted by Western journalists as referring to 
Khrushchev. Perhaps this interpretation was supported by revelations 
of communist officials to their Western contacts, but communists do 
not normally give Western diplomats or journalists the true facts of 
the case. There was some speculative reporting about Khrushchev's 
private life — his hunting, his apartments, and his villas — and there 
was his sensational appearance before Western journalists. Such 
manifestations should not be accepted at face value; they can be better 
understood in the context of bloc disinformation operations. Naturally 
there was no official recognition of Khrushchev's services to the 
Soviet Union, because that would have upset bloc disinformation 
about the recurrence of power struggles. 

To sum up, there was no major convulsion before or after Khrush- 
chev's retirement. With few exceptions there was continuity in the 
leadership. Above all, there was continuity in the implementation of 
the long-range policy that Khrushchev had initiated. The most likely 
explanation, therefore, is that Khrushchev's removal was a staged 
affair conducted with his full agreement. Furthermore, it was probably 
staged with the foreknowledge and agreement of the communist 
leaders of other countries. This would explain the well-publicized 
visits of Western communist leaders to Moscow after the dismissal to 
demand "explanations" for it and to express their high regard for 
Khrushchev and his policies, thereby demon- 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 205 

strating to the West their newly won independence of the Soviet 
Union. 

Over the radio, in their newspapers, and in official documents, the 
Russian people were told that Khrushchev had resigned on grounds of 
age and failing health. He was born in 1894. The official version 
could well be near the truth. Lenin had set a precedent for retirement 
on grounds of health. Khrushchev wanted to go down in history as 
another Lenin. Like Lenin, he even went hunting in the neighborhood 
of Moscow after his retirement. In spite of his Stalinist background, 
he had made a significant contribution to the communist cause, but 
this contribution could not be given immediate public recognition for 
tactical considerations. In due course, probably after the conclusion of 
the long-range policy, tribute will be paid to all the leaders who were 
responsible for the policy, including Khrushchev, Mao, Novotny, 
Ulbricht, Tito, Brezhnev, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, and many others. 
Khrushchev would not have been a true communist if he had not 
agreed to such an arrangement, and no doubt he did so with his usual 
mocking humor. 

It is interesting that Neizvestnyy, the controversial sculptor whom 
Khrushchev had himself criticized for abstractionism, was allowed by 
Soviet officialdom to design the symbolic black and white monument 
on Khrushchev's grave. Not many years after his death, Khrushchev's 
name began to reappear in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia. 

According to the present, new interpretation, Khrushchev's retire- 
ment, which incidentally enabled him to write his memoirs, was 
intended to solve the problem of succession in the Soviet Union, to 
rehearse the changing of the guard in accordance with his wishes, and 
to forestall upheavals and difficulties for the party, for the regime, and 
even for himself. A smooth, agreed-upon transfer of power was 
rendered possible by, and in itself served to guarantee, the continuity 
of long-range bloc policy and strategy. The new guard came from the 
old team of leaders committed to the same policy. Since all the leaders 
of the communist bloc were and are equally committed to it, none can 
change it arbitrarily, whether in the Soviet Union, China, Romania, or 
any other communist country, without facing serious opposition from 
the party apparatus in his own and other communist parties. Since 
Khrushchev's retire- 



2o6 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

ment was probably agreed with the leaders of the other parties, it can 
also be suggested that his example was followed, with local 
variations, in the transitions from Gheorghiu-Dej to Ceausescu in 
Romania, from Novotny to Dubcek to Husak in Czechoslovakia, from 
Gomulka to Gierek to Kania in Poland, and from Ulbricht to 
Honecker in East Germany; and in the transitions in China and 
Yugoslavia that followed Mao's and Tito's deaths. 

According to this analysis Khrushchev's retirement was a successful 
fulfillment of Leninist ideas on the transfer of power between leaders. 
Since there is no solid foundation for the belief that Khrushchev was 
removed by power struggle, the conclusion can be drawn that, for 
strategic reasons, his retirement was deliberately misrepresented, 
partly to the inhabitants of the communist countries but mainly to the 
West, as part of a succession crisis analogous to those that followed 
Lenin's and Stahn's deaths. Similar conclusions can be drawn from so- 
called power struggles in the Yugoslav, Chinese, Czechoslavok, and 
Polish parties; in fact, all of them should be regarded as operations 
within the framework of the bloc disinformation program. 



Objectives of Disinformation on Power Struggles 

The disinformation effort to keep alive Western belief in the 
existence and inevitabihty of recurrent power struggles in the leader- 
ship of communist parties serves several purposes. There is an obvi- 
ous close connection between power struggles and factionalism; 
neither exists without the other. Disinformation on power struggles 
therefore supports and complements disinformation operations based 
on spurious factionalism, such as those on de-Stalinization, the 
Soviet-Albanian and Sino-Soviet splits, and democratization in 
Czechoslovakia in 1968. It further serves to obscure the unity, 
coordination, and continuity within the bloc in pursuit of an agreed 
long-range policy. By creating false associations in Western minds 
between different communist leaders and different aspects or phases 
of communist policy — Khrushchev with "revisionism," Mao with 
"dogmatism," Teng Hsiao-p'ing with "pragmatism," Dubcek with 
"democratization," and Brezhnev with "neo-Stalinism" — the West can 
be induced to make false deductions about the mainsprings 



ALLEGED POWER STRUGGLES 20J 

of communist policy, inaccurate predictions about its future course, 
and mistakes in its own responses. The West is more likely to make 
concessions, for example, over SALT negotiations, or the supply of 
high technology goods to the Soviet Union or China, if it believes that 
by so doing it will strengthen the hand of a "liberal" or "pragmatic" 
tendency or faction within the party leadership. Conversely, the West 
can be persuaded to attribute aggressive aspects of communist policy 
to the influence of hard-liners in the leadership. The disappearance 
from the scene of leaders thus identified can be used to promote the 
myth of liberalization, as was done in the case of Novotny in 
Czechoslovakia in 1968. Part Three will argue that similar 
developments may be expected in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in 
Eastern Europe in the final phase of long-range policy and that the 
succession to Brezhnev may well be exploited for the same purpose. 

One further possible purpose of spurious power struggles may be 
suggested, that the "purging" or "disgrace" of leading communists 
such as Teng Hsiao-p'ing in China or Barak in Czechoslovakia, who 
disappeared for varying periods of time allegedly as the victims of a 
power struggle, may be intended to cover up their secondment to serve 
during their disappearance in a secret policy coordinating center 
somewhere in the bloc. 



19 



The Seventh Disinformation Operation: 
"Democratization" in Czechoslovakia in 1968 



The Western Interpretation 

As reported in the communist and Western press, the leaders of the 
communist party introduced certain economic and pohtical reforms in 
Czechoslovakia during 1968. In the economy, greater independence 
was given to factory managers; the profit motive and market- 
orientated practices were partially reintroduced. Sensational 
developments occurred in the political field. Communist sources 
revealed that an intensive struggle was fought out in the party 
leadership between the conservatives, or Stalinists, led by the general- 
secretary, President Novotny, and the liberals, or progressives, led by 
the secretary of the Slovak Communist party, Dub-cek. In January 
1968 the liberals won and Dubcek replaced Novotny as the country's 
leader. 

The new regime disclosed certain crimes committed by the former 
party leadership, denounced the cult of personality the former leaders 
had practiced, allegedly reduced to some degree the role of the 
security services, and broadened the political rights of the population. 
Censorship was abolished, intellectuals were given greater freedom, 
opportunities for foreign travel were improved, and even the 
possibility of permitting the formation of noncommu-nist political 
parties was discussed. 

The Soviet Union, alarmed by these developments, denounced them 
as counterrevolutionary. In August Warsaw Pact troops invaded 
Czechoslovak territory without meeting resistance from the 
Czechoslovak army. The political situation was reversed; Dubcek and 
other liberals were replaced by Soviet puppets. 

208 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 209 

Western journalists, scholars, and officials, basing their interpreta- 
tion largely on accounts of these events in communist sources, 
accepted the Czechoslovak crisis as an attempt at a spontaneous, 
peaceful democratic revolution. They accepted as genuine the power 
struggle between progressives and conservatives. They accepted 
Dubcek's reforms as a new brand of democratic "socialism with a 
human face." Indignation at the occupation of Czechoslovakia by 
forces of the Warsaw Pact evoked deep sympathy for Dubcek, his 
regime, and his new brand of socialism. 

Four additional factors contributed to Western acceptance of the 
liberalization of the Czechoslovak regime at face value. First, the 
liberalization took place in a country that had had strong democratic 
traditions before the communist coup in February 1948, and the 
liberalization seemed like a revival of those traditions. Second, the 
Czechoslovak leaders seemed to have gone further than any other 
communist leaders in their criticism of the Soviet Union, in their 
preparedness to permit noncommunist parties, and in their 
denunciations of the crimes of former Soviet and Czechoslovak 
security officials against noncommunist statesmen, such as Jan Masa- 
ryk, the former foreign minister. Third, extreme Soviet pressure was 
exercised on the Dubcek regime through the Soviet press and through 
conspicuous movements of Warsaw Pact forces on the Polish- 
Czechoslovak border. Fourth, there was a close apparent parallel 
between events in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and those in Hungary in 
1956.' 

According to the Western interpretation of events, the overthrow of 
the Novotny regime by the progressives was brought about through 
the alliance of some liberal-minded economists and dissenting 
intellectuals with a few progressive communist leaders, such as 
Dubcek. Weak as it was, this alliance succeeded in carrying out a 
democratic revolution against a totaHtarian regime enjoying the 
support of the armed forces and security services without the firing of 
a single shot. 



Western Errors 

A major error in most Western assessments of Czechoslovakia in 
1968 was to consider the events of that year in isolation from the 
recent past. Unfortunately, failing to appreciate the changes 



210 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

in relations within the bloc and the adoption of the long-range policy 
between 1957 and 1960, they used outdated methodology in their 
interpretation of events. Failing also to take into account the 
systematic dissemination of disinformation through sources under 
communist control, including the communist press and communist 
officials and intellectuals, they placed excessive reliance on these 
sources. 



A Reinterpretation of Czechoslovak "Democratization" 

The new methodology dictates a new and opposite interpretation of 
Czechoslovak "democratization." It sees it not as a spontaneous 
development, but as a planned, controlled maneuver and rehearsal for 
a similar development, all to take place within the framework of the 
long-range policy. The major argument in favor of this view is that 
Czechoslovak "democratization" fitted into, and met the requirements 
of, communist strategy for Western Europe. A second argument is 
that, throughout the upheavals of 1968, Czechoslovakia remained an 
active member of Comecon and the Warsaw Pact. 

The Czechoslovak party leaders, their security and intelligence 
services and the regime as a whole actively participated in the 
formulation, adoption, and implementation of the long-range bloc 
policy in the period 1958 to 1960. Novotny frequently consulted with 
the Soviet leaders, especially Khrushchev, in this period, and Novotny 
and his colleagues — notably Hendrych, the party official responsible 
for ideology and work with intellectuals — played a key role in the 
formulation of the policy in so far as it related to Czechoslovakia. A 
Czechoslovak party delegation led by Novotny took part in the 
Eighty-one-Party Congress, in Moscow in November 1960, which 
adopted the long-range bloc policy and strategy for the international 
communist movement. 

There are indications that the special strategic role for Czechoslo- 
vakia had been worked out, at least in outline, by 1960 and that 
preparations for the maneuver began immediately thereafter. In May 
1961 Dubcek visited the Soviet Union and was received by Suslov. In 
June and July a delegation of Czechoslovak party workers led by 
Lenart went to the Soviet Union to study the work of the 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 211 

CPSU.^ In June 1962 Novotny led another party delegation to the 
Soviet Union. 

Coordination between the Czechoslovak, Soviet, and other bloc 
intelligence and security services over their political role in the 
implementation of the long-range bloc policy began in 1959. The 
minister of the interior, Barak, and other members of his ministry 
attended the conference of bloc security and inteUigence services in 
Moscow in that year. Thereafter the Czechoslovak services became 
members of the intelligence and security coordinating center for the 
bloc. 

From 1959 to 1968 Novotny and his minister of the interior (Barak 
until 1961) were actively working on the dissolution of genuine 
political opposition and the creation of false, controlled opposition in 
Czechoslovakia, on the lines introduced and practiced in the Soviet 
Union by Shelepin. 

Dissolution of genuine opposition was tackled largely by rehabih- 
tations and amnesties. The Novotny regime carried out amnesties in 
1960, 1962, 1964, and 1965, the most extensive being the one in 1960 
in which most of the "state criminals" were freed. The last amnesty, in 
1968, was carried out under Dubcek, who was thus continuing a 
policy already established by Novotny and Barak. 



The Role of Historians and Economists in 
"Democratization" 

A close parallel developed in the period 1959 to 1968 between the 
approach adopted by Khrushchev and Shelepin to the use of writers, 
economists, historians, other intellectuals, and rehabilitated party 
members in activist political work and the approach adopted by the 
Czechoslovak leaders. The indications are that a false opposition was 
created in Czechoslovakia and that the struggle between alleged 
liberals and alleged conservatives was staged on the pattern 
established in the Soviet Union by Khrushchev and Shelepin. 

In 1963 the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist 
party set up two commissions of experts. One was a commission of 
thirty-six historians under Gustav Husak, then vice-president of the 
council of ministers; the other was a group of economists under Ota 
Sik, who later became a vice-premier in the Dubcek 



212 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

government. The Central Committee made the party's secret archives 
and statistics available to the two commissions. 

The date 1963 is significant in that it was three years after the 
adoption of the long-range bloc policy and five years before the so- 
called "democratization" took place. The commissions were es- 
tablished in the Novotny period: Husak and Sik subsequently figured 
prominently in the "democratization" and its reversal. Putting these 
facts together, the conclusion may be drawn that the commissions 
were established under Novotny's leadership within the framework of 
the long-range policy to prepare the groundwork for the events of 
1968. There is a strong pointer to Soviet-Czechoslovak coordination 
in the matter in that the Economic Commission was established by 
Novotny at Khrushchev's suggestion.^ Soviet historians were 
mobilized in support of long-range policy in the Soviet Union during 
the same period, though in a different manner. Academician Khvos- 
tov played an important part in this activity. 



The Roles of Barak and Sik 

Barak's role, his dismissal in February 1962, and his rehabilitation 
and reappearance in 1968 can be completely reinterpreted. 

Barak was minister of the interior from 1953 to 1961 and a member 
of the Presidium of the party from 1954 until February 1962. As 
minister of the interior he played an important part in the formulation 
of the long-range policy and was in close liaison with the chairman of 
the KGB, Shelepin. The chief of the KGB Institute, General 
Kurenkov, informed the staff and students of the KGB Institute in 
Moscow in 1959-60, after the return of a KGB delegation to 
Czechoslovakia of which he was a member, that the KGB had closer 
relations with the Czechoslovak security service than with any other 
service in the bloc. 

Significantly the young technocrats and planners who became 
members of the Economic Commission in 1963 and played key roles 
in the introduction of economic reforms in 1968, including Ota Sik, 
were close to Barak in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Given Barak's 
connection at the time with the planning of the long-range policy and 
the new role of the security and intelligence services in it, it is likely 
that even then the young technocrats 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 213 

were being prepared for their part in introducing controlled "democ- 
ratization." 

On February 9, 1962, it was announced in the Czechoslovak press 
that Barak had been arrested and sentenced to fifteen years 
imprisonment for embezzlement of public funds. He was released in 
May 1968 with the explanation that the funds were not embezzled at 
all but were intended for the Czechoslovak intelligence service. Barak 
himself indicated that his removal was due to Novot-ny's fear of being 
the victim of the young technocrats and economic planners by whom 
he, Barak, liked to be surrounded.^ 

Given Barak's involvement in long-range policy formulation in 
1959 to 1961, it is likely that his arrest in February 1962 was fictitious 
and was used to mislead Western analysts about the true nature of his 
relations with technocrats like Sik. It could also have been used to 
fabricate for this leading secret pohceman a reputation as a liberal 
reformer and a victim of Novotny, the better to explain his 
reappearance under the new regime of 1968. There was a further 
possible motive for the staging of Barak's arrest; in the course of 
compiling their damage report on the author's defection in December 
1961, the KGB would have discovered that the author was aware of 
the close liaison between the leaders of the KGB and of the 
Czechoslovak security service under Barak. 

A likely speculation is that, instead of spending his time in jail from 
1962 to 1968, Barak was sent secretly to Moscow to represent the 
Czechoslovak government in the bloc's intelligence and security 
coordinating center. His reappearance in Czechoslovakia in May 1968 
would have been to act as a behind-the-scenes coordinator of the 
developments of that year. As a key man at the planning stage of those 
developments, he would have been needed on the spot during the 
crucial period of their unfolding. 

Given Sik's relations with Barak and his appointment as head of the 
Economic Commission by the Central Committee of the party in 1963 
under Novotny's leadership, his role in the introduction of economic 
reforms, his support for Dubcek in 1968, and his participation in the 
Dubcek government should be regarded not as a spontaneous personal 
activity, but as the fulfilment of a party assignment within the 
framework of the long-range policy. It was probably no coincidence 
that his appointment in 1963 fell within the same period as the 
emergence in the Soviet Union of 



214 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

a liberal economist. Professor Liberman. Sik, in fact, became known 
as the "Czechoslovak Liberman." 



The Role of Writers in "Democratization" 

An understanding of Sik's party role in introducing economic 
reforms in Czechoslovakia, together with an understanding of the 
Soviet party's use of Tvardovskiy and Kochetov as the leaders of the 
"liberal" and "conservative" factions among Soviet writers, helps 
toward an understanding of the role of Czechoslovak writers in the 
"democratization" of 1968. Since Khrushchev advised the 
Czechoslovak party to set up an Economic Commission in 1963, it is 
not unlikely that he or Shelepin advised the Czechoslovak party and 
security service to use their writers in a controlled "liberalization" in 
the same way as they themselves had used Tvardovskiy and 
Kochetov. 

Czechoslovak writers played an important part in the alleged 
removal of Novotny and his replacement by Dubcek. For example, at 
the Writers Congress in May-June 1967, the "liberal" Slovak writer 
Ludvik Vaculik, a member of the Central Committee, a member of the 
staff of Literarni Listy, and a confidant of Dubcek, delivered several 
lectures advocating more creative freedom. In a plea for "democratic 
socialism" he also called for an active struggle against "neo- 
Stalinists." The Slovak writer Mnacko attacked Novotny. Anton 
Liehm, one of the founders of Literarni Noviny, spoke against 
censorship and police despotism. Another writer read out to the 
congress Solzhenitsyn's "secret letter" against censorship. 

The criticism of neo-Stalinism was convincing. But Vaculik, Klima, 
and Liehm, who participated in this criticism and called for 
democratization, were all members of the Central Committee of the 
party at the time. This raises at least a possibility that they were 
acting, like Tvardovskiy and Kochetov, on the instructions of the 
party. It is interesting that, three months later (in September 1967), 
these writers were expelled from the party "for spreading 
anticommunist propaganda at the Writers Congress." Knowing the 
methods of provocation used by communist security services, the 
expulsions can be interpreted as deliberate steps to build up the image 
of these writers as independent, spontaneous critics of the 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 215 

regime and genuine exponents of democratic socialism. At the same time the 
expulsions would have served to cover up their secret party assignments. 

Some of the actions and speeches of the Czechoslovak writers — Vaculik's 
speech, for instance — were reminiscent of the actions and speeches of 
Hungarian writers in 1956. The question to be asked is whether the 
Czechoslovak writers' actions and speeches were truly spontaneous or 
whether they were deliberately modeled in advance on the Hungarian pattern 
by the Central Committee and its Ideological Department in preparation for 
the introduction of a program of controlled reform designed to stabilize the 
Czechoslovak- regime and serve the purposes of bloc strategy in Europe. 

It is interesting that in his speech Vaculik, after condemning "the first 
Stalinist phase" of the Czechoslovak regime, referred to the "second phase" 
in which democratic socialism would be realized. It is possible to detect in 
this a hint of forward planning It could well be that these speeches were 
prepared by the writers in conjunction with the Commission of Historians set 
up in 1963 Vaculik himself revealed in March 1967 (two to three months 
before the Writers' Congress) that he had been present at a meeting of the 
Ideological Department of the Central Committee at which questions on 
freedom for creative activities were discussed. 

Vaculik and other writers published a manifesto titled "Two Thousand 
Words" in the weekly Literarni Listy on June 27. 1968. This later became 
the credo of the party "progressives" and was used by the Soviets and other 
"orthodox" communists to denounce them as counterrevolutionaries. Some of 
the statements in it reveal the kind of "democratization" the authors had in 
mind. While identifying themselves with the party "progressives," they called 
for support for the party functionaries and security organs and "respect for 
Czechoslovakia's treaties of friendship with its allies" (i.e., the Soviet Union 
and other countries of the Warsaw Pact). The following are a few quotations: 

"In the first place, we will oppose the opinion, if it manifests itself, that a 
democratic rebirth can come without the communists or even against 
them; this would be not only unjust but unreasonable. . . . The communists 
have well-established organisations; these organisations are necessary to sustain 
the tendencies of progress. They have experi- 



216 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

enced functionaries and they also have in hand the controls of command. 
They have prepared a programme of action which has been proposed to 
the public. It is a programme aiming at reparation of the greatest injustices 
and they are the only ones in possession of such a concrete programme. . . 
. Let us bring the National Front back to life. . . . Let us give our support to 
the security agencies when they pursue criminal and common law 
delinquents. We have no intention of provoking anarchy or a general state 
of insecurity. . . . And we give to our allies the assurance that we shall 
respect our treaties of friendship, alliance and trade." 

Seen against the background of party and security service interest in 
introducing and controlling a process of "democratization," these expressions 
of support for the party functionaries, security services, and the Warsaw Pact 
are clear indications of party guidance to the writers. 



The "Struggle" between the Novotny "Conservatives" and the Dubcek 
"Progressives" 

If the "liberal" economists and writers are considered the first two moving 
forces behind the "democratization" of 1968, the third was the alleged 
struggle in the party leadership between the "progressives" led by Dubcek 
and the "conservatives" led by Novotny, which culminated eventually in the 
victory of the "progressives." 

Although Novotny was of the Stalinist generation and was brought up 
against the background of Stahn's and Gottwald's leadership of the Soviet 
and Czechoslovak Communist parties, he did not take over the leadership of 
the Czechoslovak party until after Stalin's death. And it was under his 
leadership, as under Khrushchev's in the Soviet Union, that an actual de- 
Stalinization of the Czechoslovak party took place in the period 1956-60 
during which many party political prisoners were rehabilitated. It is ques- 
tionable therefore whether the charges of neo-Stalinism brought against 
Novotny by the "progressives" were well-founded. The air of artificiality 
about them supports the thesis that they were contrived, within the 
framework of the long-range policy and disinfor- 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 217 

mation program, in order to misrepresent as a spontaneous liberal upheaval 
what was in fact an orderly, planned, and controlled succession to a new 
generation of party leaders. 

Similarly there are grounds for suggesting that Dubcek was chosen and 
groomed for the role of Novotny's leading adversary in a calculated display 
of internal party differences serving the same purpose. Like Novotny, 
although junior to him in age and rank, Dubcek was a product of the Stalinist 
party machine with a militant communist background. A Slovak by origin, he 
had intimate connections with the Soviet Union, where he lived from 1922 to 
1938. In 1939 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist party, in which he 
rose steadily during the last fourteen years of Stalin's hfetime. In the year of 
Stalin's death in 1953, Dubcek became party secretary of a town in Slovakia. 

According to Salomon, Dubcek loved and respected the Soviet Union. 
Between 1955 and 1958 he studied at the High Party School, attached to the 
Central Committee of the CPSU, in Moscow. This school selects and trains 
future leaders for the CPSU and other communist parties. Dubcek was still 
there in 1958, the year in which the formulation of the long-range policy 
began. It could well be that it was in part because of his Russian background 
and training in this school that Dubcek was chosen and groomed by the 
Central Committee as the leader of the "progressives." 

Dubcek was made a secretary of the Slovak Communist party and a 
member of the Presidium in 1963, the same year in which Sik was appointed 
head of the Economic Commission and Husak head of the Commission of 
Historians. It may therefore be surmised that Dubcek was chosen for his role 
in 1963. 

There are a number of anomalies in the story of the "quiet revolution" that 
raise serious doubts about its spontaneous nature. Some of the unanswered 
questions are as follows: 

• Why did the "conservative" majority in the Presidium vote for Dubcek 
and why did Novotny himself not object to Dubcek's candidacy? 

• Why did the Central Committee and party machine controlled by 
Novotny's "conservative" supporters not prevent the replacement of Novotny 
by Dubcek? 

• Why did neither tlie "conservative" military and security leaders, like tlie 
minister of defense, Lomsky, and the head of military security. 



218 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Mamula, nor the leaders of the shock troops and militia of Prague, which 
organized the coup d'etat in 1948, act against Dubcek if there was a genuine 
risk that he might turn into a Czechoslovak Imre Nagy and threaten the 
foundations of their regime? 

• Why did Hendrych, an "ultraconservative" Novotny supporter, a 
frequent visitor to Moscow, the head of the party's ideological department, 
the controller of the country's intellectuals since 1958 — in short, the 
Czechoslovak equivalent of Il'ichev — side with Dubcek at the secret session 
of the Central Committee in January 1968 that nominated Dubcek as general- 
secretary? 

• Why did all these "conservatives" accept Dubcek without resistance 
when, if the revolution had been spontaneous, they would have stood to lose 
their heads? 

• Why did not Dubcek remove key officials like Lomsky or Mamula right 
at the beginning in March 1968? 

• Why did the press censors themselves support "democratization" and 
vote against the censorship? 

• Why was Novotny untouched after he had lost power, if he was such a 
villain? 

• Why did the foreign policy of Dubcek's regime follow the old, orthodox 
conservative line: anti-NATO, anti-USA, and anti-Israel? 

• Why did the "progressive" leaders welcome the bloc's occupation 
troops? 

Had the Dubcek regime been authentically democratic, it would have 
removed the orthodox party and security officials who had been responsible 
for past repression. In fact, only three hundred persons in the Ministry of the 
Interior were allegedly discharged or demoted, mere drop in the bucket. By 
and large the Old Guard went unscathed. "Conservative" and "orthodox" 
officials and "new progressives," some of them former victims of "conserva- 
tive" repression, served together in the new regime of "democratic 
socialism." 

In fact the major change was a return to the higher ranks of government of 
certain rehabilitated party members, whose rehabilitation was exploited to 
project a new image of the communist 

regime. Among them were Husak, vice-premier (released in 1960); 
Smrkovsky, president of the National Assembly (released in 1955); and 
Pavel, minister of the interior (released in 1955). Their return 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 219 

could well have been the realization of a calculated policy of rehabili- 
tation carried out on Soviet lines. It should be remembered in this 
context that both Gomulka and Kadar, who rose to be the party 
leaders in Poland and Hungary respectively, were rehabihtated party 
members. 

A distinctive feature of rehabilitation in Czechoslovakia was that 
former communist officials were fully rehabilitated; some of the 
noncommunist political prisoners were not. The Rehabilitation Law 
adopted in June 1968 approved the review of individual cases but did 
not annul the courts' decisions, lest "justly sentenced, authentic 
counterrevolutionary elements" should be set free. 

Perhaps the most convincing evidence of the essential continuity 
between the old and new regimes is the fact that Gottwald, who was 
responsible for the reign of terror from 1948 onwards — involving, 
according to official statistics, the confinement of one hundred and 
thirty thousand persons — was not denounced as a criminal by the new 
regime. On the contrary, Dubcek decorated the widows and orphans 
of martyred communist officials with the Order of Gottwald, under 
whose leadership their husbands and fathers had been executed. 
Strangely, the victims' relatives accepted these decorations. '° 

The controlled nature of "democratization" in Czechoslovakia 
shows up clearly when comparisons are made with Hungary in 1956. 
The Hungarian revolution was a popular uprising; while it lasted, it 
dismantled the system, the party machine, and the security services. It 
replaced party leaders with nonparty leaders. Some party leaders, like 
Imre Nagy, broke with the party and sided with the people. In 
Czechoslovakia, on the other hand, "democratization" was carried out 
by the party, hence the "quiet revolution." Basically, the party 
machine, the army, and the security services were untouched. There 
was continuity, not a fundamental break, with the previous regime. 
Older communist leaders were replaced by younger communist 
leaders, so that the party's monopoly of power and ideology was not 
broken. The Hungarian revolution occurred during the crisis of the 
communist bloc and was an expression of that crisis. The 
Czechoslovak revolution occurred during the period of the bloc's 
recovery from crisis and exemplified the bloc's long-range policy in 
action. 

Some aspects of the Soviet reaction to events were a little strange. 



220 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Despite the exchange of criticism between the Soviet and Czecho- 
slovak leaders, they continued to visit one another's countries. Pho- 
tographs appeared of Dubcek and Brezhnev warmly embracing one 
another. Nothing is known about the talks that actually took place 
between them, other than a few hints inspired by the communist 
regimes themselves. In the West this evidence of good relations 
between the Soviet and Czechoslovak leaders was either ignored or 
interpreted as a crude attempt to cover up the depth of the divisions 
between them. The revised interpretation of the "quiet revolution," 
based on the new methodology, suggests that these meetings were 
used for consultation and coordination of the further action to be taken 
by each side. 

The movements of the Warsaw Pact troops on the PoHsh- 
Czechoslovak border, no doubt intended to recall events in Hungary 
in 1956, were too conspicuous to be accepted at face value. Their 
movement into Czechoslovakia was, on this analysis, an agreed 
measure of assistance to the regime by the bloc, as indeed the 
Czechoslovak party maintained at the time." It was also an opportu- 
nity to season and rehearse troops from bloc countries in a "punitive" 
intervention in another communist country to stabilize its regime. 
Significantly, troops from those countries which had been most 
rebellious in the past (Poland, Hungary, and East Germany) were used 
in Czechoslovakia. But the primary purpose the intervention served 
was to drive home the lesson throughout Eastern Europe and the 
communist world that the United States and NATO were powerless to 
intervene and that internal opposition in Czechoslovakia or any other 
communist country would be crushed. 



Conclusions 

Given that the Czechoslovak leaders took part in the formulation of 
the new, long-range bloc policy between 1958 and 1960; given that 
their security and intelligence services were involved in the planning 
and preparation of activist political disinformation operations in 
support of this policy; given the indications that the economic reforms 
of Sik and others were planned from 1963 onward under the Novotny 
regime; given the indications that the Czechoslovak writers, in 
demanding "democratization," were not acting 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 221 

spontaneously, but in accordance with their party role under Hen- 
drych's guidance; given the anomalies in the "democratization" 
process and in the alleged struggle between "progressives" and "con- 
servatives" led respectively by Dubcek and Novotny, the inescapable 
conclusion is that the "quiet revolution" was a controlled operation 
planned and conducted by the party apparatus itself with the benefit of 
recent parallel Soviet experience in the preparation of a false 
opposition movement. It cannot, of course, be denied that some 
political and economic reforms were carried out in 1968, but it would 
be erroneous to consider them either as spontaneous or as far-reaching 
and democratic, as the communist leaders made them out to be. They 
were calculated readjustments made on the initiative and under the 
control of the party, which "had in hand the controls of command." 
Goldstuecker, one of the leading figures in "democratization," put it 
bluntly to Salomon: "We have tried to develop an effective control of 
power from within our own system."'' 

The "quiet revolution" was an effective demonstration of the new, 
creative leading role of the party working through its economists, 
historians, writers, rehabilitated members, and alleged "progressives" 
and using the techniques of political action and disinformation. It was 
radically unlike the spontaneous Hungarian revolution. It represented 
a further stage in the extension of controlled disinformation operations 
throughout the bloc to serve the purposes of long-range policy and 
strategy. It had some purely local, Czechoslovak elements. Among 
these were, for example, the exposure of the Jan Masaryk affair {the 
whole story of which has not yet been told), the acceptance of 
noncommunist parties (controlled effectively by the regime), and the 
alleged "removal" of Novotny (more likely a natural retirement, as in 
Khrushchev's case, for reasons of age or health). 



Communist Gains and Losses from "Democratization" 

Undoubtedly the Soviet government and the bloc as a whole lost 
prestige through their so-called intervention in Czechoslovakia. But 
the immediate and future advantages in terms of long-range bloc 
policy and strategy definitely outweighed the losses. 



222 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Before 1968 there were acute problems in Czechoslovakia, which 
demanded solutions. The communist party, the regime, and its 
institutions were discredited and unpopular; there was a need for 
change in the party leadership; there was internal and external 
opposition to the regime; there was discontent among the intellectuals 
and formerly imprisoned party members; there was Slovak resentment 
at Czech domination; the unattractive stigma of the crushing of 
democracy in February 1948 still attached to communists in Western 
Europe and hampered their electoral collaboration with hberals and 
socialists. 

With the help and support of the leaders of the other bloc regimes, 
the Czechoslovak leaders developed communist solutions to these 
problems through calculated and controlled "democratization." They 
succeeded in revitalizing the party, the regime, and its institutions and 
in giving them a new, more democratic image. They solved the 
succession problem without convulsions or a power struggle. They 
committed the younger party leaders to the continuation of the long- 
range policy and the strengthening of strategic coordination within the 
Warsaw Pact.''^ In the "quiet revolution" they demonstrated their long- 
range approach to the selection and training of future leaders and to 
rotation of the candidates to create a reservoir of experience. They 
developed their own Czechoslovak version of the disinformation on 
de-Stalinization and power struggles used already by the Soviet, 
Chinese, and Yugoslav parties. They succeeded in confusing and, 
partially, in neutralizing internal and external opposition to the 
regime.'^ They neutralized discontent among the intellectuals by 
involving them as collaborators in their policy. They neutralized the 
discontent of the imprisoned party members by rehabilitating them 
and giving them leading roles. They neutralized Slovak discontent by 
bringing forward Slovaks (Dubcek and Husak) as party leaders of 
Czechoslovakia and by increasing investment in the Slovak economy. 

In short, the Czechoslovak communist leaders succeeded in pre- 
serving and in fact strengthening the power and effectiveness of the 
regime while at the same time giving it a new image. Dubcek was 
firmly identified at home and abroad with a new brand of "socialism 
with a human face," acceptable to Western social democrats and 
liberals. 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 223 

Possible Implications of "Democratization" for the West 

The Soviet, Czechoslovak, and bloc communist leaders and strate- 
gists gained valuable experience and insight into Western reactions to 
"democratization" in Czechoslovakia The Dubcek government, 
communist though it was, rapidly acquired a radically new image in 
the West. It was perceived not as an oppressive, totalitarian regime, 
tainted by the stigma of February 1948 and deserving to be scorned 
and shunned on that account, but as the harbinger of a new era of 
"socialism with a human face," deserving to be encouraged and 
supported by all currents of opinion. The Dubcek brand of 
communism deprived both conservatives and the moderate left of the 
argument that the acquisition of power by communist parties in 
Western Europe or elsewhere would lead automatically to the 
extinction of democracy as it did in Czechoslovakia in 1948. At the 
same time it provided West European communist parties in particular 
with a powerful new propaganda weapon and a new basis for 
establishing united fronts with socialist parties in common opposition 
to capitalism and conservativism. In this context it should be 
remembered that the international organ of the communist parties. The 
World Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, is based 
on and is published in the Czechoslovak capital. 

In the short term Dubcek's departure was a setback for West 
European communist parties; under Husak, the pendulum appeared to 
have swung back toward a more orthodox and traditional brand of 
communism. Nevertheless, the Dubcek government aroused great 
Western expectations of possible future political evolution in Eastern 
Europe and the Soviet Union and the emergence of new brands of 
communism. Indeed, it can be confidently expected that the 
experiment will be repeated both in Czechoslovakia (with or without 
Dubcek) and on a broader scale in the final stage of the bloc's long- 
range policy. Future "Prague springs" could well bring electoral 
victory for one or more West European communist parties. Provided 
those parties conform to the Dubcek brand of communism, there is a 
real danger that socialist, moderate, and conservative opinion, failing 
to realize the true nature and strategic motives of Dubcek's 
communism, will accept the situation with 



224 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

all its attendant dangers and potential consequences. 

It would be worthwhile for the West to study the scenario and techniques 
of the Czechoslovak experiment so as not to be taken in again as it was in 
1968. The scenario could well be repeated, in essence, although with local 
variations. Its main constituents are therefore recapitulated here: 

• A revival of de-Stalinization, together with publication abroad of the 
memoirs of former party and other political prisoners. 

• Subsequent publication of these memoirs in the home country and of 
new exposures and revelations about the old regime, especially through the 
medium of "prison literature." 

• Rehabilitation of former party leaders. 

• Stories of a struggle for power behind the scenes in the party leadership, 
and the emergence of "progressive" and "hberal" leaders. 

• A writers' congress, with demands for greater freedom and the abolition 
of censorship. 

• Production of controversial television programs, films, and novels. 

• Emphasis on "sociahst legality" and "socialist democracy"; emphasis on 
federalism rather than on centralism (in relation to Slovakia). 

• Expansion of commercial freedom and an increased role for economic 
and workers' councils and trade unions. 

• Suppression of censorship in the press, radio, and television, with 
greater freedom for cultural and artistic activity. 

• Formation of controlled noncommunist parties and political clubs and 
organizations, such as Club 231. 

• Reunions of political prisoners. 

• Adoption of new laws on rehabilitation. 

• Controlled student demonstrations. . 

• Secret meetings of the Central Committee and the choice of new, 
"progressive" leaders. 



Objectives of the "Quiet Revolution" 

The staging of the "quiet revolution" and its reversal served a wide variety 
of strategic and tactical objectives. They can be summarized thus: 



"DEMOCRATIZATION" IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 225 

• To give a new, democratic image to the party, its institutions, and its 
leaders, and to increase thereby their influence, prestige, and popular appeal. 

• To revitalize the party, the regime, and institutions — such as the 
National Front, the trade unions, press, and parliament — and to make them 
effective organs of power and control in the political and economic hfe of the 
country. 

• To avoid a genuine crisis and popular revolt by provoking an artificial, 
controlled crisis through coordinated action by the party, the security 
services, the intellectuals, trade unions, and other mass organizations. 

• To prevent the controlled crisis from becoming uncontrolled by the 
introduction of bloc troops into Czechoslovakia in a move planned with and 
agreed to in advance by the Czechoslovak leaders. 

• To demonstrate the uselessness of opposition and the powerlessness of 
NATO and the United States to intervene. 

• To provoke genuine internal and external opposition into exposing 
itself, and thereafter to neutrahze or hquidate such opposition (the regime 
may well have found it convenient to get rid of a number of genuine 
anticommunists by allowing freedom of travel for a while). 

• To rehearse the use of Warsaw Pact troops in "stabilizing" a Warsaw 
Pact country in case the need should arise to use them in another "indepen- 
dent" communist state, such as Romania, Albania, or Yugoslavia. 

• To secure a smooth succession from the older to the younger generation 
of communist leaders. 

• To ensure the unbreakable identification of the younger party leaders 
with, and their total personal commitment to, the long-range bloc pohcy 
initiated by the older generation. 

• To provide the younger leaders with experience in handhng controlled 
pohtical developments. 

• To increase their prestige at home and abroad as independent, national 
democratic leaders. 

• To bridge the gap between the older and younger generations, and to 
appeal to the national sentiments of the younger generation in particular. 

• To support and amplify bloc strategic disinformation on political 
evolution, the decay of ideology, the emergence of new brands of commu- 
nism, and the disintegration of the bloc into independent, national regimes. 

• To give the Romanian and Yugoslav regimes an opportunity to dem- 



226 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

onstrate their independence by criticizing the occupation of Czechoslovakia. 

• To do the same for certain West European communist parties. 

• To enable those parties to increase their electoral appeal by identifying 
themselves with "socialism with a human face." 

• To arouse sentiment against military pacts in Europe. 

• To increase pressure in the West for the convening of a conference on 
security in Europe, the communist interest in which is to promote the 
dissolution of military pacts, the creation of a neutral, socialist Europe, and 
the withdrawal of the American mihtary presence. 

• To provide grounds for the future discrediting of Western statesmen 
(especially conservatives) and of Western diplomatic and intelligence ser- 
vices by misleading them over "democratization" and by falsifying their 
assessments through the unexpected invasion of Czechoslovakia. 

• To rehearse and gain experience for the repetition of "democratization" 
in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, or elsewhere in Eastern Europe during 
the final phase of the long-range policy of the bloc. 



20 



The Second Disinformation Operation: 
The "Evolution" of the Soviet Regime, 
Part Two: The "Dissident" Movement 



Western hopes and expectations of liberalization in the Soviet 
Union, aroused by the disinformation of the early 1960s, were largely 
dashed by Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, which 
underlined the return to a form of neo-Stalinism in the Soviet Union 
associated with the leadership of Brezhnev. But this new brand of 
Stalinism seemed unable either to conceal or control the forces of 
internal opposition. The West witnessed the emergence not just of 
individual dissidents, but of an entire "dissident movement" with an 
unofficial leader in the person of Academician Andrey Sakharov and 
with a marked capacity to survive persecution by the regime and 
maintain communication with the West. The phenomenon can be 
understood only in the light of past history and the new methodology. 

Genuine opposition to the communist system in the Soviet Union in 
the period 1958-60, when the new long-range policy and the KGB's 
new political role were being worked out, was deep-seated and 
intense. Dissatisfaction was widespread among workers, collective 
farmers, priests, and intellectuals. It was particularly strong among 
Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Jewish nationalists. The 
opposition rejected the Soviet regime in principle. Its members did not 
believe in the possibility of "evolution"; they firmly believed that 
freedom could come only through a new revolution, the overthrow of 
the regime, and the dissolution of the communist party. They did not 
call themselves dissidents nor were they described as such by the 
regime. They were known in KGB and party documents as "enemies 
of the people." 

227 



228 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The KGB was capable of preventing and neutralizing contacts 
between the West and genuine opponents of the regime; pubhcation of 
material regarded as inimical to Soviet interests was effectively 
suppressed. Two examples, known to the author in 1961, illustrate the 
point. In that year a prominent Soviet author and journaHst, V. 
Grossman, wrote an anti-Soviet book and tried to have it published 
abroad. The idea conveyed by the book was that the main fault in the 
Soviet leadership was not the cult of Stalin, but the cult of Lenin and 
his works. Grossman handed his manuscript to the former Swedish 
ambassador and dean of the Moscow diplomatic corps, Sulman. The 
KGB learned of this, and a special operational group was set up on 
Shelepin's instructions to use any available means to recover the 
manuscript. The Politburo was concerned at the effect it might have 
on foreign communist parties if it was published abroad, especially at 
a time when the new long-range policy had recently been adopted. 
Within days the manuscript was delivered by Shelepin to the 
Politburo. The West knew nothing of the affair at the time. 

In the same year a prominent scientist named Zagormister, a former 
Soviet deputy minister of geology who had access to important secret 
information on the status of nuclear questions in the Soviet Union, 
requested political asylum from the Israeli embassy in Helsinki while 
on a visit to Finland. His request was refused, and he was referred to 
the Finnish police. Through their secret sources in Finland, the KGB 
residency in Helsinki received a report that a prominent Soviet official 
had tried to defect to the West and had asked the Finnish authorities 
for help. The KGB intervened. Zagormister was handed over to the 
Soviet consul, Sergeyev, a KGB officer, who returned him to the 
Soviet Union in an embassy car. Zagormister was interrogated by the 
KGB in Moscow. He died of a heart attack when he was shown a copy 
of his conversation with the Finnish police. Again, nothing was known 
or published about this tragic incident in the Western press. 

The serious challenge to the regime from the real opposition 
required special measures. The preparations made by the Central 
Committee and the KGB to deal with this and other problems have 
been described. They were based on the techniques of political 
provocation and prophylaxis used with success by Dzerzhinskiy in the 
1920s. 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 229 

Briefly, Dzerzhinskiy's GPU, faced with the problem of a strong internal 
opposition supported and exploited by emigres and Western governments, 
created a false opposition movement known as the Trust, which it used to 
expose, confuse, and neutrahze genuine internal and external opposition. By 
tricking the emigres and Western inteUigence services into supporting the 
Trust, they effectively isolated the genuine internal opposition from the 
outside world. Furthermore, the successful projection through the Trust of a 
false image of the Soviet regime in evolution toward a more conventional 
national European system helped the Soviet leaders to achieve their 
diplomatic aims, such as recognition by and closer relations with the major 
European powers and China, the acquisition of Western economic expertise, 
and, through the Treaty of Rapallo, the supply of military aid by Germany. 

Applying the new methodology to the emergence of the present dissident 
movement means taking into account: 

• All the evidence of a return to Dzerzhinskiy's techniques of political 
provocation and disinformation, following the weakness and evolution 
pattern and, in particular, the known advocacy of such methods by Miro-nov 
and Shelepin. 

• The specific instructions given by Mironov and Shelepin to the KGB in 
1959 to use its expanded intelligence potential among scientists, writers, and 
other intellectuals for political purposes and to prepare political operations 
and experiments aimed at dissolving internal opposition in the Soviet Union. 

• The strategic role played by KGB agents of influence among Soviet 
scientists in the 1960s in promoting the idea of common interests between the 
Soviet Union and the United States. 

• The debate in the 1960s between "liberal" and "conservative" writers 
inspired and controlled by the KGB through its agents Tvardovskiy and 
Kochetov. 

• The known assets of the KGB among scientists, writers, and other 
intellectuals in 1960 and the likelihood of their further expansion since then. 

• The prominence of scientists and writers in the dissident movement. 

If all these factors are kept in mind, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
the dissident movement as a whole is a KGB -controlled 



230 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

false opposition movement analogous to the Trust and that many of its 
leading members are active and willing collaborators with the Central 
Committee and the KGB. Only if this interpretation is accepted is it 
possible to explain why a totalitarian, neo-Stalinist regime should 
allow a degree of Western contact with, and freedom of movement to, 
prominent "opposition" figures. It is, of course, more than likely that 
some of the individual rank and file dissidents are honest people who 
have become involved in the movement without realizing how they 
will be exploited and eventually victimized. The movement would not 
be fulfilling its internal function if it did not succeed in attracting 
innocents. 

The main apparent purpose of the movement is to strive for 
democratization, human rights, and the fulfillment of the Helsinki 
agreements. The overall impression created in the West is that of a 
deep-rooted, spontaneous struggle between the regime's conservative 
supporters and Hberal scientists, writers, and other intellectuals. 
Intense Western indignation, sympathy, and support are naturally 
aroused by news that "dissidents" like Sakharov are being harrassed, 
arrested, and sentenced to imprisonment or exile without trial. 
Emotions are further heightened by the deliberately engineered 
connection between the problems of Soviet dissidents and those of 
Soviet Jews. It is perhaps the emotionialism of the West's response 
that clouds perception of the fact that much of Western knowledge of 
the dissident movement is acquired by courtesy of the Soviet 
authorities. 

The growth of the dissident movement is often seen as one of the 
fruits of East -West detente in the 1960s. Despite the present apparent 
persecution of dissidents, long-term Western hopes and expectations 
of a future liberalization of the Soviet regime have come to be pinned 
on the eventual success of their "heroic struggle." In fact both the 
dissident movement and the conspicuous harrass-ment of it by the 
Soviet authorities are largely artificial, and both form part of the 
dehberate stage-setting for the final phase of long-range bloc poHcy. 
This may be expected to begin soon after Brezhnev's disappearance 
from the political scene, and is likely to include a spurious 
liberalization of the regime rendered plausible by the "rehabilitation" 
of the present dissident leaders. 

The parallel between the dissident movement and the Trust is not of 
course exact. World conditions changed profoundly in the 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 231 

fifty years between them. In the 1920s Lenin, Dzerzhinskiy, and the 
GPU were fighting for the survival of communism in one country. In 
the 1960s and 1970s dissidence of different kinds came to be 
exploited throughout the communist bloc, conspicuously in 
Czechoslovakia in 1968. Dissident movements are discernible else- 
where in Eastern Europe and even in China. 

The present chapter will be confined to an examination of the 
unofficial dissident leader, Sakharov, now living in internal exile in 
the city of Gor'kiy. 



Sakharov 

Sakharov is a scientist of distinction whose past services to the 
Soviet regime in the development of nuclear weapons are officially 
recognized. As one of the chief scientific advisers to the Soviet 
government, he would have had access to the most sensitive nuclear 
secrets and an insight into Soviet strategy and Soviet relations in the 
nuclear field with other communist states, including China. It is 
inconceivable that, if he were seriously at odds with the regime and 
therefore a security risk, he would have been given the opportunities 
he has had to maintain contact with Western friends and colleagues. 
Even from his "exile" in Gor'kiy, he is able to convey his views to the 
West through intermediaries and correspondence. The only conclusion 
consistent with these facts is that Sakharov is still a loyal servant of 
his regime, whose role is now that of a senior disinformation 
spokesman for the Soviet strategists. 

The theme of "common interests" between East and West, de- 
veloped by Soviet agents of influence in the 1960s, was expanded 
after 1968, most notably in Sakharov's writings, into the concept of 
"convergence" between the communist and noncommunist systems. 

Before examining Sakharov's statements, brief reference must be 
made to the Change of Signposts movements described above. The 
adherents of this movement asserted that the Soviet regime was 
evolving from an ideological into a conventional, national, capitalistic 
state. Therefore, they argued. White Russian emigres should not 
struggle against the Soviet regime, but should cooperate with it in 
order to encourage the development of these trends. The 



232 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

movement had a significant effect both on the emigres and on the 
Western governments with which they were in touch, and it created 
favorable conditions for the regime to win Western diplomatic 
recognition and economic help. But the adherents of the Change of 
Signposts movement were mistaken. Diplomatic recognition and 
economic help did not result in the evolution of the Soviet Union into 
a conventional, capitalistic, national state. On the contrary, the Soviet 
regime emerged from the 1920s stronger, more aggressive, and more 
ideological than before. The adherents of the Change of Signposts 
movement were exposed as bankrupt prophets. 

Western convergence theorists are unwittingly and naively ac- 
cepting basically the same disinformation message as the former 
adherents of the Change of Signposts movement, namely that the 
influence of communist ideology is in decline, that communist re- 
gimes are coming closer to the Western model, and that there are 
serious possibilities of further changes in them that will prove 
favorable to Western interests. 

In the 1920s the message was conveyed by the regime through the 
emigre movement: from 1958 onward, Soviet scientists were used. In 
the 1920s the message emphasized the natural tendency of the Soviet 
regime to move away from ideology toward a capitalist system. In the 
1960s the arguments were rather different. Exponents of convergence 
argued that, under the influence of the technological revolution, the 
Soviet Union was developing structural similarities with the West; 
these structural similarities provided a basis for asserting the existence 
of common interests between the different systems. Further grounds 
for asserting the existence of common interests stemmed from the 
development of nuclear weapons and the necessity of avoiding East- 
West nuclear conflict. Also, it was argued in the 1960s that the 
existence of Sino-Soviet differences and Soviet moderation in 
comparison with Chinese communist militancy created a common 
interest between the Soviet Union and the West in resisting the 
"Yellow Peril" from the East. 

Since the notion of genuine evolution in the communist world is 
unfounded, there are no grounds for asserting that it is converging 
with the West. And since alleged Sino-Soviet differences are also the 
product of joint Sino-Soviet disinformation, there is no basis for 
asserting the existence of common interests between the West and 
either the Soviet Union or China against the other. The notions 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 233 

of convergence and common interests have both been shaped by 
communist disinformation in the interests of long-range communist 
policy. Western convergence theories are themselves built largely on 
the acceptance at face value of communist disinformation. 

Western desire for convergence between the communist and 
noncommunist systems, is, by and large, sincere. There is genuine, 
intense, and legitimate concern about the avoidance of an East- West 
nuclear conflict. There is therefore a Western predisposition to accept 
the authenticity of Sakharov's dissent as expressed, for example, in his 
treatise, allegedly circulated privately in the Soviet Union and 
published unofficially in the West under the title Progress, 
Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, and in the later book Sakharov 
Speaks. Acceptance of spurious notions of convergence has in fact 
been widespread in the West. Acceptance of the authenticity of 
fabricated Sino-Soviet disagreements has been almost universal. The 
false notions inspired by these deceptions aroused expectations among 
Western policymakers and the general public of a serious 
improvement in relations between the Soviet Union and the West in 
the 1960s and China and the West in the 1970s. Whether Western 
exponents of convergence realized it or not — and most did not — their 
attitudes were shaped by the bloc and its disinformation effort, whose 
main objective was to create favorable conditions for the achievement 
of the strategic objectives of the bloc's long-range policy. 

The main lines of Sakharov's reasoning on convergence are set out 
in Convergence of Communism and Capitalism — The Soviet View 
and in Sakharov Speaks." In them Sakharov is concerned about the 
annihilation of humanity, and therefore offers a "better alternative." 
Then he divides present and future world developments into several 
overlapping stages. In the first stage, "a growing ideological struggle 
in the socialist countries between Stalinist and Maoist forces, on the 
one hand, and the realistic forces of leftist Leninist Communist (and 
leftist Westerners), on the other, will lead to a deep ideological split 
on an international, national and intraparty scale." According to 
Sakharov, "In the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, this 
process will lead first to a multiparty system (here and there) and to 
acute ideological struggle and discussions, and then to the ideological 
victory of the realists, affirming the policy of increasing peaceful co- 
existence, strengthen- 



234 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

ing democracy, and expanding economic reforms (1960-1980)."^ The 
dates "reflect the most optimistic unrolling of events." 

Sakharov continues, "In the second stage, persistent demands for 
social progress and peaceful co-existence in the United States and 
other capitalist countries, and pressure exerted by the example of the 
socialist countries and by internal progressive forces {the working 
class and the intelligentsia), will lead to the victory of the leftist 
reformist wing of the bourgeoisie, which will begin to implement a 
programme of rapprochement (convergence) with socialism, i.e., 
social progress, peaceful co-existence, and collaboration with 
socialism on a world scale and changes in the structure of ownership. 
This phase includes an expanded role for the intelligentsia and an 
attack on the forces of racism and militarism ( 1 972-85). 

"In the third stage, the Soviet Union and the United States, having 
overcome their alienation, solve the problem of saving the poorer half 
of the world. ... At the same time disarmament will proceed (1972-90). 

"In the fourth stage, the socialist convergence will reduce differ- 
ences in social structure, promote intellectual freedom, science, and 
economic progress, and lead to the creation of a world government 
and the smoothing of national contradictions (1980-2000)." 

There can be no criticism of Sakharov for his concern over the 
possibility of nuclear conflict. What is disturbing is that his reasoning 
on convergence goes further than the Western theories. He envisages 
convergence on communist terms at the expense of the West. From his 
reasoning it is obvious that he accepts the Sino-Soviet split as genuine 
in itself and as a genuine catalyst for the realignment of world forces. 

To understand the true meaning of Sakharov's statements, his role 
must be examined in the light of Shelepin's report and the long-range 
policy adopted in 1958-60, the period in which Sakharov began to 
emerge as a public figure in the Soviet Union. As a leading 
spokesman of the so-called-dissident movement, he has all the ap- 
pearances of a political provocateur. If he were a genuine dissenter, he 
would not have had the opportunities he has had to make contact with 
Western friends and colleagues. Furthermore, as an academician 
working in the nuclear field, he would have enjoyed access at the 
policymaking level to debates on nuclear strategy at the 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 235 

time when the new long-range pohcy and the use of disinformation 
were being launched. He would have known the true state of Sino- 
Soviet relations in the nuclear, as in other, fields. Given the all- 
embracing character of the disinformation program, any pronounce- 
ment by a Soviet scientist on strategic issues must be regarded as 
having been made on the regime's instructions. 

Moreover, Sakharov would have known that liberalization in the 
Soviet Union would eventually come not in the way he suggests, as a 
spontaneous development, but in accordance with a blueprint worked 
out carefully in advance by the regime. If he had been a genuine 
dissenter, he would have exposed the truth. That he has not done so 
points to the conclusion that he is acting secretly as a spokesman for 
the regime chosen for the task because of the natural strength of his 
appeal to Western scientists and liberals. 

Sakharov predicts changes in the Soviet Union and other socialist 
countries. These changes will be revealed in the appearance of a 
"multiparty system here and there" and in ideological discussions 
between "Stalinists" and "realists," or "Leninists." In this struggle 
Sakharov predicts victory for the reahsts (the Leninists) who, accord- 
ing to him, will affirm the "policy of increasing peaceful coexistence, 
strengthening democracy, and expanding economic reforms." These 
future changes in the Soviet system are seen by Sakharov as a 
continuation of present political developments and economic reforms. 

Reading Sakharov's predictions as the product of Soviet disinfor- 
mation, the conclusion can be drawn that some of his pronouncements 
reflect the possible future course of communist actions and their 
timing. Further political and economic reforms are therefore to be 
expected in the bloc, and they will again be used for disinformation 
purposes. These reforms will display an alleged "increase in 
democracy" and other superficial resemblances to Western systems 
and will be accompanied by further demonstrations of alleged Sino- 
Soviet conflict. From 1980 onward an "expansion of democracy" and 
the appearance of a so-called multiparty system can be expected in the 
Soviet Union and elsewhere in the bloc. This would be the logical 
continuation and culmination of the disinformation of the two 
previous decades and would represent the implementation inside the 
bloc of the final phase of the long-range policy. In this phase some of 
the current "dissidents" and "liberals," Hke 



236 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Sakharov himself in the Soviet Union and Dubcek in Czechoslova- 
kia — leaders who are allegedly persecuted by their regimes — can be 
expected to become the leaders of new "democratic parties" in their 
countries. Naturally they will remain under the secret guidance and 
control of their communist parties, and their emergence as the leaders 
of new parties will be regarded in the West as sensational new 
evidence of a true liberalization of communist regimes and as a new 
basis for the practical realization of convergence between the two 
systems, as predicted by Sakharov. 

Reading Sakharov's writings as disinformation and decoding his 
messages in that light, it can be predicted that the communist bloc will 
go further in its exploitation of the fictitious Sino-Soviet split, 
carrying it forward to a formal (but fictitious) break in diplomatic 
relations and more impressive hostilities than have so far occurred on 
the Sino-Soviet borders. This may well generate realignments of 
international forces that will be detrimental to Western interests and 
favorable to the long-range policy of the bloc. 

Sakharov predicts changes in the West, particularly in the United 
States, "under pressure of the sociahst states and the internal, pro- 
gressive forces" in the US and other Western countries. "The leftist 
reformist wing of the bourgeoisie" will win and will "begin to 
implement a program of rapprochement (convergence)" with 
sociahsm. Social progress and changes in the structure of ownership 
will be introduced. A "leftist reformist" element will also start 
collaboration with sociahsm on a world scale. Forced changes in the 
political and military structure will occur. During the second phase 
(1972-85), the role of the intelligentsia will be expanded and "an 
attack on the forces of racism and militarism" will be made. 

Again, reading Sakharov's predictions as disinformation, it can be 
deduced that the bloc and its political and ideological allies plan 
actions in the future to secure actual changes in the West of a kind that 
Sakharov describes. The purpose of these actions will be to achieve 
political systems in the West approaching closer to the communist 
model. The changes planned for the communist system will be 
deceptive and fictitious; those planned for the West will be real and 
actual. That is the meaning of convergence in communist language. 

It is noticeable and disturbing that Sakharov, a so-called dissident 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 237 

Soviet intellectual, in his references to US "racism and militarism" not 
only uses the normal language of communist propagandists in 
referring to the present American system, but identifies himself with 
the substance of long-range communist projections for the 
exploitation of these issues and appears to be working for their 
fulfillment. 

The most striking point about Sakharov's reasoning is his choice of 
dates, namely 1960-80, when he predicts the expansion of political 
democracy and economic reform in the socialist countries; and 1972- 
85, when he predicts forced changes in the US political and military 
structure.^ That is to say, his dates roughly coincide with the dates of 
the adoption of the new long-range bloc poHcy in 1958-60 and the 
date for the inception of its final phase, roughly in 1980. This is no 
fortuitous coincidence, since Sakharov, the secret spokesman of the 
communist strategists and the secret advocate of their long-range 
policy, is seeking to inspire and to promote trends in Western thinking 
on convergence that will coincide with their designs. Read as 
disinformation and decoded, his predictions of convergence are 
predictions of the victory of the long-range policy of the bloc and the 
surrender of the West with the minimum of resistance. That is the true 
meaning of his "most optimistic unrolling of events." 

In essence, Sakharov's concept of convergence predicts the very 
outcome for the West about which the author of this book wishes to 
convey a warning. Sakharov sees the outcome as "optimistic" and the 
result of spontaneous developments like the Sino-Soviet split and 
"political and economic reforms" in communist countries. He desires 
this outcome. The purpose of this book is to explain its dangers for the 
West because it would not be spontaneous; it would be the result of 
the implementation of the 1958-60 bloc policy in which calculated use 
is made of fictitious splits and fraudulent evolution and reform 
promoted with the witting or unwitting help of Soviet scientists and 
intellectuals like Sakharov and others. 

The official communist attitude toward convergence theories is 
described in Convergence of Communism and Capitalism — The 
Soviet View. According to this book the Soviets attack convergence 
theories as expressed both by Western experts and by Sakharov. The 
Soviet leaders describe convergence as an "insidious form of Western 
subversion" and as a "new 'positive' form of anti-communism." 



238 NEW LIES EOR OLD 

The Soviets say that the dissemination of ideas of convergence is 
elevated by the Western countries "to the level of government policy." 
In the Soviet view, convergence theories have two aims: One is to 
"renovate" capitalism; the second is to portray "a softening or 
weakening of communism." In other words, the Soviets see the first 
aim as to defend capitalism and the second as an effort to subvert 
communism. The Soviets single out for criticism theories of "bridge- 
building" and theories of "industrial" and "post-industrial" society and 
their proponents, Fourastie, Aron, Galbraith, Mar-cuse, Kahn, 
Brzezinski, Leonhard, Bell, and others. Bell is singled out for his 
theories on the similarities in the changes in the armed forces of 
opposing systems under the influence of the scientific-technological 
revolution. The Soviets show concern at the effects of convergence 
theories on Soviet youth and scientists and other intellectuals. 
Sakharov is given as an example of someone who has fallen under the 
spell of Western convergence theories and has later "advanced his 
own theories of rapprochement between the two systems." Another 
physicist, Kapitsa, is mentioned as someone who "subscribed to a 
number of the views voiced by Sakharov."^ 

There is a chapter in Convergence of Communism and Capital- 
ism — The Soviet View with the intriguing title "Moscow's Use of 
Convergence for Its Own Ends." The authors say that the Soviet 
leaders find the concept of convergence useful as the point of depar- 
ture "for the 'rejuvenation' of ideological education in the Soviet 
Union." Party workers concerned with doctrine and ideology are 
urged to refute "the new myths of imperialist propaganda" and to raise 
"to higher levels understanding of the 'richness and eternal validity' of 
Marxism-Leninism." The authors say that convergence theories 
provide a "foil against which to stimulate and add . . . zest" to Soviet 
ideological campaigns. More importantly, they provide "a cutting 
edge" to Moscow's contention that "the USSR continues under siege 
by an implacable and dangerous enemy despite the Soviet claims that 
'capitalist encirclement' is a thing of the past and . . . that the balance 
of world forces has irrevocably shifted in favor of the USSR." 

American propaganda and intelligence agencies and the US em- 
bassy in Moscow have all been attacked by the KGB in the Soviet 
press for spreading ideas on convergence and for using tourism and 
scientific and technological exchanges for the purpose of sub- 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 239 

verting Soviet citizens, especially scientists and young people. This 
"threat" to the security of the Soviet system has been exploited to 
justify the intensification by the regime of its controls over Soviet 
society. The Soviet attack on convergence has been linked with the 
attacks on Ukrainian nationalists, Zionists, and religious groups in the 
Soviet Union and abroad. According to the authors, Soviet analysts 
distinguish, among the proponents of convergence theories, between 
"enemies," who use the concept of convergence for subversive 
purposes, and "idealists," who include prominent scientists, partisans 
of peace, and "opponents of militarism." The "idealists," among whom 
Professor Galbraith figures prominently, are seen by the Soviets as 
"offering promising targets" for Soviet influence. 

Since the authors of Convergence of Communism and Capitalism — 
The Soviet View do not take into account either the use made of 
disinformation in the past or the adoption of the new bloc policy in 
1958-60 or the new political and disinformation role assigned to 
Soviet scientists at that time, their explanation of the use of 
convergence theories in current Soviet policy is incomplete. The real 
meaning of attacks on convergence by the Soviet leaders can be 
understood more fully in the light of the historical background, the 
analysis of Sakharov's statements on convergence given above, and 
the conclusion that he acts as a channel for Soviet disinformation and 
influence. 

From the mid-1960s onward the communist regimes stepped up the 
ideological indoctrination of their own populations in preparation for 
entry into the final phase of policy in about 1980. There was a 
renewed campaign of ideological and militaristic indoctrination in the 
Soviet Union in 1966 — 67 at the same time as, and similar in content 
to, the Cultural Revolution in China and the attack on 
"counterrevolution" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. While intensifying 
their own program of indoctrination, the communist leaders sought to 
protect their populations from the negative influence of Western ideas 
and the spillover of their own disinformation. In helping to shape 
Western convergence theories, they had cast a potential boomerang 
against the West and took steps to prevent it rebounding on their own 
people. At the same time, it offered them good opportunities "to 
expose and attack the ideological subversion and tricks of Western 
propaganda." There was nothing new in this technique. It was a 
typical instance of political provoca- 



240 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

tion. At the same time as the ideas of the Change of Signposts 
movement were shaped by Soviet disinformation in the 1920s, they 
were attacked by Soviet propagandists as a Western ideological 
subversion. The movement was actively exploited for the suppression 
of internal opposition. The difference between then and now is in the 
broader scope and greater sophistication of such provocations and the 
fact that they are practiced by the whole communist bloc. 

Soviet attacks on convergence, therefore, have, first, a defensive 
and domestic purpose. Second, they serve the strategic objectives of 
foreign policy. They help to build up belief in these theories in the 
West as a sound and effective weapon for dealing with the communist 
challenge. The communist strategists hope and expect that their 
criticisms of convergence will be interpreted in the West as evidence 
of their own concern at the efficacy and impact of such theories on 
their own regimes and on their scientists in particular. They intend 
that such criticisms should induce Western propagandists to continue 
and intensify their efforts to advance convergence theories rather than 
divert their efforts to less irrational and potentially more dangerous 
themes. 

Third, Soviet criticism of Sakharov and convergence may be seen 
as a Soviet effort to build up the credibility in the West of Sakharov 
and his like as genuine opponents and martyrs of the current Soviet 
system who are expressing genuine dissent. By disguising convergence 
as an "opposition" doctrine, the Soviets can gain greater strategic 
impact in the West for their concept of convergence — that is to say, to 
have convergence on their terms. 

In the light of the 1958-60 bloc policy and the use of disinforma- 
tion to support it, it can be seen that notions of common interest and 
convergence have not developed spontaneously in the West, but are 
the reflections and results of communist disinformation operations 
whose influence has unwittingly been absorbed by Western exponents 
of these ideas. Convergence theories are unrealistic because they lack 
foundations. The impressions that the influence of ideology is 
declining, that the Soviet Union is evolving from an ideological into a 
conventional national state, that there is a struggle between the Soviet 
Union and Communist China, and that the communist bloc is 
disintegrating are all false. These impressions are the product of bloc 
disinformation operations that have 



THE "DISSIDENT" MOVEMENT 241 

successfully hidden the true situation. Since 1958-60, communist 
ideology in the communist countries has been revived, restored, and 
intensified; the communist bureaucracy has been given a new, 
constructive purpose; real and effective, but secret, coordination 
between the communist countries, especially between the Soviet 
Union and China, has been practiced on the basis of the long-range 
policy. Whether intended to or not. Western convergence theories 
effectively contribute to the successful fulfillment of this policy. They 
promote detente, and thereby help the communist bloc to acquire 
advanced technology from the West and to shift the balance of power 
in communist favor. They provide an unsound basis for a rational 
Western response to the increasing communist political and military 
threat. They promote the political and ideological disarmament of the 
West. They divert Western diplomatic effort from the reinforcement 
of Western anticommunist alliances toward illusory and unreahstic 
realignments with one or another communist state. They create 
exaggerated expectations in the West about the possibilities of 
accommodation with the communist world. They are laying a basis for 
destroying Western morale and public confidence in those Western 
statesmen, diplomats, and academics who have expounded theories 
based on common interests and convergence and who will be exposed 
as bankrupt prophets when the notion of convergence is exploded. 
Such has been the success of the spurious notion of convergence in the 
present phase of long-range policy that new Sakharovs and new 
variations of convergence theory may confidently be expected to 
appear in the third and final phase. 



Objectives of Disinformation on "Dissidence" 

The creation of a false, controlled opposition movement like the 
dissident movement serves internal and external strategic purposes. 
Internally it provides a vehicle for the eventual false liberalization of a 
communist regime; it provokes some would-be opposition elements to 
expose themselves to counteraction, and others are driven to 
conformity or despair. Externally, "dissidents" can act as vehicles for 
a variety of disinformation themes on the subject of the evolution of 
the communist system. A well-advertised wave 



242 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

of persecution of dissidents, partly genuine and partly spurious, 
generates Western sympathy for, and vulnerable alignments with, 
those who are secret creatures of the regime. It sets the scene for an 
eventual dramatic "liberalization" of the system by heightening the 
contrast between neo-Stalinism and future "socialism with a human 
face." It creates a cadre of figures who are well known in the West and 
who can be used in the future as the leaders and supporters of a 
"multiparty system" under communism. "Dissident" trade unions and 
intellectuals can be used to promote solidarity with their Western 
counterparts and engage them in joint campaigns for disarmament and 
the reform of Western "military -industrial complexes." In the long run 
the Western individuals and groups involved will face the choice of 
admitting that their support for dissidents was mistaken or accepting 
that communism has undergone a radical change, making 
"convergence" an acceptable, and perhaps desirable, prospect. 



21 



The Eighth Disinformation Operation: 

Continuing Eruocommunist 

Contacts with the Soviets — 

The New Interpretation of 

Eurocommunism 



IN THE mid-1970s a display of polemics between the CPSU on the 
one hand and the French, Italian, Spanish, and to a lesser extent, 
the British Communist parties on the other seemed to indicate the 
emergence of a new brand of communism in Western Europe whose 
salient characteristic was independence of the Soviet Union. The new 
tendency came to be known as Eurocommunism. 

The idea that Eurocommunism is a tactical and deceptive device 
adopted by the major West European communist parties to improve 
their electoral fortunes has already found expression in the West, 
notably in the paper The Soviet Union and "Eurocommunism," by the 
distinguished British scholar Professor Leonard Schapiro.' Schapiro's 
paper also argues that, since Eurocommunism helps West European 
communist parties electorally, it serves the long-term interests of the 
Soviet Union. By drawing attention to this fact, the paper makes a 
valuable contribution. Nevertheless, since it is based on the old 
methodology, it accepts the differences between the CPSU and the 
Eurocommunist parties as genuine and continues to see the CPSU as 
striving vainly to reassert its hegemony over the European parties 
concerned. Analysis of Eurocommunism in the light of the new 
methodology strongly suggests that this is not so, that the 
phenomenon represents a further extension of the strategic 
disinformation program from bloc to nonbloc parties and follows a 
pattern similar to earlier operations emphasising the national 
independence of certain bloc parties. If so, several nonbloc communist 
party leaders have been made full partners in a disinfor- 

243 



244 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

mation operation in support of long-range communist policy and 
international strategy. The new analysis of Eurocommunism, unlike the old. 
illuminates the role that Eurocommunism may be expected to play in the 
final phase of the policy in the 1980s when "democratization," on the pattern 
of Czechoslovakia in 1968, is likely to be introduced on a broader scale in 
Eastern Europe. 



The Manifestations of Eurocommunism 

The principal manifestations of Eurocommunism are set out in some detail 
in Schapiro's paper. The characteristic tendencies exhibited by 
Eurocommunist parties may be summarized as follows: 

• A desire to demonstrate their emancipation from Soviet domination. 

• A critical approach toward certain Soviet repressive policies, in partic- 
ular violations of human rights and harassment of dissidents in the Soviet 
Union and Eastern Europe. 

• Rejection of the view that "proletarian internationalism" means that the 
state interests of the Soviet Union have priority over the interests of the 
international revolutionary communist movement. 

• Assertion of the right of communist parties to follow their own revolu- 
tionary policies even when they run counter to the Soviet Union's pursuit of 
detente and economic links with the United States and Western Europe. 

• Rejection of the view attributed to the CPSU that unity between 
communists and socialists is only possible if socialists renounce their adher- 
ence to "class collaboration": that is, for practical purposes, if they become 
communists. 

• Refusal to accede to alleged Soviet demands that they should denounce 
the Chinese. 

• Suggestions that an electoral victory by a communist party in Western 
Europe would be contrary to Soviet interests. 

• The abandonment of the quest for "dictatorship of the proletariat." 

• The apparent evolution of Eurocommunist parties into responsible 
national parties that, in contrast with the CPSU, accept existing parliamen- 
tary institutions and embrace humanistic and democratic principles including 
the preservation of "bourgeois freedoms" within a pluralist society. 

• Condemnation of the use of terrorism by the radical left. 



EUROCOMMUNISM 245 

• Absence of the leaders of Eurocommunist parties from, or their non- 
participation in, international gatherings organised by the CPSU. 

• Restrictions on the participation of Soviet representatives at Eurocom- 
munist gatherings. 

• Rejection of existing military blocs and espousal of the concept of a 
neutral, socialist Europe. 

• The development of links with the Yugoslav and Romanian parties. 

• The formation within some of the Eurocommunist parties of orthodox 
splinter groups loyal to Moscow. 

Since there has been some variation in the manner and extent to 
which these general characteristics have been exhibited by the parties 
concerned, some of the main points made by each of them 
individually must be briefly mentioned. 



The French Party 

In May 1975 the party produced, in a "Declaration of Freedoms," a 
disguised attack on Soviet restrictions on civil liberties. On September 
4, 1975, L'Humanite insisted that the party was committed to 
Western-style democracy. The following January the French 
communist leader Marchais said that his party's divergences with the 
CPSU over "socialist democracy" were so deep that he could not meet 
Brezhnev; he did not attend the CPSU congress in the following 
month, although his party was represented. Kirilenko, who attended 
the French party congress shortly afterward representing the CPSU, 
was denied the customary right to speak. In April 

1976 the leading French communist Kanapa criticized the Soviet 
Union for praising President Giscard's policy at a time when the 
French party was fighting it. In May, when asked what he would do 
about French nuclear missile submarines, Marchais refused to 
comment. For the previous twenty-two years his party had continu- 
ously condemned the concept of nuclear deterrence, in January 

1977 the Soviet periodical Novoye Vremya launched an attack on 
Jean Elleinstein, the deputy director of the party's research center. 
Elleinstein, who had previously written an anti-Stalinist history of the 
Soviet Union, published a new book, Le PC, in Paris 



246 NEW LIES EOR OLD 

in 1976 in which he said that there had been no Hberty in the Soviet 
Union after 1922; he regretted that his own party had not followed the 
Yugoslav example and had been slow in criticizing the lack of 
freedom in the Soviet Union. Marchais did not attend the sixtieth 
anniversary celebrations in Moscow in November 1977, but sent a 
representative. 



The Italian Party 

In March 1975 Berlinguer criticized the pro-Moscow Portuguese 
Communist party for its undemocratic Hne at the time of the abortive 
right-wing countercoup in March 1975. In August, in reply to an 
article by Konstantin Zarodov, the editor of the World Marxist 
Review, implying criticism of the Italian party for seeking political 
alliances rather than insurrection, L'Unita said that the modem Italian 
situation called for an interweaving of democracy, socialism, and 
liberty. In February 1976 Berlinguer said he wanted to see a socialist 
society that guaranteed individual as well as collective rights. He also 
said that his party was committed to Italy's existing "international 
alliance." Four months later he said more specifically that Italy should 
stay in the Atlantic Alliance, which guaranteed "socialism in liberty, 
sociahsm of a pluralist sort." 



The Spanish Party 

In February 1976 the Spanish communist leader Carrillo absented 
himself from the Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress. In the following 
January the Spanish party weekly Mundo Obrero attacked East 
European governments for their repression of "dissidents." In April 
1977 Carrillo published a book, Eurocommunismo y Estado, in which 
he maintained that, after sixty years of existence, the Soviet Union 
was still not a "workers' democracy." He advocated a pluralist society 
with "bourgeois freedoms" and a neutral, socialist Europe independent 
of either of the two military blocs. He is also on record as saying that 
United States bases would have to remain in Spain as long as Soviet 
troops remained in Eastern Europe. The book was anathematized in 
Novoye Vremya in June and July 



EUROCOMMUNISM 247 

1977. In response, Dolores Ibarruri ("La Pasionaria"), the veteran 
Spanish communist who, together with seven other communist 
leaders, had recently returned from many years of exile in the Soviet 
Union, proposed a resolution rejecting Soviet criticisms of the party; it 
was unanimously approved at an enlarged plenum of the party's 
central committee. The resolution supported Eurocommunism as the 
only way forward in the advanced countries. Carrillo attended the 
sixtieth anniversary celebrations in Moscow in November 1977, but 
was not invited to speak. He complained about this to Western 
correspondents. In April 1978 the Spanish party dropped the term 
"Leninist" from its title and incurred criticism in Pravda for so doing. 



The British Party 

In March 1976 the British communist leader McLennan told the 
Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress that his party was working for a type of 
socialism "which would guarantee personal freedom, plurality of 
parties, independence of trade unions, religious freedom, freedom of 
research [and of] cultural, artistic and scientific activities." In an 
article in the Morning Star in the following July, McLennan aligned 
himself with the Eurocommunist parties to the extent of denying that 
there was any single leading communist party and stating that each 
party should work out its own policy in its own country; no one else 
could do this for them. In November the revised "British Road to 
Socialism" was adopted as the party program; it advocated close 
cooperation between the Communist and Labour parties. In 1976 a 
group of hard-line opponents of Eurocommunism, under Sid French, 
broke away from the party to form the "New Communist Party." 



Joint Statements 

To some extent Eurocommunist ideas were developed by the 
Eurocommunist parties in open coordination with one another. For 
example, in November 1975 the French and Italian parties issued a 
joint statement after meetings in Rome supporting "hour- 



248 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

geois liberties, the plurality of political parties, the right to existence 
and activity of opposition parties and alternation between the majority 
and minority." Joint statements were made later by the Italian and 
Spanish and by the Spanish and French parties that dropped the 
commitment to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" from their 
programs. (The French party found it necessary to issue this statement 
despite the fact that it had not used the term since 1966.) In March 
1977 Marchais, Berlinguer, and Carrillo held a Eurocom-munist 
summit in Madrid that endorsed Soviet foreign policy objectives but 
pledged the participants domestically "to work within the framework 
of political and social forces and to respect, guarantee and develop all 
individual and collective freedoms." 



The Soviet Attitude 

Between 1974 and 1977 various articles by Ponomarev, head of the 
International Department of the CPSU; Zagladin, his deputy; Zarodov, 
the editor of the World Marxist Review; and others contained veiled 
and open criticism of "modern compromisers" and "bourgeois 
ideologists," meaning in fact Eurocommunists. 

An article in the CPSU organ Partiynaya Zhizn' (no. 4, 1974), 
described in Schapiro's paper as probably the first direct Soviet attack 
on a West European communist party, criticized the leading Spanish 
communist ideologist Azcarate for alleging that there was a 
contradiction between the state interests of the socialist countries and 
the interests of the revolutionary movement. He was further 
denounced for alleging that peaceful coexistence helps to perpetuate 
the status quo, for refusing to recognize that it serves better than cold 
war to create favorable conditions for revolution, for criticizing the 
Soviet Union, for opposing the projected international communist 
conference on the grounds that it might lead to the setting up of a new 
organizational center, and for stressing the independence of individual 
communist parties rather than the overriding importance of 
"proletarian internationalism." 

On January 26, 1977, TASS dismissed Elleinstein's criticisms of 
violations of human rights in the Soviet Union as anticommunist 
propaganda. The Eurocommunist concept of a neutral, socialist 
Europe was implicitly rejected in the Soviet journal Novoye Vremya; 
the Soviets insisted in 1975 and 1976 that communist 



EUROCOMMUNISM 249 



parties should characterize NATO as aggressive and the Warsaw Pact as 
defensive. 



The Yugoslavs and Romanians 

To some extent, the Yugoslavs and Romanians identified themselves with 
the Eurocommunists. For example, it is alleged that in the course of 
discussions in 1974 and 1975 on the convening of an international 
communist conference the Yugoslavs, followed by a number of West 
European communist parties, raised a number of questions about "proletarian 
internationalism." In the same period Romania openly defended the right of 
communist parties to independence. In 1975 both Yugoslavia and Romania 
backed the concept of a neutral, socialist Europe, opposed military blocs in 
general, and refused to characterize NATO as aggressive and the Warsaw 
Pact as defensive. The Romanian and Spanish parties in particular enjoyed 
close relations. 



The New Analysis 

There are various similarities between Eurocommunism and the 
disinformation operations already described which support the conclusion 
that it is a logical extension of the disinformation program intended to meet 
the requirements of communist strategy for Europe. These similarities can be 
seen: 

• In the manner in which the alleged differences between the Soviet and 
Eurocommunist parties became known to the West. 

• In the fact that these differences are based on the artificial revival of 
issues settled between the communist leaders in 1957-60 and are inconsistent 
with the evidence of the adoption of a long-range communist policy and 
strategy. 

• In the exploitation of these issues to project a false image of the 
evolution of the Eurocommunist parties into independent, national parties 
with a view to promoting the success of their tactics, namely, forming united 
fronts with sociahst and other parties. 

• In the numerous inconsistencies in the arguments and polemics used 



250 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

by Eurocommunist leaders in different contexts; and in the contrasts be- 
tween their words and their deeds, especially in their continuing contacts 
with Soviet and other bloc leaders which are evidence not of disputes, 
but of collaboration in a joint strategy. 



The Emergence of Eurocommunism 

The evolution of the Eurocommunist parties toward "independence" 
followed the adoption of the long-range policy. The Euro-communist 
parties were among the eighty-one parties that signed the Manifesto of 
November 1960. When the Sino-Soviet split developed publicly in 
1963, these parties, while avoiding condemnation of the Chinese, 
aligned themselves informally with Moscow, thereby identifying 
themselves with the moderate brand of Soviet communism rather than 
the militant, doctrinaire Chinese brand. In so doing they boosted the 
moderate image they needed to play their part in overall communist 
strategy for Europe, which entailed the pursuit of united fronts with 
socialist parties. In 1 965 and 1 967 the Eurocommunist parties 
attended international communist conferences at Prague and Karlovy 
Vary in Czechoslovakia. In 1968, in contrast with their supine 
behavior over the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, they 
pubhcly expressed their disapproval of the Warsaw Pact intervention 
in Czechoslovakia, thereby demonstrating their independence of the 
Soviet Union. In the light of their attendance at the Prague and 
Karlovy Vary conferences, it is likely that the Eurocommunist parties' 
alignment with the Dub-cek regime was planned and agreed to in 
advance as part of communist strategy for Western Europe. Allegedly 
the disagreements between the Soviet and Eurocommunist parties 
were discussed at the world conference of communist parties in 1969. 
It was at this conference that there was "the first clear indication that 
the CPSU could no longer assert its traditional hegemony over the 
world communist movement."^ 

As in the case of the alleged differences between communist parties 
of the bloc, this "indication," and others which followed it up to 1973, 
came from veiled or oblique mutual criticism in the party newspapers 
or from retrospective revelations by communists about debates 
between parties carried on behind closed doors. 



EUROCOMMUNISM 251 

Early in 1974 came the direct CPSU attack on Azcarate, followed by 
open polemics in the press of the CPSU and the Eurocommunist 
parties and retrospective evidence of disagreements at international 
communist gatherings in Warsaw in 1974 and Budapest in 1975, and 
to a lesser extent in Tihany (Hungary) in 1976. Finally, at the meeting 
of European communist parties in East Berlin in June 1976, "the full 
measure of the conflict between the CPSU and the 'Eurocommunist' 
parties . . . was brought into the open."'* The validity of the earlier 
evidence of disagreements was confirmed. As in the previous 
disinformation operations, the original evidence and the confirmation 
of disagreements came from communist sources. 



The Revival of Dead Issues 

Among the issues that allegedly divided the Eurocommunist parties 
from the CPSU were the continued attempts by the Soviets to 
dominate other communist parties, to insist that they should faithfully 
copy the Soviet example, and to demand that, in the name of 
international proletarian solidarity, priority should be given by all 
communist parties to defending the interests of the Soviet Union. 
These issues were in fact settled in 1957, largely on Soviet initiative. 
Stalinist attempts to dominate other parties were rejected and 
condemned. Relations between parties, inside and outside the bloc, 
were reestablished on a Leninist basis of equahty, trust, cooperation, 
and joint participation in the effort to achieve communist objectives. 

The Eurocommunist parties attended the international meetings 
between 1957 and 1960 at which these issues were thrashed out and 
settled. All of them, by signing the Eighty-one-party Manifesto, 
committed themselves to the long-range policy and strategy that had 
been worked out with their active help. 

Against this background it is easy to see that the revival by the 
Eurocommunists in the 1970s of the dead issue of the Stalinist 
concept of relations between communist parties was artificial, calcu- 
lated, contrived, and agreed with the Soviets for the purposes of 
strategic disinformation in the same way as other dead issues were 
revived in other disinformation operations. 



252 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Exploitation of the "Independent" Image of 
Euro communist Parties 

The revival of dead issues helped to promote the idea that the 
Eurocommunist parties were independent of the CPSU. The same 
purpose was served by suggesting that there were disagreements with 
the Soviet Union over the pursuit of united front tactics, especially by 
the Italian party, and that there was a conflict between the interests of 
Soviet diplomacy in improving relations with European governments 
and the interests of communist parties in acquiring power by legal 
means. Both suggestions were false, but both helped to emphasize 
Eurocommunist independence of the Soviet Union. 

United front tactics were among the variety of tactics approved by 
the Eighty-one-Party Congress of November 1960. In his report of 
January 6, 1961, Khrushchev called on the communist parties to 
"synchronize their watches." Three months later, Suslov, a major 
communist strategist, led the Soviet delegation to the Sixth Italian 
Party Congress. There he urged the adoption of a moderate policy to 
achieve a broad, national democratic front. There was, of course, 
nothing new or unorthodox about united front tactics. They were 
specifically approved by the Comintern as long ago as 1935. 

Equally there was and is no conflict between Soviet detente 
diplomacy and communist party activity. Friendly relations between 
the Soviet and Western governments favor the growth of Western 
communist parties. Detente diplomacy and united front tactics are 
complementary elements in a single communist strategy. Detente 
creates favorable conditions for the formation of united fronts. 
Ponomarev, head of the CPSU's International Department, made the 
point clearly in 1974 when he wrote that detente had the effect of 
neutralizing anticommunism within the social democratic parties, of 
undermining the militaristic preparations of the imperialist powers, 
and of strengthening the "realistically minded elements within the 
bourgeois camp." 

The harassment of dissidents in the Soviet Union and the denun- 
ciations of it by Eurocommunists are both calculated tactics. The 
conspicuous harassment of dissidents has its own strategic purpose, 
discussed elsewhere. Criticism of it by the Eurocommunists helps 
them to establish their credentials as genuine converts to democratic 
principles. 



EUROCOMMUNISM 253 

The Inconsistencies in Eurocommunism 

There are numerous contradictions and inconsistencies in the 
statements and actions of "Eurocommunist" leaders. As observers 
like Schapiro have pointed out, the alleged conversion of 
Eurocom-munists to democratic principles is inconsistent with the 
revolutionary programs they continue to advocate and the means 
by which they seek to implement them. Schapiro's paper quotes 
some telling statements by Eurocommunists on the use of force. 
For example, the Spanish delegate at the Tihany conference in 
May 1976, when asked whether the Spanish working class would 
have to resort to revolutionary violence, said that "abolishing a 
regime even by democratic means implies the use of force." 
Carrillo wrote in his book: "The new ideas also mean that the 
party is not an army, although it is able to become one if historical 
conditions, the violence of the ruling classes, leave no 
alternative." In addition he mentioned that party control over the 
communications media is an essential requirement, which gives 
some idea of the kind of democracy he had in mind. Schapiro's 
paper also quotes a report in the London Daily Telegraph of 
January 26, 1976, that Spanish communists had been trained in 
the Soviet Union and were being trained in Romania in the 
techniques of urban guerrilla warfare. 

Even in Britain the party's aim of a "revolutionary transition to 
Socialism" is to be achieved by a combination of a legislative 
program with "mass extraparliamentary struggles" and the use of 
force against anyone in the right wing who attempts a coup d'etat. 

The theme can perhaps be developed further in the case of Italy 
with the suggestion that the denunciation by the Italian party of 
the violence of the radical left is yet another deceptive tactic. In a 
paper titled Terrorism: International Dimensions, by Paul Wil- 
kinson, attention is drawn to the Soviet interest in direct or 
indirect support of terrorist movements.^ There is a strong 
possibility that terrorism in Italy is backed and supported by 
international communism in parallel and in coordination with the 
use of legal, electoral, and parliamentary tactics by the Italian 
communist party. The object of violence is to create chaos and 
anarchy, to impose additional strains on ruHng democratic parties, 
to eliminate their ablest leaders, to force them to resort to 
undemocratic measures, and to demonstrate to the public their 
inability to maintain law and order, leaving the field open to the 
legal communist party to present itself as 



254 NEW LIES EOR OLD 

the only effective alternative force. 

Doctrinal justification for the use of terrorism is to be found in Left- 
Wing Communism — An Infantile Disorder, in which Lenin wrote: 
"All these fields of social life are . . . filled with inflammable material 
and offer . . . many excuses for [starting] conflicts and crises, for 
aggravating the class struggle. We do not and cannot know which 
spark out of the mass of sparks which are presently being strewn in 
every country under the influence of the worldwide economic and 
political crisis will prove to be capable of setting the fire alight, in the 
sense of . . . rousing the masses and we are obliged therefore with our 
communist principles to set about 'working over' every possible, even 
the oldest [and] apparently most hopeless field of action, since we 
otherwise will not be equal to the task, will not be thorough, will not 
possess every type of weapon.. . ." More specific was Shelepin's 
instruction to the Soviet intelligence service in 1959 to the effect that 
the service and its "illegals" should prepare and carry out operations 
that would destabilize the main Western countries and create chaos, 
which could be exploited by the local communist parties to their 
advantage. 

Schapiro's paper rightly concludes that no rupture between Moscow 
and a Eurocommunist party has taken place and none is likely. Despite 
the polemics, the Eurocommunist parties have continued by and large 
to give their support to Soviet foreign policy objectives. In the same 
way the Soviet Union and the communist bloc in general have 
continued to support the international communist movement, 
including the Eurocommunist parties, in innumerable practical ways. 
As Schapiro points out, there is no substantial evidence that there has 
been any disruption of the banking and commercial channels through 
which the Eurocommunist parties have traditionally been financed 
from Moscow. Since the mutual criticisms between the Soviet and 
Eurocommunist parties are mutually agreed upon between the leaders, 
there is no reason why the Soviets should wish to disrupt these 
channels. Nor, since all the eighty-one parties that signed the 
Manifesto of November 1960 are pursuing a common long-range 
policy, is there any need for Moscow to seek to attach strings to 
whatever financial or other aid it gives them. 

The anomalies in the adoption of Eurocommunism by Spanish 
communist leaders of the Stalinist generation, like Carrillo and 



EUROCOMMUNISM 255 

Ibarruri, are striking. At the enlarged Spanish party plenum in 1977 
the resolution endorsing Eurocommunism was proposed by none other 
than Ibarruri, who had spent much of her life in the Soviet Union, who 
had lost a son at Stalingrad, who had been eulogized in Novoye 
Vremya in May 1977, and who had earlier described Eurocommunism 
as "nonsense." A few months after the plenum, she was back in 
Moscow for the sixtieth anniversary celebrations. The anomaly can be 
explained if it is remembered that she also was an active participant in 
the formulation of the long-range policy in 1957-60. 

The enthusiastic support given to Eurocommunism by the Roma- 
nian party is not a little curious, given the espousal of "democratic 
liberties" by the Eurocommunists and the repressive internal practices 
of the Romanian regime. No less odd, in conventional terms, was the 
apparently cordial meeting between Tito and Brezhnev on the eve of 
the European communist conference in East Berlin in June 1976 and 
the award of a Soviet decoration to Tito during a visit to Moscow in 
the following year despite his support of Eurocommunism.^ The 
anomalies disappear if Eurocommunism is seen as a further strategic 
disinformation operation. Carrillo's declarations of independence of 
the Soviet Union are then seen to be as spurious as the Romanians' 
and modeled on them. Both the Romanian and Yugoslav leaders have 
had an important role to play in supporting and coordinating the 
Eurocommunist movement. If accurate, the report on Romanian 
training of Spanish communists in urban guerrilla warfare is a further 
illustration of Romania's role in a coordinated bloc effort to assist the 
Eurocommunist parties. 



Continuing Eurocommunist Contacts with the Soviets 

The development of "differences" between the CPSU and the 
Eurocommunist parties has not, except in a few well-publicized 
instances, impeded the normal exchanges of visits between Soviet and 
Eurocommunist party delegations. Berlinguer attended the Twenty- 
fifth CPSU Congress in March 1976. He returned to Moscow for the 
sixtieth anniversary celebrations in November 1977 and was received 
in private audience by Brezhnev despite his com- 



256 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

mitment to pluralist democracy and the acceptance of continuing 
Italian membership in NATO. 

Although Carrillo absented himself from the Twenty-fifth CPSU 
Congress, Ibarruri attended it. After the publication of Carrillo's book 
in April 1977, a CPSU delegation, led by the editor of Pravda, visited 
him, allegedly to work out some sort of truce. Carrillo was not afraid 
to return to Moscow for the sixtieth anniversary celebrations in 
November. The fact that he was present at the celebrations of the 
party he was purporting to criticize carries far more weight than his 
well-publicized complaints to Western journalists that he was not 
allowed to speak. Ibarruri spent a vacation in the Soviet Union in 
February 1979. 

Marchais, the leader of the French party, stayed away from both the 
Twenty-fifth CPSU Congress and the sixtieth anniversary celebrations 
in November 1977, but on both occasions his party was represented, 
and at the European communist conference in East Berlin in June 
1976 Marchais was present in person. In the course of 1977 the 
alliance between the French communist and socialist parties 
foundered as a result of communist intransigence. On October 2, 
Pravda published an article that was extravagant in its praise of 
Marchais's policy. Thereafter Marchais increasingly withdrew from 
the Eurocommunist camp to the extent of aligning the French party 
with the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan at the end of 1979. 

The ease and impunity with which Marchais has been able to lead 
the French party into and out of Eurocommunism is one of the more 
startling incongruities pointing to the contrived nature of the 
movement. Various explanations have been put forward: One is that 
the CPSU opposed the French party's electoral alliance with the 
socialists all along and that when Marchais, presumably acting 
independently, saw fit to break off the alliance, the Soviets were ready 
to welcome him back into the fold; other explanations suggest that 
from late 1977 onward the Soviets belatedly used either financial or 
blackmail pressure to bring Marchais back to heel. Both these 
explanations are based on an outdated model of the relationship 
between the leaders of the CPSU and other communist parties; both 
imply the existence of centrifugal forces in the movement that 
disappeared with the adoption of the common long-range policy in 
1957-60. This provided a firm ideological foundation 



EUROCOMMUNISM 257 

for a disciplined, coordinated Leninist revolutionary movement ex- 
perienced enough to be able to reap the strategic and tactical advan- 
tages to be gained from a display of spurious differences. The new 
methodology sees the termination of the alliance with the socialists in 
France as a temporary measure decided on jointly between the Soviet 
and French communist leaders in the interests of communist strategy 
for Europe as a whole. The decision may well be related to the timing 
of the beginning of the final phase of long-range policy, when all the 
elements in communist strategy for Europe will be brought into play 
together. The present interpretation perhaps provides an explanation 
of the fact that, despite the breakup of the alliance, communist 
ministers were included in the government formed after the elections 
in 1981. 



The New Interpretation of Eurocommunism 

Since the adoption of the long-range policy in 1960, a series of 
regional communist conferences can be traced that dealt with com- 
munist strategy in Europe. Of particular importance were those in 
Prague and Moscow in October 1965 and in Karlovy Vary in 1967, 
the year before the Prague spring. The Eurocommunist parties were 
represented at these conferences, which discussed the parties' appeal 
to socialist, Catholic, and other Christian forces and the creation of a 
Europe free of military blocs. In other words, the parties were 
seeking to broaden the basis of their united front tactics, and at the 
same time were echoing the call for a Europe free of military blocs 
issued at the bloc summit conference in Bucharest the year before. The 
carefully prepared "Prague spring" of the following year, the 
deliberate association of the West European communist parties with it, 
and their criticism of the Warsaw Pact intervention helped the 
European parties to shed the stigma that was attached to them as a 
result of the events in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and Hungary in 1956; it 
gave a powerful boost to their pursuit of united front tactics. 

What was new in this situation was not the use of united front 
tactics (the 1965 Prague conference was held in celebration of the 
thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of united front tactics by the 
Comintern), but the coordinated support given to them 



258 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

by bloc strategic disinformation on Czechoslovak "democratization." 

If the systematic disinformation about differences between the 
leaders of different communist parties is stripped away, the pattern of 
coordination between them in knitting together the various strands in 
their common strategy for Europe becomes clear. A series of 
preparatory conferences was held before the meeting of European 
communist parties in East Berlin in June 1976. The series included a 
preparatory session in Budapest in December 1974 and a conference at 
Tihany in May 1976. Devlin noted that after the Budapest meeting "a 
curtain of official secrecy descended over the proceedings."^ But a 
detailed account of the Tihany meeting was eventually published four 
months later in Problems of Peace and Socialism. The account 
reflected very little discussion of "Euro-communist" issues. The 
closing speech was delivered by Zarodov, who "argued at length the 
strength which derives from unity and coordination of revolutionary 
action — a view with which the overwhelming majority of the parties 
represented agreed."'" The old methodology assumes {and has 
assumed since 1960) that the differences between communist parties 
are real and that the talk of coordination between them is so much 
bluster intended to cover up the differences. The new methodology 
argues that the differences are spurious and are designed to cover up 
the coordination, which is real and which includes agreement to 
"disagree" for tactical and strategic purposes. 

As Tito and Kardelj put it, it is actions, not words, that count; or, as 
Rumyantsev wrote in Problems of Peace and Socialism, statements 
should be evaluated in terms of "class analysis."" The polemics 
between the Soviet and Eurocommunist leaders should therefore be 
read not as propaganda, but as disinformation intended to help the 
achievement of strategic or tactical objectives. The point can be 
illustrated by Berlinguer's statement on television, which was 
broadcast five days before the elections in June 1976, that Italy should 
stay in the Atlantic Alliance. The pattern shows up clearly in the 
Spanish case also. The Eurocommunist summit meeting of French, 
Italian, and Spanish leaders was held in Madrid in March 1977. One 
month later the decision was taken to legahze the Spanish party, and in 
the same month Carrillo published Eurocommunismo y Estado. Two 
months later elections were held for the new Spanish 



EUROCOMMUNISM 259 

Chamber of Deputies. If the Spaniards went further in their "anti- 
Sovietism" than the other Euro communist parties, this was because 
they had been deeply compromised by their treatment of sociahsts, 
anarchists, and others during the Spanish Civil War and needed 
urgently to refurbish their image if they were to acquire legal status, 
gain representation in parliament, and successfully pursue an alliance 
with the socialists. 

Confirmation of the tactical nature of protestations by Eurocom- 
munists of their conversion to democracy is to be found in a speech 
made in February 1976 by Dorofeyev, a leading Soviet expert on 
Italian affairs. Dorofeyev justified the Italian party's advocacy of 
certain specific freedoms on the grounds that it was intended solely as 
a means of winning over the Italian petty bourgeoisie. He explained 
that in reality the proletariat interpreted freedom quite differently from 
its temporary allies, and that consequently there was no need to be 
alarmed by changes of this kind in the programs of communist parties, 
which maintained a consistently revolutionary position.'^ 

Lenin advised the use of moderate language to avoid frightening the 
bourgeoisie. It was with such considerations in mind that Euro- 
communist parties dropped the "dictatorship of the proletariat," and in 
the case of the Spanish party, even the word "Leninist" from its title. 
In dropping the "dictatorship of the proletariat," the Eurocommunist 
parties were following the example of the CPSU, which did so in 
1961, also to improve its image. 



The Possible Adverse Effects on International Communism 

Real disputes between the leaders of bloc and nonbloc parties 
would have a damaging effect on the international communist move- 
ment. Active collaboration between them in a disinformation opera- 
tion based on false disputes serves to cement their working relation- 
ships; they can but enjoy together their success in fooling outside 
observers. 

Given that dissident movements in the communist bloc are under 
the control of the security services, neither the movements themselves 
nor Eurocommunist support for them represent any threat to the 
security of communist regimes. Potential adverse effects of 



160 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Eurocommunist ideas on the membership of bloc parties that are not 
privy to disinformation operations are no doubt neutralized by secret 
party letters and briefings. As far as the East European general public 
is concerned, it can be protected from contamination by a 
combination of press censorship, intensified ideological work, and the 
dismissal of allegations of violations of human rights as Western 
bourgeois propaganda. In any case, given that the Euro-communist 
dispute is a planned and controlled dispute, the appearance of adverse 
effects on either side of the iron curtain can be swiftly countered by 
damping down or dropping the dispute altogether. 

Senior members of the Eurocommunist parties no doubt appreciate 
the concrete tactical and strategic dividends to be derived from the 
exchange of criticism with the Soviet Union and realize that no 
sacrifice of communist principles is entailed. Nevertheless, the 
formation of a few pro-Moscow splinter groups might be held to be 
damaging to the Eurocommunist parties. Taking a long-term view, 
this is not necessarily so and the arguments that follow apply equally 
to the formation of pro-Chinese splinter groups as a result of the Sino- 
Soviet split. 

In some cases the formation of splinter groups may have been 
controlled. For example, the expulsion from the Spanish party in 1970 
of a group of Stalinists who later formed the Spanish Communist 
Workers Party under Enrique Lister might have been part of the 
forward planning for Eurocommunism. In other cases splinter groups 
may have resulted from the spontaneous reaction of hardcore rank and 
file elements who were not initiated into high-level communist 
strategy. Such groups tend to contain the more militant strain of 
revolutionary. Even if they are involved in more or less violent 
disputes with one another or with the principal communist party, they 
remain under the influence of one or another member of the 
communist bloc, and not of any pro-Western or social democratic 
party. They provide a reserve of organized militants whose hour may 
come with a future shift in the communist line and the abandonment 
of parliamentary united front tactics. 

For Soviet leaders, untroubled as they are by electoral consider- 
ations, the temporary loss to Soviet international prestige entailed by 
Eurocommunist criticisms of their system is a small price to pay for 
the actual and potential strategic and tactical gains stemming 



EUROCOMMUNISM 261 

from the improvement in the image and influence of the European 
communist parties. 



Implications for Western Propaganda 

The identification of Eurocommunism as a disinformation operation 
has obvious implications for Western policies and propaganda 
concerned with communism. Ideas of exacerbating friction between 
the leaders of the bloc and Eurocommunist parties are self-defeating 
because there is no real friction. Western anticommunists who align 
themselves with Eurocommunists in support of East European 
"dissidents" are playing into their enemy's hands; they are falling for a 
communist provocation. The vulnerability of these alignments will be 
exposed when "liberalization" occurs in Eastern Europe in the final 
phase of long-range policy. Meanwhile, they confer greater 
respectability on Eurocommunists. Western anticommunist policies 
and propaganda can only recover their effectiveness if they are based 
on a correct understanding of the origins, nature, and objectives of the 
long-range policy and strategy and the disinformation techniques used 
in their implementation. 



Conclusion 

By 1969 the bloc strategists had had a decade of experience in 
controlling and exploiting artificial disputes between the leaders of 
certain of the bloc parties. They had also had the experience of a 
controlled experiment in "democratization" in Czechoslovakia. They 
had seen how the West had been taken in by each of their 
disinformation operations in turn. They had seen how the image of 
West European communist parties had been improved by their 
association with the Dubcek brand of communism and by their 
"independent" stand on Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia 
in August 1968. Although the Dubcek experiment had been brought to 
an end, there had been time for an assessment of its potential as a 
means of influencing Western attitudes to communism. The effect had 
been profound. It therefore made sense in the 1970s to explore the 
potential of artificial disputes with Euro- 



262 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

pean communist parties to improve their future prospects. Such disputes, in 
the form of Eurocommunism, could be fitted into the pattern of the other 
disinformation operations. Eurocommunism could be supported by Romania 
and Yugoslavia, the "independent" communist states, and attacked both by 
the Soviets and Chinese. Mutual criticisms between the Soviets and 
Eurocommunists would help to dispel fears of the introduction of a Soviet 
system into Western Europe and confirm the sincerity of the 
Eurocommunists conversion to democratic principles. Chinese accusations 
that Eurocommunists were falling under social democratic influence could 
further the illusion that this was so. With their credentials thus improved, the 
Eurocommunist parties would stand to gain new allies among the working 
classes, the social democrats, the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, the 
churches, and the armed forces and thus be able to play a more influential 
role in overall communist strategy in Europe. Like Czechoslovak 
democratization, Eurocommunism should be viewed as an experiment and 
rehearsal for the final phase of policy. Its potential has not yet been fully 
realized. 



Objectives of Eurocommunism 

The extension of already proven disinformation techniques into Western 
Europe to suggest the evolution of the Eurocommunist parties into 
liberalized, independent, responsible national parties was intended to: 

• Conceal the coordination between the Eurocommunist parties and the 
bloc in the pursuit of a common strategy for Europe. 

• Suggest further disintegration in the international communist move- 
ment, and therefore a diminution in its threat to the noncommunist world. 

• Improve the capacity of the Eurocommunist parties to achieve influence 
and power legally through united front tactics. 

• Prepare the ground, in coordination with bloc policy in general, for an 
eventual "liberalization" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and a major 
drive to promote the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact and the 
withdrawal of the American military presence from a neutral, socialist 
Europe. 



22 



The Role of Disinformation and 

Intelligence Potential in the Realization of 

the Communist Strategies 



THE DISINFORMATION PROGRAM has played a significant role in 
the successful realization of the communist strategies. A study 
of the available communist and Western evidence reveals the 
existence of at least six interlocking strategies for the furtherance of 
communism along the lines dictated by this long-range policy. The 
first strategy relates to the activities of communist parties in the 
advanced industrial countries. Its essence is the use of various tactics, 
such as Eurocommunism, the deliberate display of an image of a 
responsible, independent party to establish unity of action with social 
democrats and Catholics in Europe and to create a neutral socialist 
Europe tilted toward the communist side. The strategy envisages three 
periods. In the first period the communists seek temporary allies 
among the social democrats, the trade unionists, and the Catholics, 
including the moderates and the conservatives who could be brought 
into play against any alliance with the United States. In the second 
period the conservatives are eliminated and the social democrats 
become the principal allies in a neutral socialist Europe. In the final 
period the communists take the necessary steps for the complete 
takeover. 

The second strategy deals with the communist effort to establish 
unity of action with the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and 
Latin America. Its essence is the use of various tactics, including the 
support of the national liberation movements by the USSR and other 
communist countries and capitalizing on the late Tito's influence in 
the nonaligned movement, which has served to lessen Western 
influence in these areas. 

263 



264 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The third strategy is concerned with the effort to reverse the 
military balance of power, which in 1960 was tilted heavily in favor 
of the West. The essence of this strategy is revealed by a number of 
communist actions, including diplomatic negotiations, like SALT; a 
Chinese effort to make a false military alliance with the United States; 
efforts to increase Soviet military potential, involving the United 
States in an unpopular war like that in Vietnam; antimilitary 
campaigns in Western Europe; and terrorist acts against US military 
officials. 

The fourth strategy deals with the undermining of the ideological 
resistance of the noncommunist world to the advance of communism. 
Its essence is not in the use of propaganda and the preaching of 
ideology, but by concrete actions and deeds, including calculated anti- 
Sovietism. 

Underlying all of these strategies is the fifth strategy, that of the 
disinformation program. The most important element of this program 
is the calculated Sino-Soviet split, which has enabled the two 
communist powers to pursue successfully the scissors strategy, that is, 
having complementary dual foreign policies, the close coordination of 
which is concealed from the West and which has thus far escaped 
detection by the West. It is this scissors strategy that has contributed 
significantly to all the other strategies. 

Although the communists have achieved unity of action with some 
Arab and African states and have generated antimilitary campaigns in 
Western Europe, they have failed to reach the majority of social 
democrats, the free trade unions, and the Catholics there. They were 
also unsuccessful in the United States largely because of the strong 
anticommunist position of the American labor movement under the 
late George Meany. The formation of united fronts in Latin America 
as a whole has been inhibited by the strength of military influence in 
the continent. 



The Major Strategy 

The sixth strategy, however, is the most significant. This strategy, 
which has been in preparation by the bloc for the past twenty years, 
deals with the solutions of the remaining problems with the unity of 
action and has a crucial role in the final phase of the long-range 
policy. This last strategy relates to the consistent effort 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 265 

to bring about a political and economic consolidation of individual 
communist regimes, the construction of so-called mature communist 
societies, and the preparation of a semblance of democratization in order to 
provide, in Togliatti's words, support for the communists outside the bloc in 
realization of the major strategies. In essence this strategy involves the 
interaction of the following factors: 

1. The development of an effective political, economic, diplomatic, and 
military substructure under which the communists can continue to coordinate 
their policies and actions on a bilateral basis through a system of friendship 
treaties. This substructure would not be affected by the formal dissolution of 
the Warsaw Pact. A significant role in this coordination will rest with the 
party apparatuses, especially with the departments responsible for relations 
with the bloc countries. 

2. The making of creative ideological readjustments and the revitaliza-tion 
of the communist parties and the mass organizations, including the trade 
unions and the youth and intellectual organizations. Further, the broadening 
of the political base of the parties and the development of the mass 
organizations into effective substructures of the parties. Such changes will 
make possible the introduction of controlled pohtical opposition, which will 
provide the basically totalitarian regimes with a convincing impression of a 
fundamental change and a semblance of democracy. For example, within a 
twenty-year period the communist parties of the USSR and China almost 
doubled their memberships to seventeen million and thirty-six million 
respectively. In China this was accomplished during and after the Cultural 
Revolution. A major role in this revitalization was played by the ideological 
commissions and the cultural departments of the parties. 

3. The preparation of a false opposition, during the introduction of 
controlled democratization in the communist regimes, for the purpose of 
creating a favorable condition for unity of action with the social democrats, 
the free trade unions, and with the Catholics against NATO and the US 
military-industrial complex. This preparation was revealed by the 
reorganization and reorientation of the KGB and the security services of the 
bloc countries, as ordered by Shelepin. The rationale was to coordinate their 
joint efforts and to introduce a false, controlled opposition along the lines of 
the Soviet experience with the false anticommunist organization Trust during 
the NEP under Lenin. Shelepin specifically ordered that agents of influence 
be used among prominent writers, scientists, trade unionists, nationalists, and 
rehgious leaders. He emphasized 



266 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the need to use agents of influence among the heads of the various religions, 
including the head of the Russian Orthodox church and the Moslem leaders 
in Soviet Central Asia, for political objectives. A significant and active role 
in such preparations is played by the administrative departments of the 
communist parties, which supervise the activities of the security services. 

4. The development of an effective strategic coordination between the 
ministries of foreign affairs, ambassadors, communist parties, and mass 
organizations of the communist countries within the bloc and also of the 
communist parties outside the bloc. A significant role in such coordination 
belongs to the party departments of international relations and to communist 
diplomats. This explains why some communist ministers, such as those from 
Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, were in the past the heads of such 
departments. A significant role in such coordination, specifically for the 
realization of the strategy in Western Europe, rests with the Soviet 
Committee for European Security, headed by party official V. Shitikov. This 
committee was created in June 1971 for better coordination between the 
Soviet mass organizations in the struggle for the realization of a collective 
European security. The development and realization of the strategy is 
revealed by the numerous conferences of communist parties, especially in 
Moscow and Prague in 1965, and the high-level meetings of communist 
leaders with Brezhnev in the Crimea during the 1970s. 

The study of available evidence leads to the conclusion that the 
Czechoslovakian democratization in 1968 was a rehearsal of this strategy to 
see how this scenario can work in practice and to test the Western reaction to 
it. 



The Disinformation and Strategic Role of Yugoslavia 

The new methodology makes it possible to see how the so-called 
independence of Yugoslavia has enabled her to play a leading part in 
promoting the success of communist Third World strategy. Yugoslavia was 
well qualified to bring her influence to bear in organizing the Third World, 
reorientating it toward socialism, and forging it into a weapon for use against 
the West. It was Tito who drew Khrushchev's attention to the political 
potentialities of friendship 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 267 

and cooperation with such leaders as Nasser, Nehru, and Sukarno. The 
reconcihation between Yugoslavia and the other communist countries 
and Yugoslavia's contribution and commitment to the long-range 
pohcy of 1958-60 were successfully concealed by disinformation. 
They have remained hidden for the past twenty years, despite the vast 
amount of evidence that can be interpreted as indicating the 
fulfillment by Yugoslavia of a strategic role in coordination with the 
other members of the communist bloc — above all, with those in 
Africa, Asia, and the United Nations. 

Yugoslav influence inside and outside the nonaligned movement 
was acceptable to the neutralist and nationalist Third World leaders 
largely because they saw Yugoslavia, like themselves, as independent 
and, unlike the great powers, disinterested in dominating and con- 
trolling them. The Yugoslav brand of communism seemed more 
flexible and adaptable than the Soviet or Chinese version. Moreover, 
the penetration of Yugoslav ideas into the Third World was accom- 
plished not through the traditional activities of a tightly knit com- 
munist party, but through personal influence and such mass organi- 
zations as the Socialist Alliance of the Working People of Yugoslavia 
and the Yugoslav trade unions. 

On important issues, Tito's line was consistently anti-Western and 
helpful to the fulfillment of long-range communist pohcy. He took up 
an anti-American position in the Cuban crisis of 1962. He followed 
the pro-Arab communist line in 1967 and broke off diplomatic 
relations with Israel. He worked hard to persuade the nonaligned 
nations to follow suit. In 1973 eighteen African states broke off 
relations with Israel. Tito followed the communist line on the 
recognition of East Germany and influenced many Arab and African 
states in the same direction. He mobilized the non-aligned nations in 
condemning American intervention in Vietnam. He criticized 
American behavior over the civil war in Angola in 1975, and for a 
while the Ford Administration reconsidered its attempts to improve 
relations with Yugoslavia. 

Tito was critical of Cuban actions in Africa and of Soviet interven- 
tion in Afghanistan, but many of his criticisms were muted and none 
led to any effective action. Tito and his Yugoslav colleagues can take 
a major share of the credit for the swing in the United Nations' 
balance, over the last twenty years, against the West and in favor of 
the communist bloc. A further point, with important 



268 NEWLIESFOROLD 

implications for the fmal phase of long-range communist policy, is 
that Tito succeeded in winning the support and solidarity of many 
European and Japanese socialists for Third World national liberation 
movements. 

To sum up, Yugoslav actions from 1958 to 1980 were closely 
coordinated with the Soviet Union and, latterly, with China. Through 
the use of disinformation on Yugoslav independence, which was 
accepted equally by the Third World and the West, Yugoslavia was 
able to play a major strategic role on Leninist lines in promoting 
united action with the Third World countries, in reorientating them 
toward socialism, and in converting them into aUies of communism 
against the West. Tito well deserved the Order of Lenin he was 
awarded in 1979. He is dead, but his policies continue. 

Because of Western failure to see through disinformation, includ- 
ing the violent Chinese and Albanian attacks on Tito for acting as an 
agent of United States imperialism in Africa, the United States and 
her allies have continued to regard Yugoslavia as an asset for the 
West and a moderating force in the newly independent countries; they 
have continued to accord her favorable treatment. But Yugoslav 
influence is dangerous. Already the groundwork has been laid for 
coordinated action between the communist bloc, the Third World, and 
many European and Japanese sociahsts. Without realizing the effect 
on its own fate, much of the Third World is ready to act as the most 
effective ally of the communist strategists in their offensive against 
the advanced countries in the final phase of policy. 



Sino-Soviet Disinformation and the Cultural Revolution: A New 

Interpretation 

Soviet denunciation of the Cultural Revolution as anti-Marxist and 
antisocialist helped to conceal its true meaning as part of the process 
of Chinese communist reconstruction. At the same time the Chinese 
leaders were able to exploit their alleged differences with the Soviets 
to rally the party and the masses behind them, during their most 
vulnerable period, by hoisting the flag of Chinese nationalism. In this 
they were repeating Stalin's exploitation of 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 269 

"capitalist encirclement of the Soviet Union" in the 1920s and 1930s 
to rally the Russian people to the Soviet regime. The difference in the 
Chinese case was that, deliberately deceiving their own population 
and the outside world, the Chinese included the Soviet Union among 
the "imperialist powers" attempting to encircle China. In so doing, 
they served their own interests in strengthening and stabilizing their 
regimes; at the same time, they served the strategic interests of long- 
range bloc policy. 

Turmoil there undoubtedly was during the Cultural Revolution, but 
in the light of the new methodology, the facts are capable of a new 
interpretation. The Cultural Revolution was a part — and a very 
significant part — of the wider process of the communist recon- 
struction of Chinese society. It followed, as the next logical step, the 
reconstruction of Chinese agriculture. The newly established material 
basis of Chinese society required an appropriate Marxist political and 
ideological superstructure. For this reason, Mao called it "the great 
proletarian cultural revolution." 

Apart from causing widespread economic dislocation, the creation 
of communes and the switch in priority back from industry to 
agriculture exposed the inadequacy of the structure and character of 
the existing party and its mass organizations. These were based 
mainly in the cities, whereas the real Chinese masses were in the 
countryside — hence the drive to send intellectuals to the villages. The 
ideological level of the party was too low and the tendency toward 
rigid, bureaucratic inertia was unacceptable. The decision was 
therefore taken to regroup the most highly indoctrinated and militant 
elements of the old party and youth organization into an alternative 
structure relying largely on the army and Ministry of Public Security 
to provide the necessary element of control and to prevent the 
situation from getting out of hand. The appearance of "political 
departments," detachments of Red Guards, and "revolutionary 
committees" was not spontaneous; it was instigated by the Central 
Committee. Not until essential preparations had been made on this 
basis for the introduction of an alternative power structure was the 
Cultural Revolution launched. With an alternative power structure in 
being, it was possible to abolish large parts of the existing party 
organization below the Central Committee level while huge numbers 
of party officials were being reindoctrinated. Meanwhile the 
alternative organization, drawn largely from the 



270 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

younger generation, set about its task of increasing its ties with, and 
influence over, the masses in order to fire them with revolutionary 
ardor and commit them to the policies of communist reconstruction. 
The Cultural Revolution was initiated by the plenum of the Central 
Committee in August 1966 and was guided and directed by the 
Central Committee throughout. That it was a revolution controlled 
from above was shown by its temporary interruption for the spring 
sowing season in 1967 and the simultaneous resumption of classes in 
schools on the Central Committee's instructions. The revolution, being 
ideological, was naturally directed by the Central Committee's 
ideologists, led by Chen Po-ta and Mao himself. By April 1969 
sufficient progress had been made for the Cultural Revolution proper 
to be damped down by the Ninth Party Congress. 

Although the turmoil died away, many of the processes begun 
before and during the Cultural Revolution continued. If the essence of 
the Cultural Revolution period from 1966 to 1969 was the creation of 
new organs of power and the attack by the "leftists" on the "rightists," 
then the essence of the following three years was the reabsorption of 
the older, reeducated party officials into the new organs of power and 
the attack on leftists, initially begun with the support of the army, 
which was then itself brought under firmer party control. The first 
signs of detente with the West began to appear. In the next three years, 
from 1973 to 1976, under the alleged guidance of the "Gang of Four," 
the process of reeducation continued. But now it was a more specific 
process of ideological and political preparation of the reconstructed 
party, government apparatus, and mass organizations for the new 
situation entailed by a shift to activist, detente diplomacy. With the 
death of Mao and the return of the "pragmatists" to power, full-scale, 
activist detente diplomacy was launched on Soviet lines with the aim 
of using economic, financial, and technological help from the 
noncom-munist world to accelerate China's economic and military 
development. China was ready to play her full part in long-range bloc 
policy. She sought to ahgn herself especially with conservatives in the 
advanced countries and Islamic regimes in the Third World, in order 
the more effectively to carry out the Sino-Soviet scissors strategy. 

As in other communist countries, the process of communist re- 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 271 

construction in China has been accompanied by the introduction of 
new, and the revival of old, techniques. In China's case the aims were 
to revitalize the communist party, to broaden its political base, to 
commit the younger generation to ideological objectives, to reeducate 
the older generation of party members, to control and neutraHze 
internal opposition, to revitalize the state apparatus and armed 
services, and to prepare China as a whole for its part in the 
implementation internally and externally of long-range bloc policy. 
The techniques of pohtical activism, provocation, disinformation, and 
political prophylaxis, which have been described in detail in the case 
of the Soviet Union, have all been used effectively in China. The 
alleged struggles for power in China between leftists and rightists, 
dogmatists and pragmatists, are as unreal as the struggles between 
Stalinists and anti-Stalinists in the Soviet Union. 

Cooperation within the leadership to create the illusion of struggles 
between themselves or between the party and the army helps to 
forestall the threat of real struggles within the leadership or of 
tendencies to "putschism" in the army. It gives the party ideologists 
material to train party officials in fighting undesirable tendencies 
while at the same time preparing them for radical shifts in policy. The 
violence of the shifts in the Chinese line is a technique borrowed from 
that used by Stalin at the end of the NEP period. Stalin's shifts from 
left to right and back again were used to forge the party into a 
hardened instrument obedient to his will. The difference lies in the 
fact that Stalin used the technique to establish his personal 
dictatorship and the factionalism was real; the Chinese leadership used 
it to increase the effectiveness of the party as a whole and the 
factionalism in the leadership was faked. The recent reassessment and 
partial downgrading of Mao in China presents parallels with de- 
Stalinization in the Soviet Union and is designed in part to forestall 
the emergence in the future of any tendencies toward personal 
dictatorship in the CPC. 

The formation of the Red Guards recalls the use of Komsomol 
activists in the Soviet Union during Stalin's collectivization of agri- 
culture in the 1930s. The technique of using wall posters by the 
regime seems to have been borrowed from their use by the genuine 
opposition in 1956-57. 

The Cultural Revolution and the whole process of Chinese com- 
munist reconstruction have followed Lenin's precepts on overcom- 



272 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

ing "infantile disorder" and isolation of the party from the masses. The 
reeducation of cadres and the restructuring of the party and its youth 
and trade union organizations were necessary both to achieve these 
aims and to prepare the Chinese system for activist detente with the 
West as the long-range policy unfolded. 

Despite the alleged destruction of the party in the Cultural Revo- 
lution, in fact it strengthened itself. The Chinese trade union, youth, 
and women's organizations have resumed their activities. 

As a result of stabihzation and the reinforcement of the party and its 
mass organizations, the Chinese, like other communist states after 
1960, were enabled to introduce NEP-style measures, including some 
of the appurtenances of democracy, such as wall posters; trials; the 
release of market forces; and the relaxation of controls over religion, 
intellectual life, working conditions in factories, and property 
ownership. "Dissidents" began to appear, on the Soviet pattern. 
Broader contacts were allowed with the West and more attention was 
paid to trfc overseas Chinese, whose relatives in China are said to 
number 12 million. 



Sino-Soviet Duality and Communist Strategy in the Third World 

Seen in the light of the new methodology, the Chinese effort in the 
Third World is complementary to that of the other communist states 
and an important element in communist strategy as a whole. 

The character of the Chinese effort in the Third World from 1958 
onward was dictated by China's historical background and current 
capacities. China had been freed from colonial oppression by a 
prolonged liberation struggle with Japan. The Chinese party had 
learned how to exploit conditions of military conflict to deepen its 
influence and win power. As a rule, Chinese and Soviet efforts can be 
seen in terms not of rivalry, but of a coordinated division of labor that 
has brought dividends for the common strategy. 

Where a serious dispute exists between two Third World countries, 
a pattern in Soviet and Chinese policies can be discerned in which the 
Soviet Union and China take up opposite sides and adopt a clearcut 
duality in their poHcies. The Soviet Union seeks 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 273 

to build up its influence with one party to the dispute and China with 
the other. The classic example of this pattern is to be seen in the case 
of India and Pakistan. 

The Sino-Indian conflict of 1962 was provoked by the Chinese. The 
Soviets took a broadly anti-Chinese and pro-Indian line that gained 
them goodwill in India. At the time of the outbreak of open Sino- 
Soviet party polemics in 1963, an Indian army and air force mission 
visited the Soviet Union. In the following year the Indian defense 
minister went to Moscow to discuss Soviet-Indian military 
cooperation. Further exchanges of military delegations took place in 
1967 and 1968. In the mid-1960s regular consultations on problems of 
mutual interest were instituted between the Soviet and Indian foreign 
ministries.' The United States held India responsible for the Indo- 
Pakistani conflict in 1971 and terminated military aid to India. The 
Soviets called for a cessation of the conflict but nevertheless gave the 
Indians moral support, for which Mrs. Gandhi expressed her gratitude. 
A treaty of friendship was signed between the Soviet Union and India 
in August 1971. An influx of Soviet visitors followed. In October 
Firyubin went to India, interestingly enough in the same month as 
Tito. He was followed in the next three months by the chief of Soviet 
military aviation, Kutakhov, and the deputy foreign minister, V. V. 
Kuznetsov. In December Mrs. Gandhi condemned American policy in 
Vietnam." In 1973 an agreement was signed for cooperation between 
Gosplan, the Soviet planning agency, and the Indian planning 
commission.' 

Largely because of skillful Soviet exploitation of the conflict be- 
tween India and Pakistan, by the mid-1970s the trend toward closer 
Soviet-Indian relations had become virtually irreversible. The Desai 
government was unable to stem the tide. Relations were further 
cemented by Brezhnev's visit and talks with Mrs. Gandhi in 1981. 

While the Soviets were strengthening their hold in India, the 
Chinese were doing the same in Pakistan, using the same techniques 
of exchanges of visits and mihtary delegations, especially during the 
years 1962-67. When the United States ceased military aid to Pakistan 
in 1967, the Chinese stepped theirs up. In 1968 President Yahya Khan 
and his foreign minister visited China. Further cooperation developed. 
In 1970 Kuo Mo-jo visited Pakistan. Pakistan was sufficiently close to 
China to be used as an intermediary in arranging the visit of Kissinger 
to China in 1971. Bhutto was 



274 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

received by Mao in 1972 after the further conflict with India and the 
formation of Bangladesh. The conflict resulted in Pakistan's departure 
from the British Commonwealth and SEATO. Further high-level 
exchanges of visits continued between Pakistan and China, regardless 
of changes in the Pakistani government. 

As in the case of Soviet influence in India, Chinese influence in 
Pakistan is creating conditions for an alliance between them and for 
an eventual communist takeover. A situation already exists that can be 
further exploited by calculated and coordinated Soviet and Chinese 
moves, for example, in connection with the Soviet intervention in 
Afghanistan. 

The recent Chinese moderation is intended to help build up the new 
image of respectability required by the Chinese for their detente 
diplomacy vis-a-vis the advanced industrial, as well as Third World, 
countries. It is also consistent with the emerging pattern of Sino- 
Soviet duality; while the Soviet Union builds up united fronts with 
nationalists against the United States, China seeks to ensnare the 
United States and other conservative countries, including the Asian 
and African states, in artificial, treacherous alliances with herself and 
her associates, ostensibly against the Soviet Union. In this way China 
seeks to enter her enemies' camp not merely unopposed, but 
welcomed as an ally against Soviet expansionism and equipped with 
Western arms. 

In the present phase of policy, neither the Soviet Union nor China 
puts local communist parties in general in the forefront as strategic 
weapons. When the objective of isolating the United States from the 
Third World has been achieved, local communist parties will come 
into their own and accounts will be settled with nationalists who have 
suppressed them in the past. 



Sino-Soviet Duality and Military Strategy 

The new methodology illuminates the contribution to the success of 
communist strategies made by the division of labor between the 
Soviets and Chinese and the coordinated duality of their policies. 

In the early years of detente, paraphrasing Lenin's words, the 
Chinese were given a "terrible double bass" to play in contrast with 
the Soviets' "sentimental violin." While the Soviets were em- 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 275 

phasising detente and peaceful coexistence and taking up high-level 
contacts with American and European leaders, the Chinese advocated 
militant and violent revolution. Marked divergences appeared in the 
treatment in the Soviet and Chinese press of Khrushchev's visit to the 
United States in 1959. In February 1960, three months before the 
abortive summit meeting in Paris, the Chinese delegate at the Warsaw 
Pact conference criticized the Soviets for their rapprochement with the 
"imperialists," who had refused to make concessions on Berlin. On the 
eve of Khrushchev's meeting with the French President in April 1960, 
the Chinese press resumed its criticism of the Yugoslav "revisionists" 
and published articles calling for a militant, revolutionary approach to 
world problems while the Soviet press continued to emphasize 
moderation and peaceful coexistence. 

Further divergences appeared in Soviet and Chinese handling of the 
Cuban and Sino-Indian crises in 1962, but perhaps the most striking 
instance of duality in the early 1960s occurred during the Soviet- 
American -British negotiations on the Atomic Test Ban Treaty in 1963. 
The arrival in Moscow of the Anglo-American delegation that was to 
conduct those negotiations was immediately preceded by the arrival of 
a Chinese delegation that was to conduct party negotiations with the 
CPSU. Soviet warmth toward the Western delegations contrasted 
sharply with their coolness toward the Chinese. Progress on the test 
ban talks was accompanied by the apparent failure of the Sino-Soviet 
negotiations. The signature of the test ban treaty was followed by 
interruption of the Sino-Soviet talks, attacks in the Chinese press on 
Soviet policy in the test ban negotiations, and open polemics between 
the Soviet and Chinese parties. A further eruption of Sino-Soviet 
polemics occurred before the Soviet- American negotiations on a 
nuclear nonprolifera-tion treaty in 1966-67. 

Subsequent events have shown just how little foundation there was 
for Chinese accusations that the Soviets had capitulated to Western 
imperialism in the 1960s and had sacrificed "socialist solidarity" and 
support for revolutionary struggle on the altar of peaceful 
coexistence.'^ The effect of these Chinese accusations at the time was 
to promote Western illusions about Soviet moderation, and thus to 
create favorable conditions for the success of Soviet activist 
diplomacy toward the United States and European NATO 



276 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

powers. In contrast with the implacable Chinese dogmatists, the 
Soviets appeared cautious, reasonable, nonideological, pragmatic 
communists with whom it was possible to negotiate a deal. Further- 
more, they appeared sincere in their claim to have a common interest 
with the West in restraining Chinese influence. 

Sino-Soviet duality produced the effect on the West that the 
communist strategists intended. It seems safe to say that it brought 
them substantial dividends. For example, had it not been for General 
de Gaulle's belief in the sincerity of Soviet interest in detente and his 
confidence in the authenticity of the Sino-Soviet split, it is more than 
doubtful that he would have gone as far as he did in his dealings with 
the Soviet Union, his recognition of Communist China, and his 
withdrawal of France from its military commitments to NATO. 

From 1958 to 1969, despite all the sound and fury, China, by 
comparison with the Soviet Union, was passive diplomatically in 
relation to the Western powers. The contrast was only natural. The 
Soviet Union was already a military superpower engaged in strategic 
competition with the United States and NATO. The Soviets had a 
solid background of experience in deahng with the Western powers 
and a well-trained staff to carry out their policies. China was militarily 
insignificant, unrecognized by the United States and many other 
countries and short of trained and indoctrinated diplomatic staff. The 
onset of the Cultural Revolution brought a further retreat into 
diplomatic isolation. 

In 1969 all this began to change. With the completion of the 
Cultural Revolution, China reemerged onto the international scene. 
Chinese activist detente diplomacy was launched. Trade, and espe- 
cially the acquisition of advanced technology, bulked large among the 
obvious Chinese motives. In January 1969 a special West German 
ambassador, Egon Bahr, was invited to conduct trade negotiations in 
Shanghai. Exchanges of visits between Chinese and Western 
statesmen and military leaders became commonplace. A drive to 
obtain diplomatic recognition soon brought results. By 1970 it had 
been granted by fifty-five countries. On October 25, 1971, Communist 
China was seated in the United Nations; by 1973, it had diplomatic 
relations with ninety-one countries. In February 1972, after two 
preparatory visits by Kissinger (carried out initially in great secrecy 
and without consultation with the Japanese, the 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 277 

most directly concerned of America's close allies), President Nixon 
visited China. He was followed by the British foreign secretary, 
Douglas-Home; by President Pompidou of France in 1973; and by the 
West German chancellor, Schmidt, in 1975. The German and British 
conservative opposition leaders, Strauss and Thatcher, visited in 1975 
and 1977 respectively, and the British foreign secretary, Crosland, in 
1976. In return Chinese ministerial visits were paid to the United 
States and Europe, culminating in Teng Hsiao-ping's visit to the 
United States and Japan and Chairman Hua's journey through Europe 
in 1979. In the same year the U.S. President's national security 
adviser, Brzezinski, visited China, followed in the aftermath of Soviet 
intervention in Afghanistan by the defense secretary. Brown. The 
exchanges of visits between China and the United States, Western 
Europe, and Japan reflected not only the development of trade with, 
and credits for, China, but also the transfer of Western technology for 
China's industrial modernization and rearmament. 

Three points about Chinese activist diplomacy deserve to be singled 
out for special emphasis. First, it has been continuously and 
consistently maintained throughout the 1970s despite the death of 
Mao in 1976. Chairman Hua said as much himself, on December 25, 
1976, when he undertook that China would carry out the directives 
worked out by Chairman Mao.^ Second, a preeminent role has been 
played by Teng Hsiao-p'ing, under Mao's guidance one of the 
principal Chinese architects of the long-range policy of 1958-60. 
Third, a noticeable feature of the Chinese choice of Western leaders 
suitable for cultivation, more readily explained in terms of strategy 
than ideological affinity, has been the proportion of conservatives 
among them. Some of them — Strauss, Brzezinski, and Thatcher, for 
example — were singled out as targets for personal attacks by the 
Soviets, attacks that did nothing to harm their relations with the 
Chinese. 

At the same time as the Chinese were embarking on a policy of 
detente, the Soviets were building on the successes of their activist 
diplomacy in the earlier 1960s. Their efforts followed the three 
principal directions described above: SALT talks with the United 
States, CSCE in Europe, and closer bilateral relationships with certain 
European powers. Also, at the same time, the West began to realize 
that the Soviet Union had taken advantage of 



278 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

detente to build up its military strength. 

Seen in the light of the new methodology, the stepping-up of Sino- 
Soviet border hostilities in 1969 and 1970 was not fortuitous; neither 
was the adoption by the Soviets and Chinese of diametrically opposite 
positions on many other issues. Duality in Sino-Soviet policies served 
to provide a favorable background for the launching and conduct of 
both the SALT negotiations and Chinese activist detente diplomacy. 
As far as CSCE was concerned, it was noticeable that the Chinese, 
while condemning the Soviets for their part in organizing the Helsinki 
conferences, nevertheless lent their support to the concept of a 
Western Europe "independent of the two superpowers," in other 
words, to the intermediate aim of overall communist strategy for 
Europe. 

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. 

In short, first the Soviet Union and then China carried out the 
classical strategic precept of seeking to enter the enemy's camp 
unopposed and, if possible, welcomed by him. As Sun Tzu said: "To 
subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. "^ 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 279 

Fighting between communist states is generally regarded as con- 
clusive evidence of a split between them. But it should be remem- 
bered that the conflicts in the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Vietnamese border 
areas have taken place in the presence of few, if any. Western 
observers. Border incidents are easily staged and open radio commu- 
nication about them can be used in support of their authenticity. Joint 
exercises can be made to look very much like battles. Even if genuine 
damage and casualties are caused, incidents are still open to more than 
one interpretation. Apparent fighting between communist states can 
contribute to such specific communist strategic objectives as 
promoting agreements and false alignments between communist and 
noncommunist states. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese "war" — and 
fears that it might spread — intensified Western pressure on the United 
States to conclude the SALT II agreement with the Soviet Union and 
helped make China look attractive as a potential Western ally against 
the Soviet Union. 



Sino-Soviet Duality and the Revolutionary Movement 

The Sino-Soviet split did not in general have the effect that might 
have been expected of splitting the nonbloc communist parties down 
the middle nor has it reduced their influence. Most of the West 
European parties became more active and remained broadly in 
alignment with the Soviets. Their association with Soviet 
"moderation" helped their images and improved their chances of 
success with united-front tactics. The Italian party was far more 
influential in 1980 than it had been in 1960. In France the socialist- 
communist alliance came closer to an electoral victory in 1974 than at 
any moment since the Second World War. Insofar as pro-Chinese 
splinter groups broke away from main-line communist parties, as in 
Belgium, for example, it was in general advantageous to long-range 
communist strategy. A calculated shedding of the most radical and 
violent revolutionary elements helped the communist parties to 
improve their images as respectable democratic parties and potential 
allies of socialist. Christian, and other progressive groups. 

The Japanese party tried to take advantage of the Sino-Soviet split 
to broaden its political influence. 



280 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Chinese militancy and Sino-Soviet duality opened up possibilities 
of united action between pro-Chinese and other extreme-left factions, 
especially Trotskyites. In June 1963, coinciding with the outbreak of 
open polemics between the Soviet and Chinese parties, the Trotskyite 
Fourth International, in a special resolution, approved "the historic 
task of joining the Chinese and fighting for the creation of a united 
front between the Fourth International and the Chinese comrades." 

In 1967 the Fourth International declared itself in favor of accel- 
erating the revolutionary armed struggle of the masses in the main 
bases of capitalism. The majority supported Mao. A minority group, 
critical of some of Mao's ideas, proposed a more flexible line in 
fighting communist parties. 

The Ninth Congress of the Fourth International was held at Rimini 
in April 1969. It discussed tactics in Latin America. The European 
section of the majority group held a conference in October 1969 and 
decided to cease attempts to penetrate communist parties and to create 
"independent revolutionary" parties. In the same month a congress of 
the minority group in Vienna approved the actions of splinter groups 
in the communist movement. At the same time it condemned refusal 
by these splinter groups to cooperate with the Soviet Union in support 
of the liberation struggle in Vietnam. Also in 1969, as the movement 
for CSCE was gathering momentum, Trotskyite meetings in protest 
against NATO were held in England, Denmark, Japan, and Australia. 

The information publicly available is insufficient to allow judgment 
on the degree to which the activities of extreme-left radical groups 
have been successfully coordinated under Chinese or Soviet influence. 
But the rivalry, and sometimes even violence, between these groups 
and the main-line communist parties should not be allowed to obscure 
the extent to which the activities of all of them have served the aims 
of long-range communist strategy and might serve so even more in 
critical situations in the future. Ponomarev, while describing some of 
the elements of the New Left in 1971 as "adventurist," concluded that 
"to neglect this segment of the mass movement would mean to 
weaken the stress of the anti -imperialist struggle and hinder the 
creation of a united front against monopolistic capitalism." Broadly 
speaking, since the adoption of the long-range policy and the 
development of Sino-Soviet duality, 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 281 

both the moderate communist parties and the radical, revolutionary, 
and terrorist groups have succeeded in gathering strength, often at the 
expense of genuine left-wing and democratic socialist movements. 

In the early 1960s the international front organizations provided a 
convenient forum for the experimental airing of Sino-Soviet "dif- 
ferences." The repudiation of radical Chinese positions by these 
organizations helped make them less disreputable and, at the same 
time, apparently confirmed the authenticity of the Sino-Soviet dispute. 
When in the mid-1960s the Chinese finally withdrew from the front 
organizations, they made no serious attempt to disrupt them or to form 
rival counterparts of their own. The Chinese withdrawal seems to have 
been entirely logical. In part, it may have been dictated by the Cultural 
Revolution. It was no doubt also motivated by a desire neither to split 
nor to demoralize the organizations as they geared themselves up for 
their strategic role. It also left the Chinese free to pursue unorthodox 
tactics, including friendly relationships with conservative 
governments, without risk of compromising and confusing the faithful 
in the front organizations' ranks. 



The Advantages of Sino-Soviet Duality 

To sum up, the coordinated duality of Soviet and Chinese policies 
offers a number of advantages for communist strategy. It enables the 
communist bloc to retain the initiative, to open up new possibilities 
for maneuver, and to induce erroneous responses from its opponents. 
Where there are conflicts in the outside world, it enables the two 
communist partners, by taking opposite sides, to strengthen 
communist influence simultaneously over both parties to the dispute. 
It enables one partner to operate effectively in areas from which the 
other is excluded or deliberately excludes itself for tactical reasons. It 
facihtates a division of labor between the two partners and enables 
one to take unorthodox or provocative action without compromising 
the other. In the longer run, through enabling the Chinese to express 
hostihty to the Soviet Union and emphasize their concern with 
Chinese national interests, it may well help China to appeal more 
effectively to the overseas Chinese. Finally, 



282 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

it offers possibilities of inducing conservatives in both advanced and 
Third World countries to compromise themselves by entering in good 
faith into treacherous alliances and alignments through which they can 
be discredited in the final phase of policy. As a strategic weapon, 
duality may prove itself to be more effective than either war or the 
export of revolution. 



The Intelligence Potential and Agents of Influence 

The implementation of the disinformation program can be fully 
understood only if one takes into account the use by the communists 
of their intelligence potential, especially agents of influence both in 
the West and in the communist bloc. Because precise information is 
normally lacking, surveys of communist influence in particular 
countries or areas seldom take into account the assets of the commu- 
nist intelligence services. From his service in Finland at the time of 
the launching of the long-range policy, the author knows that these 
assets can prove to be a major factor in the internal political situation 
of a noncommunist country; they can contribute effectively to the 
furtherance of communist strategy. 

In the 1950s and 1960s the Soviet government, acting largely 
through the Soviet intelligence service, exercised great pressure on the 
older anticommunist generation of Finnish social democratic leaders, 
especially Tanner, a true sociahst and strong anticommunist who 
stoutly resisted Soviet pressure. 

According to Zhenikhov, the KGB resident in Helsinki in 1960, 
Soviet intelligence, with the active help of Khrushchev and other 
members of the Presidium, succeeded in the 1950s in recruiting a 
prominent Finnish social democrat. His KGB cryptonym was 
"Leader." Zhenikhov was one of the KGB officers who maintained 
contact with him. At the KGB's suggestion, Leader argued in favor of 
a change in the social democratic attitude toward cooperation with the 
Soviet Union. Eventually, in 1959, he split away from the social 
democratic party and formed his own party. The KGB provided him 
with guidance on the political attitudes and policies of this party. 

Other important recruitments were made in the social democratic 
leadership, and the agents concerned were used in intrigues against 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 283 

Tanner and Leskinen, but their identities are not known to the author. 
There were also successful Soviet efforts to recruit Finnish trade 
union leaders. 

In a conversation with the author, which took place in 1960, on the 
subject of removing anticommunists from the social democratic 
leadership, Zhenikhov said that it might be necessary to eliminate 
Leskinen physically by poisoning him. Zhenikhov said that he had an 
agent in the leadership of the Finnish conservative party who was in 
close touch with Leskinen and through whom the assassination could 
be arranged. 

Until the late 1950s Soviet intelligence made use of agents in the 
Finnish Communist party, including Pessi and Herta Kuusinen, a 
communist member of parliament. In the period 1957-60, when the 
long-range policy was being formulated, the use by the KGB of agents 
in local communist parties was abandoned. At the same time secret 
cooperation between the leaders of the CPSU and local communist 
parties was strengthened, the KGB acting under the guidance of the 
Centra! Committee when necessary to facilitate this cooperation. In 
the Finnish case, special groups were set up in the central committees 
of the Soviet and Finnish parties to handle the practicalities of 
coordination; the KGB resident in Helsinki acted as the link between 
the two groups. When Khrushchev visited Finland, Herta Kuusinen 
was invited by the KGB resident to the Soviet Embassy, where 
Khrushchev discussed with her the political lines her parliamentary 
statements should follow. 

The KGB and its residents in Finland, Kotov and Zhenikhov, 
played an important secret role through their agents in the election and 
formation of a series of Finnish governments. The KGB secretly 
coordinated the joint efforts of its agents and the Finnish Communist 
party to muster support for those candidates who found favor with the 
Soviet Union and to mount campaigns against those who did not. 
Among the Soviet agents so used was the leader of the Swedish 
People's party, who was handled by Zegal and Zhenikhov. The main 
aim of these activities was to secure the election of a prominent 
Finnish leader, a KGB agent of long standing, whose cryptonym was 
"Timo." 

Timo was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1948, at which time he 
was a minister. The recruitment was achieved by a rank and file 
intelligence officer, a Soviet Finn from Karelia, who was 



284 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

serving under cover as second secretary in the Soviet embassy in 
Helsinki. This officer developed a close social relationship with Timo, 
which involved drinking bouts and saunas. He succeeded in 
persuading him that, in return for his collaboration with Soviet 
intelligence, the Soviets would forget the repressive action he had 
taken against communists in the past while serving as a high official 
and would use all their influence to build him up into a major political 
figure. 

The KGB resident at the time, Mikhail Kotov, sent Time's recruiter 
back to Karelia and took for himself the credit for this spectacular 
success. From late in 1948 or early in 1949, Kotov in person 
maintained contact with Timo. Soviet intelligence kept their side of 
the bargain and threw all their weight behind his political career. 
Eventually Timo achieved a high office and remained in it until 
recently. 

Soviet help for him took various forms, including diplomatic 
support for his policies, indirect financial support for his electoral 
campaigns, advice on the courses he should pursue, and help in 
undermining rival candidates. In 1961 agent Leader, acting on KGB 
instructions, declared himself as a candidate for a high office in order, 
at a later stage, to transfer his supporters' votes to Timo. 

Timo, for his part, acted as a classic Soviet agent of influence. He 
promoted in his party those whom the Soviets wished to see promoted 
and, when possible, discussed his political appointments and decisions 
in advance with Soviet intelligence. For example, the Soviet 
government was consulted through the KGB in advance about his visit 
to the United States in 1961. He kept the KGB fully informed on his 
discussions with other Scandinavian leaders. On KGB advice he 
created his own secret intelligence service under Vilkuna, another 
Soviet agent. Timo used the service to bolster his own power, and he 
shared its product with the KGB, which received all reports from 
Finnish ambassadors and military attaches abroad and secret 
information from other departments of the Finnish government. Timo, 
on KGB instructions, recommended the appointments of KGB agents 
as ambassadors to Moscow and other important posts. In 1960 and 
1961 Zhenikhov discussed with Timo the holding of the Eighth World 
Festival of Youth in Finland in 1962. Timo promised to help arrange 
this, despite fierce opposition from large sections of the Finnish 
public. 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 285 

Meetings between Zhenikhov and Timo took place at his brother's 
farm or in the Soviet embassy. When official receptions were held at 
the embassy, a special room was prepared in which private 
conversations with Timo could take place. Soviet government leaders, 
including Krushchev and Brezhnev, were fully aware of Timo's 
relationship with the KGB, when conversations and negotiations with 
Soviet leaders took place during his visits to Moscow, Kotov and 
Zhenikhov would act as interpreters and advisers. Zhenikhov often 
used to boast that he would get Timo secretly awarded the Order of 
Lenm. 

Friction between Zhenikhov and Zakharov, the ambassador to 
Finland, over who should be responsible for maintaining and directing 
relations with Timo generated so much heat that both were summoned 
to appear before the Central Committee. The Central Committee's 
eventual decision was that Zhenikhov should remain the principal 
contact with Timo but that the ambassador should have the right to be 
consulted and to be present at meetings at which certain political 
matters were discussed. Zhenikhov and Zakharov were warned by the 
Central Committee that if there were any further squabbles between 
them, both would be recalled to Moscow. 

In 1961 it was planned that Vladimirov should take over as KGB 
resident horn Zhenikhov and should assume responsibility for 
relations with Timo and for intelligence work in Finnish political 
parties in general. 

Kotov made a successful career in Soviet intelligence on the 
strength of his service in Finland. From being a Scandinavian spe- 
cialist, he rose to the higher echelons of the KGB. Not long after Timo 
was appointed to a high office, Kotov was promoted to be a deputy 
chief of Soviet intelligence with responsibility for Austria and West 
Germany. In 1959 or 1960 he was summoned to a meeting of the 
Presidium at which Khrushchev congratulated him on his success in 
Finland and instructed him to apply his experience in Austria and 
Germany with a view to influencing the leaders of those countries in 
the direction of closer relations and eventual alliance with the Soviet 
Union. 

This illustration shows that the role of the KGB in what is now 
known as Finlandization can be a significant one. For the present 
purpose, it is more germane to see how, through agents of influence 



286 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

like Time, the Soviets have been able to promote the strategy for 
Europe since 1958-60. 

Herta Kuusinen played an important role in the Scandinavian 
consultative body known as the Northern Council in promoting the 
idea of a nuclear-free zone in Scandinavia. She was also active in the 
1960s in the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) 
and became its chairman. 

By June 1963 pro-Soviet influence in the social democratic party 
had reached a level at which Tanner, true to his anticommunist 
convictions, felt unable to accept the party chairmanship. According 
to the press, his successors, Paasio and Koivisto, developed close 
relations with both the Soviet government and party. In 1964 Simo- 
nen took over the leadership of the Social Democratic Union of 
Workers and Small Agrarians (SDS). In June there were negotiations 
on a reconciliation of this splinter group with the main social 
democratic party. In September Simonen led a delegation to the Soviet 
Union that was received by Brezhnev and Andropov. 

In 1967 Paasio, as chairman of the social democrats, and Simonen, 
as chairman of the SDS, both supported Timo for a high office. Paasio 
also came out against the US bombing of North Vietnam. 

In 1968 Timo was reappointed to his high office. In May 1968 a 
delegation led by Paasio visited the Soviet Union for party negotiations 
with the CPSU and met Brezhnev, Suslov, and Ponomarev. The 
delegation "highly esteemed the foreign policy carried out by the 
CPSU." 

Representatives of both the social democratic party and SDS 
demanded the cessation of American bombing in Vietnam and agreed 
on the convening of a European conference on security. In June 1968 
a conference of delegates from fifteen countries took place in 
Helsinki; it concerned the recognition of East Germany and the 
implications this would have for European security. In the same 
month Timo paid an unofficial visit to the Soviet Union. In October- 
November 1968 Koivisto, who had taken over the post of Prime 
Minister, paid a visit to Moscow. In connection with the possible 
extension of NATO to cover "gray areas," Koivisto remarked in 
November 1968 that Finland "had no enemies from whom to expect 
an invasion." The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia recorded in 1969 that 
the Finnish social democratic party fully cooperated on foreign policy 
with the Soviet Union.'" 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 287 

Perhaps Time's greatest single service to communist strategy will 
turn out to be the help he gave in convening CSCE in Helsinki. In 
1969 the Finnish government agreed to act as host. During 1970 a 
Finnish ambassador was given a special assignment to visit the United 
States and Europe. In November of that year the Finnish government 
addressed a note to thirty-five countries proposing a preparatory 
meeting on European security. In December the Soviet Union agreed 
to the proposal. Similar agreement was expressed by all the East 
European states including Yugoslavia but not Albania. 

It is of particular interest that Timo visited the Soviet Union twice 
in 1970. In between the two visits to the Soviet Union he visited the 
United States and discussed European security and the Middle East 
question. During his second visit to the Soviet Union he said that the 
Soviet-Finnish Friendship Treaty of 1948 was of extreme significance 
for Finland, and he agreed to help prolong it for a further twenty 
years. 

The strategic role of the communist intelligence potential in Finland 
is known to the author in some detail up to the end of 1961 because he 
worked there. He also knows in genera! terms that similar activities 
were conducted in other European countries by KGB residents like 
Krokhin and Rogov (whose real name is Tsimbal) in France; 
Fedichkin, Orlov, and Gorshkov in Italy; and Korovin (an alias of 
General Rodin) in Britain. In West Germany the KGB was 
particularly active and successful in blackmailing and recruiting two 
categories of politicians and officials: those who had bad records from 
the Nazi period and those who were known, from KGB penetration of 
other Western intelligence services, to be working as agents for one or 
another of the Western powers. The exposure in April 1974 of 
Gunther Guillaume as an East German agent, which led to Brandt's 
resignation as Chancellor, showed how far communist intelligence 
penetration had reached in West Germany. The author reported in 
1962 that, in the previous September while serving in the KGB 
residency in Helsinki, he had read a highly classified circular letter 
from KGB headquarters to residencies abroad describing successful 
recruitments of important new agents in recent years, which should be 
emulated. One case, which was given as "an example of a well- 
carried-out recruitment," illustrates the "false flag" recruitment 
technique. 



288 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The circular said that in one of its residencies the KGB had an 
agent. He was a very dependable, active agent who had been working 
for the KGB for many years and who had at one time been a minister 
in his country. He still had entree into political circles in that country 
and in particular was sufficiently close to the American and British 
ambassadors for both of them to visit him at home. His KGB 
controller asked him if he knew anyone who could be recruited in the 
prime minister's office. The agent replied that he did have a friend 
there, but that it would be difficult to approach him because he was a 
man of pro-Western views. It was therefore decided that, since the 
man knew that the agent was on friendly terms with the American and 
British ambassadors, the agent would ask him, ostensibly on behalf of 
one of them, for information on the prime minister's conversations. 
The agent did so, and his friend agreed to supply information. In due 
course he accepted money in return. The circular said that in this way 
the residency had gained a new and valuable agent who began 
systematically to give information on the Prime Minister and his 
running of the country. 

The normal practice in such a case would be for the KGB to take 
over direct contact with an agent recruited under a false flag once he 
had been "sucked in," but the circular did not say whether this had 
been done in this case. As far as the author knows, the agent and his 
friend have never been identified. 

At the end of 1961 the KGB was planning yet more active use of 
high-level agents of influence to manipulate world public opinion and 
the policies of individual governments. The KGB residencies abroad 
were instructed in 1961 to encourage its agents to attend the World 
Disarmament Conference in Moscow in 1962. No doubt the same 
instructions were repeated for other world peace congresses in the 
1960s and 1970s. 

For Western security services, preoccupied in the main with 
conventional espionage, subversion, and law enforcement questions, 
the high-level agent of influence presents new and complex problems. 
Nevertheless, an understanding of communist strategy can help to 
throw new light on the significance of contacts made by communist 
embassies in the West and of visits by prominent Western citizens to 
the communist bloc. 

Undoubtedly the bloc countries applied their intelligence poten- 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 289 

tial to the service of communist strategy in the Third World as 
elsewhere. The author's information on the subject is fragmentary 
because the development of this potential was still in the early stages 
when he broke with the Soviet regime. 

Some general indications of the way in which things were moving 
were, for example, the creation of new African and Latin American 
departments in the KGB; the instruction to Soviet counterintelligence 
to establish direct personal contact with all Third World ambassadors 
in Moscow; the more intensive use, on Shelepin's instructions, of 
agents of influence for political purposes; and the use of 
antiimperialist sentiment as the basis for recruiting agents. An 
additional general point is that KGB deputy residents with specific 
responsibility for Third World operations were appointed to important 
KGB residencies in the advanced countries, such as in the Washington 
and New York residencies. 

A KGB training manual that the author read in the late 1950s 
mentioned three specific cases, without giving full details. The first 
related to the president of a developing country who was recruited on 
a visit to the Soviet Union. Exceptionally, this recruitment was based 
partly on an indirect form of blackmail. The president was a 
homosexual. In approaching him the KGB claimed to have infor- 
mation that a worldwide criminal organization had plans to blackmail 
him. The KGB offered to help him to avoid the blackmail in return for 
his cooperation against the imperialist powers. The president agreed to 
the proposal. The second case related to an Indian ambassador in 
Moscow, who performed important services for the KGB in exerting 
influence over other ambassadors in Moscow. The third case 
concerned an Indonesian ambassador in Moscow who was recruited. 

The training manual described two different ways in which infor- 
mation obtained from the penetration of Western intelligence services 
could be exploited. One was the doubling of Western agents whom 
the KGB had identified by penetration. The manual referred to a 
minister or deputy minister of internal affairs of an African country 
who was known from the penetration of British intelligence to be a 
British agent and who was blackmailed and recruited by the KGB on 
that basis. The alternative form of exploitation was to supply 
information to Third World leaders with whom the Soviets had close 
relations on the identities of Western agents in their 



290 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

countries. Information of this kind was given to Nasser in the late 
1950s. 

The author learned of two specific recruitments from a former 
colleague, Sergey Antonov. In 1958 or 1959 Antonov, who was then 
KGB deputy resident at the United Nations in New York, recruited an 
important African personality. On the strength of this recruitment 
Antonov was appointed head of the KGB's new African Department 
in 1960. Vladimir Grusha, an official of the American Department, 
recruited, in about 1957, a high-level Indonesian diplomat in the US. 
For this reason Grusha, although a member of the American 
Department, was posted as deputy resident in Indonesia in 1958 or 
1959. 

Viktor Zegal, an official of the KGB residency in Helsinki, told the 
author that he had recruited a Brazilian diplomat in Finland in 1961. 
The agent's cryptonym was "Pedro." 

While the author was working in the NATO section of the 
Information Department, the KGB obtained a memorandum written 
for NATO by a prominent Western Arabist on the use of Arab 
nationalism to divide the Arab world. The document was passed on to 
the Soviet leadership. 

In 1960 the KGB's decoding service broke the code used by the 
Turkish ambassador in Moscow and systematically read the messages 
passing between him and the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The traffic 
was known as "Turkish Notebook." 

Mikhail Tkach was a former Soviet military intelligence officer 
who spoke good Persian and English and had worked under cover as 
consul-general in Iran, where he was known for his skill in recruiting 
Iranian officials. In 1956 Tkach joined the KGB. In 1960, on 
Shelepin's instructions, he was appointed head of the international 
department of the Soviet trade union organization in order to re- 
orientate it for political use, especially against the Third World. 
Tkach told the author that all the officials of this department were 
members of the KGB. This gives some indication of the importance 
attached to the recruitment of foreign trade union officials, especially 
those from the Third World. 

That the security and intelligence potential of the Soviet national 
republics was used in the interests of long-range policy is indicated by 
the appointment in the 1970s of Aliyev as first secretary of the party's 
Central Committee in Azerbaydzhan." He was once 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 291 

head of the counter-inteUigence department of the KGB branch in 
Azerbaydzhan, and after 1961 became chairman of the branch. His 
promotion can be explained only by the success of the KGB branch 
under his leadership in fulfilling party tasks. After he was made first 
secretary he became active in the Third World; he has visited various 
Arab and African countries. 

There is evidence of advice and help being given by the Soviet 
Union and other members of the communist bloc to friendly countries 
and liberation movements on intelligence, security, and guerrilla 
warfare. Recipients since 1960 have included Cuba, Ghana (up to 
1966), and other African states. 



Strategic Exploitation of KGB Agents among Prominent Soviet 
Intellectuals and Religious Leaders 

The KGB, and its departments that are responsible for work among 
Soviet scientists and writers and foreign delegations and visitors to the 
USSR, are involved in an active effort to influence prominent foreign 
visitors along desirable foreign strategy lines. Especially exploited are 
prominent personalities who are members of the Soviet Peace 
Committee; the Committee for Solidarity with African and Asian 
Countries; Soviet Friendship societies; the State Committee of 
Science and Technology; the State Committee for Cultural Ties; and 
the Institute of USA and Canadian Studies, led by G. Arbatov. 

A special word heeds to be said on the exploitation of religion and 
leading churchmen in the communist world for strategic political 
purposes. 

In November-December 1960 the Patriarch of All Russia, Alek-siy, 
an old KGB agent, accompanied by Metropolitan Nikodim, head of 
the Russian Orthodox Church's International Department, and 
Professor Uspenskiy of the Leningrad Faculty of Theology and an 
active member of the Soviet Peace Committee, toured the Middle East 
in an aircraft provided by the Soviet government.'^ In the course of 
the tour Patriarch Aleksiy and the Syrian patriarch issued an official 
communique that stated: "Our standpoint of Christian love compels us 
to condemn everything which incites hatred among peoples and 
impels mankind toward a new world war and 



292 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

... to bless any attempts aimed at creating peace between peoples and 
nations. . . . We resolutely condemn any manifestation of colonialism 
as foreign to the spirit and the letter of the law of God."''' 

The real identity of Metropolitan Nikodim is an interesting ques- 
tion. According to official sources he was appointed head of the 
International Department of the Russian Orthodox church in I960, 
having served from 1957 to 1959 as a priest in the Russian Orthodox 
church in Jerusalem. A colleague of the author's at the KGB Institute 
named Lapshin was appointed, on graduation from the Institute, to the 
religious section of the KGB's Emigre Department, where he was 
working in I960. Lapshin told the author that the KGB had succeeded 
in placing the deputy head of the Emigre Department who was 
responsible for religious affairs, under cover as head of the 
International Department of the Russian Orthodox church. The KGB 
officer concerned, who used the name Viryukin in the KGB, had 
served as a priest in Jerusalem in 1957-58. He had earlier made a 
significant contribution to the KGB's penetration of the church and the 
persecution of its priests. He had been transferred abroad to specialize 
in other churches, using his KGB connections and facilities for 
political purposes. Lapshin himself was being prepared to serve in the 
United States under cover as the editor of a religious publication. His 
mission was probably cancelled because the author's connection with 
Lapshin would have been known to the KGB. Metropolitan Nikolay 
Krutitskiy, whom Nikodim replaced as head of the International 
Department, though a true priest, was an old KGB agent. His 
replacement by Nikodim may well have been due to the fact that 
Krutitskiy's association with the KGB was exposed by the former 
Soviet intelligence officer Deryabin in 1957. 

The Christian Peace Conference, composed of East European 
church leaders, dates from the period of the formulation of the long- 
range policy. It has played an active part in influencing Western 
churches in the interests of that policy. 

The Second All Christian Congress in Defense of Peace, held in 
Prague in June-July 1964, attracted one thousand delegates, including 
representatives of Buddhism and Islam as well as the Orthodox, 
Cathohc, and the Anglican and other Protestant churches. The 
introductory speech was made by Gromadka of 



DISINFORMATION AND INTELLIGENCE 293 

Czechoslovakia, the president of the Christian Peace Conference. 
Speakers from the Third World included one from Madagascar and 
one from Uruguay. The congress appealed to all Christians for 
disarmament, independence, and the eradication of hunger. 

In November-December 1964 the Seventh General Conference of 
the International Brotherhood of Buddhists, held in India, was 
attended by Buddhists from the Soviet Union. Mongolian, as well as 
Soviet, Buddhists went to a Buddhist conference in Ceylon in 1969. It 
was decided to hold a forum of Asian Buddhists in June 1970 to 
discuss the "struggle for peace" and support for North Vietnam.'"^ The 
forum took place in Mongolia.'^ Two months later a Central Buddhist 
Monastery and a Buddhist Institute were opened in Ulan Bator. 

In March 1965 the First Conference of Muslims of Asia and Africa 
was held in Bandoeng. Thirty-five countries were represented. The 
Mufti of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, Babakhanov, led the Soviet 
delegation. The conference discussed the use of Mushm proselytizing 
societies as weapons against imperialism. The need to harness Islam 
to the service of the revolution has been openly discussed by 
communist strategists. Based on Soviet experience in Central Asia, 
the problem of achieving this is considered difficult but soluble. 

The Christian Peace Conference held a seminar in Sofia in June 
1976 to discuss the outcome of CSCE in Helsinki and its significance 
for the Third World. The main reports were introduced by Professor 
Bognar, the head of the Research Institute of World Economy of 
Budapest University; by Dr. Kutsenkov, deputy director of the Institute 
of International Labor Movements of the Soviet Academy of 
Sciences; and by professors from India and Puerto Rico. The theme of 
the seminar was that the Third World, which had been exploited by 
imperialism in the past, should welcome the Helsinki conference and 
recognize the need for cooperation in the European collective security 
process. Dynamic steps should be taken to ensure military detente and 
disarmament, which would allow Europe to contribute to the new 
economic order. Helsinki had not destroyed the forces opposed to 
detente or frustrated their anticommunist purposes. Further efforts 
were necessary to prevent new forms of psychological warfare by the 
"enemies of peace." 

The seminar was followed by discussions in Moscow between 



294 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Metropolitan Nikodim and delegations from Pax Christi and churches 
in Italy, Holland, Belgium, and West Germany. The subject was "East 
and West now and tomorrow from the Christian point of view." The 
meeting welcomed the Helsinki agreements and underlined the 
importance of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 
negotiations in Vienna for troop reductions in Central Europe. The 
secretary of the International Department of the Russian church, 
Buyevskiy, drew a distinction between communist and Western aid to 
the Third World by maintaining that communist aid was given to 
develop Third World economies toward independence. The Soviet 
Professor Osipov said that East-West collaboration resulting from 
Helsinki would allow the diversion of military budgets to the 
development of the Third World. He drew attention to the importance 
of the UN General Assembly's call in 1974 for a new economic order. 

The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia recorded that by 1972 the World 
Council of Churches had been converted from a "pro-Western" to a 
"progressive" orientation in its policies on peace, disarmament, and 
related matters. Assiduous advocacy by the Christian Peace 
Conference and others of the view that Christianity and communism 
were natural allies in support of the national liberation movement 
induced the World Council of Churches to provide funds for African 
guerrilla movements, including the Rhodesian Patriotic Front, 
believed to be responsible for a massacre of British missionaries in 
1978. 

The Fifth General Conference of Buddhists for Peace was held in 
Ulan Bator in July 1979. The Patriarch of All Russia, Pimen, sent a 
message to his "dear, fellow friends of peace" wishing them success. 
In the previous month he had received the Dalai Lama, who was in 
Moscow on his way to Ulan Bator and no doubt shared with him his 
experience of peace conferences. The Patriarch's message to the 
conference was conveyed by Metropolitan Nikodim's successor. 
Metropolitan Yuvenaliy, who had acted as chairman of an All-World 
Conference held in Moscow in 1977, on "religious leaders for peace, 
disarmament, and just relations between peoples." Yuvenaliy 
advocated signature of the SALT II treaty and the opening of 
negotiations on SALT HI, arguing that only detente could bring peace 
to the whole world, including Asia.'^ 



23 



The Evidence of Overall Coordination 

Between the Communist Governments 

and Parties 



Coordination within the Bloc 

The revival after 1958 of an overt central body analogous to the 
Comintern or Cominform to coordinate the communist bloc and 
movement would have been incompatible with the long-range policy 
and strategy. There is, however, significant inside and open 
information on the strengthening since 1959 of the coordinating 
machinery of the bloc. The establishment in 1959 of a secret coordi- 
nating center for the bloc's intelligence and security services has been 
described already. In addition, as Khrushchev put it in October 1961, 
it had become the "practice to hold periodic exchanges of views 
among the heads of parties and governments on major economic and 
political problems. The collective agencies of the socialist states — the 
Warsaw Treaty Organization and the Council for Mutual Economic 
Aid — have grown stronger."' The Political Consultative Committee of 
the Warsaw Pact was activated at about this time. In 1969 a committee 
of ministers of defense was added, and in 1976 a committee of foreign 
ministers. In Comecon a Permanent Executive Committee was 
established at the vice-premier level in 1963. 

No less important than this supranational and governmental coor- 
dinating machinery is the wide range of multilateral and bilateral 
forms of contact at different levels between the leaders of the bloc and 
nonbloc parties and their party apparatuses. A systematic reading of 
official communist sources, especially the Great Soviet Ency- 
clopaedia, shows the scope and scale of both governmental and 

295 



296 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

party contacts. All of these provide opportunities for the communist 
leaders and their experts in various fields to exchange information, 
opinions, and accounts of their experiences in implementing the 
policy and strategy and to discuss and decide on new initiatives and 
tactics. 

The possibility that, in addition to these acknowledged forms of 
contact, there is a secret policy coordinating center for the bloc is 
discussed below. 

Before considering the main open forms of coordination, attention 
should be drawn to a general point made in the Encyclopaedia 
regarding various forms of contact. According to this source the 
Twenty-second CPSU Congress in October 1961 determined the 
"most appropriate forms of contact between parties in present 
conditions."^ Chou En-lai was present at this congress. If his osten- 
tatious walkout is discounted as part of a disinformation operation, the 
implication is that the Chinese took part in determining what form 
future contacts between parties should take. In the following year the 
Encyclopaedia stated that "in modern conditions the cooperation of 
communist parties finds expression in bilateral and multilateral 
contacts ... in meetings between party leaders and in the participation of 
communist party delegations in the work of party congresses." The 
recognition by the Encyclopaedia of bilateral forms of contact as well 
as attendance at congresses is significant in that it legitimizes the 
continuation of bilateral contacts with the Chinese by the Soviets and 
others after the Chinese withdrawal from multilateral bloc 
organizations. Elsewhere, the Encyclopaedia emphasized the 
importance of conferences for the "working out of agreements on joint 
actions for the implementation of the general line of policy." Use of 
the expression "general line of policy" is as near as the Encyclopaedia 
gets to an admission of the existence of a common long-range policy. 



Summit Meetings 

In May 1958 the first of a series of summits of first secretaries of 
the bloc parties and heads of the bloc governments devoted to the 
economic integration of the European communist countries was held 
in Moscow. The summits on the same subject in 1961, 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 297 

1962, and 1963 were held under Comecon auspices. 

The Moscow summit of August 1961, which dealt with the con- 
clusion of the German treaty, was in the form of a meeting of the 
Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact. It subsequently 
became normal, but not invariable, practice to hold meetings of the 
Political Consultative Committee at or near first secretary level. For 
example, the Soviet delegation to the meeting of the committee in 
January 1965 included Brezhnev, Kosygin, Gromyko, Malinovskiy, 
and Andropov. It dealt with the subject of security in Europe and 
discussed the convening of a European conference on security and a 
world conference on disarmament.'' The meeting of July 1966, held in 
Bucharest, was at summit level. It pursued the subject of security in 
Europe and called for troop withdrawals and the dissolution of NATO 
and the Warsaw Pact.' Subsequent meetings at summit level included 
those held in Sofia (March 1968), which issued a declaration on 
Vietnam; in the Soviet Union {August 1970); in Prague (January 
1972); in Warsaw (April 1974); and in Moscow (November 1978).^ 
The 1970 summit in Moscow was attended by a particularly strong 
Romanian delegation, including Ceausescu, Maurer, Niculescu-Mizil, 
and Manescu. Those in Prague and Warsaw discussed European 
problems. The Encyclopaedia noted that in 1970 the question of 
raising the level of effectiveness of cooperation between communist 
parties was central to the communist system. Their efforts in 
economic policy, ideology, and the strengthening of defense were 
closely coordinated.' Other summits were held independently of either 
Comecon or Warsaw Pact organizations; for example, one was held in 
Moscow in June 1967 and another in Budapest in the following 
month. These two meetings discussed the Israeli-Arab war, expressed 
solidarity with the Arab world, and demanded the withdrawal of 
Israeli troops. As the Encyclopaedia puts it: "These meetings provided 
an opportunity to work out a single position and joint political and 
diplomatic actions." Two summits were held on international 
ideological questions: one in Moscow (December 1973) and one in 
Prague (March 1975). They discussed the direction that should be 
taken by ideological cooperation "in conditions of deepening 
detente." The political and military leaders of the Warsaw Pact 
countries met in Warsaw in May 1980. 

In addition to formal summit meetings, a series of informal sum- 



298 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

mer gatherings of communist leaders have been held in the Crimea. 
References can be found to such meetings in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 
1977, and 1978, and probably to one held in 1974. As the 
Encyclopaedia for 1974 states: "The Crimean meetings have become a 
tradition. The leaders keep each other informed and narrow down 
their positions in the political, economic, and ideological fields."'^ In 
1975 the Encyclopaedia said that the meetings had become the forum 
at which the international situation is assessed, common tasks are 
discussed, and the strategy of joint actions is developed. Thanks to the 
Crimean meetings, the cooperation between communist countries has 
become closer."'" 

According to Pravda {March 20, 1981), it was noted at the Twenty- 
sixth CPSU Congress that, during the past years, thirty-seven friendly 
meetings at the summit level had taken place in the Crimea. The 
future development of relations between the fraternal parties and 
countries, key problems of world politics, and tasks for the future 
were discussed at these meetings. 

A second new type of high-level gathering made its appearance in 
the 1970s. In September-October 1975, in January 1976. and in March 
1977, there were conferences of the second secretaries of the central 
committees held in Moscow, Warsaw, and Sofia respectively. Deputy 
heads of government were included in the first of these conferences, 
which dealt with economic cooperation." The second and third both 
dealt with ideological questions in a period of detente. The Warsaw 
meeting related to Europe in particular.'' Cuba, as well as Romania 
and Czechoslovakia, was mentioned as being represented at the 
Warsaw and Sofia meetings. 

One meeting of the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee 
that does not appear to have been held at first or second secretary 
level is nevertheless worthy of note. It took place in Bucharest, the 
capital of supposedly independent Romania, in November 1976. Its 
agenda covered the deepening political and military cooperation 
between members of the Pact. In order to perfect the mechanism of 
political cooperation within the framework of the Warsaw Pact, a 
committee of ministers of foreign affairs, together with a combined 
secretariat, was estabhshed as an organ of the Political Consultative 
Committee.' 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 299 

Coordination through Diplomatic Channels 

With the adoption of the long-range policy, diplomatic represen- 
tation within the bloc became a permanent form of political coordi- 
nation among its members. This statement is supported by the fact that 
an unusually large number of new ambassadors were appointed 
between bloc countries in the period 1960-62. New Soviet 
ambassadors were appointed in 1960 to Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, 
Cuba, and Hungary; in 1961 to Mongolia, Romania, Yugoslavia, and 
Albania; in 1962 to Cuba, Yugoslavia, and East Germany. The 
Romanians, Hungarians, Mongolians, and Cubans appointed new 
ambassadors to the Soviet Union in 1960; the Yugoslavs in 1961; the 
Chinese in 1962, and the Czechoslovaks in 1963. 

The status of Soviet ambassadors changed at the same time. There 
are indications''' that Soviet ambassadors to other bloc countries were 
made responsible for coordinating all aspects of long-range policy 
within the countries of their accreditation. Soviet ambassadors are 
carefully chosen so as to ensure that their background and experience 
fit them for the specific tasks they will have to perform. Because of 
their coordinating function, almost all Soviet ambassadors within the 
bloc since 1960 have been members of the Central Committee of the 
CPSU. In this context it is worth remembering Tito's complaint in 
1948 that the Yugoslavs could not be expected to reveal secret party 
information to Soviet representatives who did not have that status. It is 
also interesting to note that no distinction seems to be made between 
the status of Soviet ambassadors in "dissenting" bloc countries, such 
as China and Romania, and "orthodox" countries, such as Hungary 
and Bulgaria. For example, the Soviet ambassador to Romania from 
1965 to 1971 was Basov, a Central Committee member. The Soviet 
press indicated in July 1966 that he was a member of the Soviet 
delegation to the Comecon meeting in Bucharest; the delegation 
included Brezhnev and Kosygin. 

Of special interest are the Soviet ambassadors to China. From 1959 
to 1965 the post was held by Chervonenko. It is noteworthy that 
Chervonenko, who was appointed in the period in which China was 
actively participating in the formulation of the long-range policy, 
should have been kept in Peking for the first five years of 



300 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the Split. It is even more remarkable in the light of his background. 
From 1951 onward he was a senior party theoretician and official in 
the Ukraine; from 1956 to 1959, he was secretary of the central 
committee of the Ukrainian party. As such, he was a close friend and 
confidant of Khrushchev. He went to Peking and remained there as a 
leading political and party figure, not as a career diplomat; his posting 
indicated the close political and party relations between the Soviet 
Union and China. His subsequent career is of equal interest. In 1965 
he was transferred from Peking to Prague, where he remained until 
1973, a period spanning both the preparation for and the aftermath of 
the "Prague spring." In 1973 he moved to Paris, in time for the 
development of Eurocommunism and other elements of the bloc's 
strategy for Europe. He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin. 

In Peking he was succeeded by Lapin, who served there from 1965 
to 1970. Lapin was elected a member of the Central Committee at the 
Twenty-third CPSU Congress in 1966. As chief editor of broadcasts 
from 1944 to 1953, he became an expert on the censorship and 
manipulation of news. He went on to become minister of foreign 
affairs for the Russian Republic from 1960 to 1962 and deputy to 
Gromyko from 1962 to 1965.'^ 

Lapin's successor was Toistikov, a prominent party official. From 
1952 onward he was active in party work in Leningrad and rose to be 
first secretary of the Leningrad provincial committee, one of the most 
important party posts in the Soviet Union, and one once held by 
Zhdanov. Toistikov has been a member of the CPSU Central 
Committee since 1961. 

Shcherbakov, who took over from Toistikov in Peking in 1978, 
worked in the Central Committee apparatus from 1949 to 1963 and 
from 1974 to 1978. He has been a member of the Central Revision 
Committee of the CPSU since 1966. He was minister at the Soviet 
embassy in Peking in 1963-64, crucial years in the development of the 
Sino-Soviet split. From 1964 to 1974 he was Soviet ambassador to 
Vietnam. 

The successive postings to China of these four very senior Soviet 
party officials is incompatible with the deterioration in Sino-Soviet 
party relations that is alleged to have taken place. 

The continuity of Soviet and Chinese foreign policy is further 
symbolized by the continuance in office as the ministers of foreign 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 301 

affairs in their respective countries of Cromyko from 1957 to the 
present day and of Chen Yi from 1958 to 1971. 



Bilateral Coordination within the Bloc 

Even if bilateral coordination is considered a less perfect form of 
coordination within the communist world than multilateral, it is still 
officially recognized. There is abundant, openly available evidence of 
the continuity from 1958 to the present day of bilateral exchanges of 
visits between party and government leaders of the Soviet Union and 
other communist countries, including China, Romania, 
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Cuba, countries which, at one time 
or another, have allegedly been estranged to some degree from the 
Soviets. 

For the duration of the genuine Tito-Stalin split, it would have been 
more than Tito's life was worth for him to have attempted to visit the 
Soviet Union; but since 1961, Tito, until his death, and other Yugoslav 
leaders have been almost annual visitors. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, 
Kosygin, and Gromyko in their turn have been to Yugoslavia. Tito 
and his subordinates have traveled often to other communist countries, 
including, from 1970 on, China. Tito's death did not destroy the 
pattern; in April 1982 Gromyko visited Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav 
defense minister visited Moscow despite alleged differences over 
Afghanistan and Poland. 

In the case of Romania, some of Ceausescu's many visits to the 
Soviet Union have been well publicized. Western commentators, 
under the influence of disinformation, have almost always assumed 
that these visits were made in an attempt to resolve the differences 
between the Soviet and Romanian leaders. But the evidence of 
Romania's participation in Warsaw Pact, Comecon, Crimean, and 
other multilateral and bilateral meetings within the bloc far outweighs 
the occasional evidence of her nonparticipation and is inconsistent 
with the existence of serious differences. It points to the conclusion 
that, when Ceausescu met Brezhnev, it was not to be reprimanded by 
him, but to work out in practical terms how the fiction of Romanian 
independence could best be maintained and exploited in the interests 
of long-range policy. 

Similarly, the scale of the evidence of Czechoslovak contact with 



302 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the Soviet Union, bilaterally and multilaterally, in summit, Warsaw Pact, and 
Comecon meetings before, during, and after the events of 1968 supports the 
conclusion that the Czechoslovak crisis was a planned and coordinated 
operation. For example, in March 1968 Czechoslovak representatives 
informed a summit meeting of several bloc countries in Dresden, called to 
discuss political and economic unity through Comecon and bilateral contacts, 
that the decisions of the January plenum were aimed at the "realization of the 
line of the Thirteenth Party Congress" and that they were sure that the 
leadership of the party would secure the further development of 'socialism.' 

m17 

Chinese party and government leaders played an important part in the 
formulation of the long-range policy from 1958 to 1960. As observers they 
attended Comecon meetings until late in 1961, and also attended the early 
meetings of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact.' It 
was at these meetings that the foundations of future coordination in the bloc 
were laid. Even in 1961, continued Chinese participation in multilateral 
gatherings of this kind was an anomaly. For them to have continued to attend 
such gatherings would have put the Sino-Soviet disinformation operation at 
serious risk. Less conspicuous bilateral Sino-Soviet contacts of one kind or 
another have continued almost without interruption throughout the split. 
They are capable of two interpretations. For example, conventional 
methodology sees the meetings of the Sino-Soviet border commission as 
vain, attempts to resolve frontier dispute. The new methodology sees them as 
providing convenient cover for coordinating policy and planning, for staging 
and exploiting spurious frontier incidents, and for other forms of Sino-Soviet 
squabbhng. The same point apphes to the joint Sino-Soviet commission on 
navigation. The exchanges of trade delegations could equally provide cover 
for contacts of a political nature. Suggestive scraps of information can be 
gleaned from the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia. For example: 

• In April 1961 a Chinese trade delegation to Moscow was received by 
Khrushchev. 

• In 1962 Chinese party delegations attended party congresses in Eastern 
Europe. 

• In January 1963 a delegation from the Supreme Soviet, led by Andro- 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 303 

pov, at that time the secretary of the central committee responsible for bloc 
countries, visited China. 

• From July 5 to July 20, 1963, there were meetings in Moscow between the 
leading strategists of the CPSU and CPC. The Chinese delegation was led by 
the general secretary, Teng Hsiao-p'ing, and the CPSU delegation included 
Suslov, V. Grishin, Andropov, Il'ichev, Ponomarev, Satyu-kov, and 
Chervonenko. The Chinese delegation was received by the CPSU Central 
Committee. The presence in Moscow of the Chinese delegation coincided 
with the negotiation of the Test Ban Treaty. The meetings between the 
delegations were interrupted, but there was an agreement that they should be 
resumed later. 

• In October 1964 there was a meeting of the Sino-Soviet railway 
commission in Khabarovsk. 

• In the same month Soviet, Romanian, Cuban, and other delegations 
attended the celebrations of the Chinese revolution: the Soviet delegation was 
led by V. Grishin, candidate member of the Presidium and chairman of the 
Soviet trade union organization."'"' 

• From November 5 to November 14, 1964, a party and government 
delegation led by Chou En-lai was in the Soviet Union; it had meetings with 
Brezhnev, Andropov, Kosygin, Podgornyy, Gromyko, and others and signed 
an agreement." The reference to Gromyko's presence indicates that the 
meeting dealt with the coordination of foreign policy. 

• On February 5-6 and 10-11, 1965, a Soviet delegation led by Kosygin 
stopped over in China on its way to and from Vietnam for negotiations with 
Chinese leaders, including Mao"" 

• On January 7 and 13-14, 1966, Shelepin visited China on the way to and 
from Vietnam. It may or may not he a coincidence that Brezhnev was in 
Mongolia from January 1 1 to January 17."' 

• In June 1966 Chou En-lai visited Albania and led a delegation to 
Romania for talks with the Romanian leaders. 

• From June 19 to August 8, 1969. the Sino-Soviet joint commission on 
navigation in the Amur Basin held its fifteenth session and reached an 
agreement. No dates were given for the first fourteen sessions. 

• In September 1969 Romanian leaders visited Peking; on September 1 1, 
Kosygin met Chou En-lai in Peking; on October 20, Sino-Soviet negotiations 
took place in Peking on problems of mutual interest." The Soviet delegation 
was led by the first deputy minister of foreign affairs, V. V. Kuznetsov."^ 
Kuznetsov remained in China until June 13, 1970." 

• On August 15, 1970, the deputy minister for foreign affairs, Il'ichev, 



304 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

arrived in Peking as head of a Soviet government delegation for negotiations 
with the Chinese. 

• Between July and December 1970 sixteen Sino-Soviet negotiating 
sessions were held on the settlement of border questions. 

• In August and September 1970 negotiations on Sino-Soviet border trade 
were held in Khabarovsk." 

• On November 18, 1970, the new Soviet ambassador, Tolstikov, had a 
meeting with Chou En-lai. 

• In 1971 the negotiations on border questions continued; from June to 
August a Chinese deputy minister was in the Soviet Union as head of a trade 
delegation negotiating deliveries; a trade agreement was signed in Moscow. 

• In 1972 the Sino-Soviet negotiations on border questions did not 
advance "because of China's negative position"; in June a Soviet trade 
delegation led by I. Grishin visited China. 

• In 1973 negotiations on border questions continued at the deputy 
minister of foreign affairs level. 

• In February and March a session of the joint Sino-Soviet commission 
was held." 

• In 1974 the negotiations on border questions by the deputy ministers of 
foreign affairs continued. 

• In February 1974 direct flights from Moscow to China were started. 

• In February-March 1974 a session of the joint Sino-Soviet commission 
on navigation was held. 

• On June 25, 1974, a Soviet delegation led by Deputy Minister Il'ichev 
arrived in China for negotiations on border questions.""' 

• On November 12, 1975, Deputy Minister Il'ichev arrived in Peking for 
negotiations on border questions. 

• In September 1976 the CPSU Central Committee sent its condolences 
on Mao's death; Gromyko and Mazurov, both members of the Politburo, 
called at the Chinese embassy. 

• On November 29, 1976, Deputy Minister Il'ichev arrived in China; 
negotiations on border questions continued in Peking until February \911^' 

• From July to October, 1977, the joint Sino-Soviet mixed commission on 
navigation resumed its sessions after a two-year interruption. 

• On July 20-28, 1977, a Chinese government trade delegation, led by the 
deputy minister of foreign trade, visited the Soviet Union and was received 
by Patolichev.'' 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 305 

• In April 1978 Il'ichev arrived in Peking to resume negotiations. Tallcs 
were held in Moscow from September 29 to November 30, 1979, between 
Il'ichev and the Chinese deputy foreign minister, Wang You-ping. They were 
to take up "broad questions of pohtical and economic relations," other than 
border disputes. According to TASS, it was agreed that the talks should 
continue in Peking. Gromyko met Wang in December. 

• Early in 1981 China and the Soviet Union renewed an accord on 
navigation rights in the Amur River; this was at the twenty-third session of a 
series of negotiations begun in 1951. 

• In March 1982 three Chinese experts visited Moscow to study Soviet 
management techniques and were received by the deputy chairman of the 
Soviet State Planning Committee. 

This list of bilateral contacts is obviously incomplete. Even so, no 
comparable list of bilateral Soviet- Yugoslav contacts could be drawn up for 
the period of the genuine Tito-Stalin spht. For a substantial fraction of the 
period covered, the Soviet Union was represented in China by a deputy 
minister as well as by a leading party official in the post of ambassador. 
Fragmentary as it is, the picture that emerges of Sino-Soviet bilateral contacts 
is more consistent with coordination of policy and tactics than with abortive 
attempts to settle disputes. Special attention should be drawn to the 
prominence, in the talks with the Chinese, of two major Soviet strategists: 
Kuznetsov, a leading speciahst in foreign pohcy; and Il'ichev, a specialist in 
ideology as well as foreign affairs, including European security.'' Note also 
the presence of Andropov, a speciahst on the bloc, later chairman of the 
KGB, and now party leader. Tikhvinskiy, an expert on disinformation, has 
figured in the Soviet delegations. On the Chinese side, prominent officials of 
the Chinese Foreign Ministry also took part in these discussions, which 
suggests that the subjects involved were wider than border problems. 

The number of trade delegations sent by the Chinese to the Soviet Union 
is also striking. It is noticeable that those in 1971, 1973, and 1977 arrived in 
the Soviet Union in July or August, which is the time when the Crimean 
summit conferences are held; the possibility of secret Chinese participation in 
them should not be discounted. 

A similar pattern of high-level bilateral contacts between the Soviets and 
the Vietnamese and between the Chinese and the 



306 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Vietnamese could also be documented. 

Before leaving the subject of coordination within the bloc, brief 
reference should be made to the close working relations between 
speciahst departments of the central committees of the bloc parties. 
Intensive contacts are also carried on between administrative, inter- 
national, ideological, and other departments within the bloc, and 
outside it in the case of those nonbloc parties large enough to have 
similar departments of their own. 



Coordination between Bloc and Nonbloc Parties 

The arrangements for coordinating the bloc and nonbloc parties and 
achieving what Khrushchev called the synchronization of their 
activities and policies are so extensive that no more than an outline 
can be given here. 

Of fundamental importance are the international conferences of 
bloc and nonbloc parties. The Sixty-four-party congress of November 
1957 decided to work out a new long-range policy and strategy for the 
bloc and for the international communist movement. The Eighty-one- 
party congress of November 1960 formally adopted the new policy 
and strategy. The Chinese, Albanian, Romanian, Czechoslovak, 
French, Italian, and Spanish parties all took part in it. The next such 
congress was held in Moscow in June 1969. Seventy-five parties 
attended, nine from within the bloc and sixty-six from outside it. The 
presence of five members of the Soviet Politburo shows the 
importance attached to it by the CPSU. The congress reviewed the 
preceding ten years and adopted a program of action for the future. 
The French, Italian, and Spanish parties took part. The preparations 
for the 1969 conference extended over more than four years. 

In the same period other international conferences were devoted to 
specific aspects of policy. For example, in October 1965 conferences 
were held both in Moscow and in Czechoslovakia (Prague) to 
celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Seventh Congress of the 
Comintern, which adopted united front tactics. Representatives of 
forty parties attended the Moscow meeting, which produced a report 
on the historic significance of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern 
for the modern communist movement. According to the Great Soviet 
Encyclopaedia, "new strategic and tactical forms 



EVIDENCE OF COORDINATION 307 

and methods" for the communist movement were formulated. ^^ In 
January 1970 a conference in Moscow of twenty-eight European 
parties discussed European security. In September, in Budapest, forty- 
five parties discussed common actions against imperialism.'' ' 

There have been systematic regional conferences of communist 
parties in Western Europe, Scandinavia, Latin America, Central 
America, the Mediterranean, and in Arab and African countries. The 
series in Europe included the Tihany and Berlin conferences in 1976, 
in which the Eurocommunist parties were active. The list of 
conferences could be prolonged indefinitely. 

The congresses of the CPSU provide important opportunities for 
consultation and coordination. The congresses of other bloc 
communist parties attract fraternal delegations in substantial numbers. 
It would be superfluous to enumerate them all; a few examples will 
illustrate the point. The Twelfth Czechoslovak Congress, in 1962, was 
attended by sixty-eight delegations, the Eighth Yugoslav Congress, in 
1964, by thirty; the Romanian congress, in 1965, by fifty-seven. 
Wherever conditions permit, the congresses of nonbloc communist 
parties are attended by delegations from bloc parties. There are 
innumerable official and unofficial contacts between communist 
parties and national and international communist front organizations, 
such as the World Federation of Trade Unions and the World Peace 
Council. 

Permanent linkage between the bloc and nonbloc parties exists 
through the International Department of the CPSU Central Committee 
under Ponomarev (this department has representatives stationed 
abroad) and through the headquarters of the World Marxist Review in 
Prague, where a number of representatives of bloc and nonbloc parties 
work together as permanent members of the staff. The World Marxist 
Review holds theoretical conferences on major policy issues. 

Huge numbers of bilateral visits are paid to the Soviet Union and 
other communist countries every year by the leaders and functionaries 
of nonbloc communist parties traveling on party business. 



Conclusions 

Between 1958 and 1980 the scale of contact between communist 
parties inside and outside the bloc is without parallel elsewhere 



308 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

in the world. The vast majority of communist gatherings take place 
behind closed doors; no more is known about them than the leaders 
wish to be known. Deprived of authentic news and hypnotized by 
"revelations" about communist disunity derived from communist 
sources. Western commentators have tended to underrate or ignore the 
vast weight of the evidence of continuing systematic coordination of 
the bloc from 1958 to the present day. The scale, the scope, and the 
manner in which this coordination is conducted refute the notion that 
international communism is a movement that has lost its momentum, 
direction, and ideological sense of purpose through disunity. 
Furthermore, the movement has not lost its controlled, organized, and 
disciplined character. True, systematic dissent on the part of any one 
communist country could only lead to its expulsion from the 
communist bloc and its ostracism by all other communist countries, as 
was the case with Yugoslavia in 1948. What has changed since 1957- 
60 is not the nature of communism, but the appreciation by communist 
leaders of the strategic and tactical advantages of spurious dissent 
within the movement and the experience they have gained in 
exploiting it strategically in the interests of long-range policy. The old 
methodology resolves the contradiction between the evidence of 
coordination and the evidence of disunity by ignoring much of the 
evidence of coordination. The new methodology resolves it by 
demonstrating the contrived and spurious nature of the disunity. The 
scale of the acknowledged contact between the Soviets and the 
Chinese, the Yugoslavs, the Romanians, and the Eurocommunists 
betrays the nature of the "splits" and "differences" between them and 
confirms that they are no more than manifestations of strategic 
disinformation in action in support of long-range policy. 



24 



The Impact of the Disinformation Program 



The Shaping of Western Assessments of the Communist World 

The launching of a strategic disinformation program in 1958 
invalidated the conventional methodology of Western students of 
communist affairs. A carefully controlled flood of information was 
released through the whole range of sources under communist control. 
As in the NEP period in the 1920s, this flood of information confused 
and distorted Western views on the situation in the communist world. 
Western analysts, lacking the ability to acquire inside information on 
communist strategic thinking, planning, and methods of operation, 
gratefully accepted the new stream of information at face value. 
Without their knowing it, their conventional methods of analysis were 
invalidated and turned back on them by the communist strategists. 
Because of the deliberate projection by these strategists of a false 
image of the dissolution of communist unity, the noncommunist world 
ignored or undervalued open and significant evidence pointing to bloc 
cooperation from 1957 onward on a new footing of equality and 
commitment to fundamental ideological principles and long-term 
policy objectives. The new dispensation allows for variation in 
domestic and international tactics and provides unlimited opportunities 
for joint efforts between bloc countries to misrepresent the true state of 
relations between them whenever this should be to their mutual 
advantage. Unnoticed by the West, communist ideology was freed 
from its Stalinist straitjacket and revived on Leninist lines. The change 
was successfully misrepre- 

309 



310 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

sented as the spontaneous replacement of ideology by nationalism as 
the driving force behind the communist world. 

Noncommunist studies came increasingly to be based on informa- 
tion emanating from communist sources. While observers in the 
noncommunist world sometimes showed some awareness that infor- 
mation was reaching them through channels under communist control, 
there was virtually no recognition of the fact that the information had 
been specially prepared behind the Iron Curtain for their benefit. The 
pohtical role of the intelligence services was ignored, and since the 
evidence of planning and coordination in the activities of the bloc was 
also overlooked, the growth of internal opposition movements and the 
eruption of disputes between communist states and parties were 
wrongly seen as spontaneous developments. 

Up to 1960, and despite the Tito-Stalin split of 1948 and the Polish 
and Hungarian uprisings of 1956, the noncommunist world was 
willing to accept as fact the growth of a cohesive communist bloc and 
international movement. Some Western analysts, like Professor 
Possony, regarded the decisions of the Eighty-one-party congress in 
November 1960 as indicating the adoption of a long-range policy. But 
the acceptance at face value by Western statesmen, diplomats, 
intelligence services, academics, journalists, and the general public of 
the subsequent evidence of disputes and disunity in the communist 
world precipitated a new attitude that would have been unthinkable 
before and that caused the views of Possony and others to be regarded 
as anachronistic if not antediluvian. The Eighty-one-party Manifesto 
came to be regarded as a temporary, patched-up compromise between 
the parties signifying their failure to adopt a common policy, and so 
was brushed aside. The evidence of evolution and splits in the 
communist world was so overwhelming in volume and so convincing 
in character that none could continue to question its validity. 
Acceptance in particular of the Sino-Soviet split as a reality became 
the common basis for all noncommunist attempts to analyze present 
and future policies and trends in the communist world. As a result 
Western perception of offensive communist intentions was blunted 
and the evidence of coordination in the execution of worldwide 
communist strategies was discounted. 

Because strategic disinformation was not recognized as such. 
Western views on internal developments in the communist world 
came increasingly to be shaped and determined by the communist 
strategists in the interests of their own long-range policy. In the 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 311 

Soviet Union the dropping of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," and 
the introduction of market-orientated enterprises and other measures 
of economic reform seemed to presage a reversion toward capitalism. 
The gradual rise in hving standards seemed to be taking the edge off 
the Soviet appetite for revolutionary change, generating new pressures 
on the regime to allow greater freedom and improve the supply of 
consumer goods. Apparent differences in the Soviet leadership 
between the liberal reformers and conservative ideologists on how to 
grapple with these pressures and reconcile the need for progress with 
lip service to ideology confirmed Western belief in the recurrence of 
power struggles, mainly behind the scenes but sometimes in the open, 
as in the case of Khrushchev's dismissal. When the liberals appeared 
to have the upper hand, expectations were aroused of increasing 
cooperation between the Soviet Union and the West. Moderation in 
Soviet propaganda and expressions of interest in peaceful coexistence 
and businesslike negotiations seemed genuine, especially when 
compared with the implacable hostility of the Chinese. Occasional 
aggressive Soviet actions were attributable to the survival within the 
leadership of a group of die-hard Stalinists who had to be appeased 
from time to time by the Hberal reformers. If the Stalinists were once 
more to regain control, detente would be reversed and there might be a 
Sino-Soviet reconciliation. The West therefore had an interest in 
strengthening the hand of liberal reformers. Provided they survived, 
there were prospects of an improvement in relations owing to the 
existence of common interests between the Soviets and the West in 
avoiding nuclear conflict and confronting Chinese militancy. In the 
long run the technological revolution offered prospects of a gradual 
narrowing of the gulf between the communist and non-communist 
systems. 

Such were the arguments of the 1960s. Despite the revival of neo- 
Stalinism toward the end of the decade, the arguments survived and 
gained weight until the later 1970s. 

The apparent opening up of cracks between the communist states 
was assessed as an encouraging development. The emergence of a 
range of different brands of communism seemed to show how 
ideology had lost its binding force. The rivalries between the com- 
munist states appeared rooted in traditional national sentiment. 

The impact of the Sino-Soviet dispute on Western thinking can be 
illustrated by the change in attitude of Allen Dulles, the former 



312 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

director of the CIA, a man of unquestionable integrity and anticom- 
munist conviction with access at the time to all available open and 
secret information. In an address delivered on April 8, 1959, Mr. 
Dulles said: "As long as the principles of international communism 
motivate the regimes in Moscow and Peking, we must expect that 
their single purpose will be the liquidation of our form of free society 
and the emergence of a Sovietized, communized world order. They 
change their techniques as circumstances dictate. They have never 
given us the slightest reason to hope that they are abandoning their 
overall objectives. We sometimes like to delude ourselves into 
thinking that we are faced with another nationalistic power struggle of 
which the world has seen so many. The fact is that the aims of the 
Communist International with its headquarters in Moscow are not 
nationalistic; their objectives are not limited. They firmly believe, and 
eloquently preach, that communism is the system which will 
eventually rule the world and each move they make is directed to this 
end. Communism, like electricity, seeks to be an all pervasive and 
revolutionary force."' Only three years later, speaking on the same 
subject at the Convention of the American Bar Association, in August 
1962 in San Francisco, Dulles, in referring to the unfolding Sino- 
Soviet dispute, maintained that the communist system was showing 
manifold vulnerabilities and weaknesses.^ 

Confirmation of this view was soon visible in the growing "inde- 
pendence" of Romania. Following Tito's example, Ceausescu seemed 
to be championing his people's cause against Soviet interference in 
their country. He was therefore worthy of support in concrete terms. 
Similar aspirations and tendencies toward independence from the 
Soviet Union were thought to be at work elsewhere in Eastern Europe, 
especially in Poland. But it was in Czechoslovakia that the newest and 
most exciting brand of communism burst upon the market in the 
"Prague spring" of 1968. This seemed more than just an assertion of 
Czech and Slovak nationalism; it was a rethinking of some of the 
basic concepts of the relations between the individual and the 
communist state: It was "socialism with a human face," and it opened 
up new possibilities of East-West cooperation. But because it 
threatened the foundations of the communist system, it was crushed 
by brutal Soviet military intervention. 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 313 

Apparently shaken by rebellion outside their borders and the growth 
of dissidence at home, the Soviet leaders under Brezhnev reverted to 
repression on crude Stalinistic lines. It was therefore with reservations 
that the West received communist proposals for a conference on 
European security. Nevertheless, the Czechoslovak experience had, it 
seemed, demonstrated the existence of liberalizing tendencies in the 
communist world, a point underlined by vocal Soviet "dissidents." It 
was therefore worthwhile for the West to engage in discussions on 
European security and human rights, even if only with an eye to the 
future. 

Tito and his Yugoslav regime were thought to be helpful in 
promoting liberalizing tendencies in the bloc. Yugoslav influence in 
the nonaligned movement was welcomed as an obstacle to the 
extension in the developing countries of Soviet and Chinese power. 

The tendency toward disintegration seemed to have spread from the 
bloc to the international communist movement. The Sino-Soviet split 
had triggered off a splintering process in many communist parties. 
Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia had been repudiated by several 
important parties, including the French and Italian, the two most 
powerful in Europe. In the mid-1970s both parties had expressed their 
independence of the Soviet Union and added their voices to the cry for 
democracy, human rights, and a Europe free of military pacts. Even if 
the Italian party came to power, it seemed that that might not be 
incompatible with the survival of democracy or even with continuing 
Italian adherence to the North Atlantic Treaty. 

To sum up, the apparent loss of revolutionary ardor, the apparent 
disunity in the bloc and movement, the apparent preoccupation of the 
communist states with fratricidal struggles, and the advent of detente 
all pointed to the same conclusion: The Cold War was over. The new 
situation seemed to demand accommodation and a positive response 
to communism rather than the old forms of resistance and 
containment. 



The Effect on Western Policy Formation 

During the Cold War, when the threat of communism seemed 
dangerously acute, traditional national differences between the 



314 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Western powers were to some extent subordinated to the common 
interest in self-defense. From 1945 to 1949 Western Europe was 
recovering from the devastation of the war. American superiority was 
unquestioned. Europe was dependent on the United States to restore 
its economic life and protect it from Soviet attack. By the mid-1950s 
the situation was already changing. Europe was on the road to 
recovery and was beginning to see itself as a community of rapidly 
advancing economic powers. Resentment of American influence was 
growing. Especially in France, there was a demand for a more equal 
partnership with the United States. In October 1958 General de Gaulle 
addressed a memorandum to the American and British governments 
asking in effect for the creation of a triumvirate of powers with 
worldwide responsibilities. The memorandum reflected the changing 
economic realities in Europe. Given a clearsighted and realistic 
common assessment of the long-range communist problem, the 
required adjustment of relationships within the Western alliance, 
based on the principle of equal partnership, might have been achieved. 
As it was, the alliance was allowed to drift. At the same time changes 
began to appear in the communist world that, distorted and 
exaggerated by communist disinformation, indicated a reduction in the 
immediacy and intensity of the threat from communism. The 
argument for sacrificing national interests for the sake of Western 
unity in defense was weakened. If the communist monolith was 
disintegrating into a set of rival national regimes, whose national 
interests were increasingly overriding their supposedly common 
ideology, the nations of the West could afford to revert to the pursuit 
of their traditional national interests in their particular spheres of 
influence. It was no longer necessary to strengthen Western unity 
under American leadership. It was more important to examine 
possible new alignments. The developing nations were no longer 
frightened into joining Western-backed military alliances; they could 
pursue their independence more effectively outside, or in active 
opposition to, the alliances while seeking cooperation with the 
communist countries. 

If communist ideology was a dechning force, then Western ideo- 
logical anticommunism of the Cold War variety was outdated; it 
would serve only to blight the growth of nationalism in the communist 
world and drive the increasingly "independent" communist regimes 
back together. The new look in the communist world die- 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 315 

tated a reexamination of traditionai Western concepts. The world 
could no longer be simply divided into two antagonistic blocs divided 
neatly along ideological lines. Given Soviet commitment to detente 
and peaceful coexistence and given the existence of the Sino-Soviet 
split, the concepts of East-West ideological competition and the global 
containment of communism seemed obsolete; they could endanger 
peace or provoke a Sino-Soviet reconciliation. Unity in Western 
military, political, and economic policies toward the bloc had become 
superfluous even before it had been achieved. The new situation 
called for flexibility and freedom of initiative. 

Different schools of thought developed on how best to take advan- 
tage of the new situation in the communist world. If nascent differ- 
ences between the communist states were to be encouraged, differ- 
entiated approaches to them were needed. Bridge-building with those 
East European states showing liberal or independent tendencies would 
help to wean them away from the Soviet Union. 

At the same time it seemed necessary to encourage closer Western 
relations with the Soviet Union to stimulate the process of internal 
evolution and to exploit her differences with China — in other words, 
to "play the Soviet card." "History," it was said, "will not forgive us if 
we miss that chance." 

In the United States some argued that the emergence of the Soviet 
Union and the United States as nuclear superpowers rendered the 
Western alliance less important. A unilateral approach to the Soviet 
Union was to be preferred as less complicated and less likely to 
provoke Sino-Soviet reconcihation. A sympathetic understanding was 
required of the position of liberal Soviet leaders. Their influence would 
be strengthened if they could be helped to solve their agricultural 
crises, industrial failures, technological backwardness, and shortages 
of consumer goods. Better fed, better housed communists would be 
more satisfied and less revolutionary. 

The extent to which Khrushchev was accepted as a liberal in the 
West was illuminated by the widespread Western fears of a reversion 
to hard-line Soviet policies provoked by the news of his "dismissal" in 
1964 and the relief that ensued when it became apparent that detente 
and peaceful coexistence would continue. 

Another school of thought in the United States contended that the 
West should not seek actively to exploit the Sino-Soviet dispute for 
fear of achieving the opposite effect to that intended; the two 



316 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

communist giants were best left to fight it out between themselves. A 
passive policy on the Sino-Soviet split could nevertheless be ac- 
companied by an active policy toward Eastern Europe. The continuing 
independence of Yugoslavia had demonstrated the success of Western 
policy toward her after 1948. An active trading policy in Eastern 
Europe, apart from being profitable, offered hopes of prizing other 
East European satellites away from the Soviet Union. 

In France the Gaullist vision of a greater Europe stretching from 
the Atlantic to the Urals became a topic for serious discussion. 

Differences over policy toward China widened. The United States 
clung to the view that no concessions should be made as long as the 
regime pursued its radical militant line. Other countries, especially 
France, argued that China was embittered by its diplomatic isolation. 
Granted diplomatic recognition, a seat in the United Nations, and 
more favorable openings for trading with the West, it would evolve, 
like the Soviet Union, on more moderate lines. 

In the 1970s the obvious Soviet military threat in Europe and open 
Soviet aggressiveness in Africa and Afghanistan, in contrast with 
China's new-found moderation, generated a new school of thought 
advocating closer relations with China, or "playing the China card." 

In oversimplified form these were some of the arguments and 
considerations taken into account by the architects of Western policies 
in the 1960s and 1970s. The major criticism of these policies is not that 
they were influenced by cryptocommunists or fellow travelers, though 
this factor should not be disregarded. The policies were, in the main, 
honestly developed from certain basic premises, namely, that the 
Soviet system was evolving, that the Sino-Soviet split was genuine, 
and that the communist monolith was in the process of disintegration. 
The policies were wrong because the premises were false: They were 
the product of communist disinformation. 



The Practical Effects on Western Policies 

Apparent disunity in the East provoked real disunity in the West. 
Antagonisms and disputes between the Western allies came out into 
the open. For a while, they made headhne news. Soon they 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 317 

were accepted as normal. 

The trend toward the pursuit of national interest was most evident in 
France. It entailed a sharp decline in cooperation with the United 
States, the adoption of a new national defense policy, a withdrawal 
from France's military commitments to NATO in 1966, concentration 
on France's leading role in the Common Market, and the revival of 
interest in her traditional allies in Eastern Europe: Russia, Poland, and 
Romania. The deterioration in relations with some of the NATO allies 
was sharp. Cries were heard of France for the French, Europe for the 
Europeans, America for the Americans. Suspicions were fanned that 
the defense of Europe was not a vital United States interest. American 
reactions to the reassertion of French identity and interests were not 
always tactful or farsighted. The United States refused to share its 
nuclear technology with France. The Americans failed to consult the 
French adequately over the Cuban crisis. France was not a party to the 
test-ban treaty signed by the United States and Britain with the Soviet 
Union in 1963. The French openly flouted American policy on the 
recognition of communist China. As the American military 
commitment in Vietnam built up, so did the intensity of West 
European, especially Swedish, criticism of American policy there. 

Franco-American hostility spilled over into Franco-British rela- 
tions. Because of the "special relationship," Britain was cast in the role 
of an American agent in Europe. Britain's application to join the 
Common Market was vetoed by France. Britain focused on relations 
with BETA and the Commonwealth and on cutting back her overseas 
commitments. 

These developments were accompanied by unjustified fears of a 
revival of the German threat in Europe and by the questioning of the 
wisdom of Franco-German rapprochement, which, though desirable in 
the interests of Western European unity, was in itself no substitute for 
it. 

Elsewhere, quarrels multiplied. The Austrians and Italians quar- 
reled over the Tirol; the French and the Canadians over Quebec; 
Greece and Turkey over Cyprus; Britain and Iceland over fish; 
Pakistan and India over Kashmir and other issues. Arab-Israeli hostility 
reached new levels of intensity. These conflicts had their roots in 
historical problems that had little or nothing to do with communism. 
Nevertheless, the apparent weakening of the communist 



318 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

threat permitted a degree of indulgence in emotive nationalistic 
disputes that might have been more muted in the face of a common 
danger commonly perceived. In the atmosphere of detente NATO, 
which had been created to contain the obvious postwar Soviet military 
threat to Western Europe, lost momentum. Not only were there 
political conflicts among its members, but the effort to establish 
standardized arms and equipment languished. Joint NATO programs 
were stillborn or halfhearted. In 1974 Greece followed France in 
withdrawing from its military commitments. Tension with Turkey 
gravely weakened NATO's southern flank. 

In 1965 a Western observer who, like everyone, accepted the 
authenticity of the Sino-Soviet split commented thus on NATO: "The 
basic Soviet blackmail strategy in the past decade has been to splinter 
NATO. This was the purpose behind the Berlin crisis. If the trends 
within NATO are not reversed, this objective may be accomplished, 
not by the more militant Soviet strategy, but by the temporary 
reduction of Soviet militancy, encouraging disarray within the alliance. 
How true it is that the use of force is often not the best strategy. The 
Soviets may in retrospect count the Sino-Soviet split more than 
compensated by a NATO split. As for the West, any breakup of 
NATO into power clusters, or a Balkanization of West Europe, could 
produce miscalculations or appeasement."^ 

The abandonment by the West of concerted policies toward the 
communist world led to changes in Western diplomatic practice. 
Personal contacts — including confidential talks — negotiations, and 
understandings between leading communist and noncommunist 
statesmen, even if initiated by the communist side, were welcomed in 
the West. A unilateral approach to relations with communist countries 
became the norm. General de Gaulle's visit to Moscow in 1966 
revived talk of the Franco-Russian alliance of the 1890s and the 
Franco-Soviet pact of the 1930s. The United States agreed to 
conducting the SALT negotiations with the Soviet Union on a 
bilateral basis. Regular bilateral political consultations between the 
Soviets and the French and Italian governments became accepted 
practice. In West Germany the argument for an opening to the East 
gathered strength and found expression in Chancellor Brandt's Ost 
politik in the early 1970s. The Western response to China's detente 
diplomacy appeared not to be concerted. There 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 319 

were conspicuous examples of failure to consult; for example, the 
Japanese were not warned by the Americans of the Nixon-Kissinger 
initiative in China in 1971; President Giscard d'Estaing gave his allies 
little or no notice of his meeting with Brezhnev in Warsaw in May 
1980. 

The widening of the range of the contacts between communist 
diplomats and politicians in the noncommunist world was as warmly 
greeted as the widening of Western contacts with the communist 
world. 

With the advent of detente Western business interests pressed for 
the expansion of trade with communist countries. Normally without 
consultation or regard for any common Western policy or interest, 
individual noncommunist countries took their own initiatives. 
Justification, if needed, was to be found in the arguments that the 
trade was profitable and beneficial to the economies of the 
noncommunist world, and that it would promote good East-West 
relations and stimulate pro-Western, liberal, nationalistic, and 
separatist tendencies in the communist world, thereby contributing to 
world stability and peace, and perhaps in the long run to the formation 
of a world common market. 

Many Western firms, attracted by apparently golden opportunities, 
sent their representatives to explore the communist market. The 
British, having the greatest experience in world trade, took the lead, 
closely followed by the French, West Germans, Italians, and Japanese. 
The Germans, in particular, extended long-term credits to Eastern 
Europe, hoping, apart from making a profit, to promote independence 
from the Soviet Union. The Europeans and the Japanese increased 
their trade with China, hoping at the same time to take the edge off 
Chinese militancy. 

There was a general trend in the 1960s toward easing restrictions on 
trade with communist countries. The policy of limiting East-West 
trade, underlined in the Rome agreements of 1958-59, was abandoned 
in favor of expansion; controls on strategic exports from the West 
were relaxed, and major industrial plants of definite strategic 
importance to the communist bloc were constructed on communist 
territory by Western enterprises. Longer-term credits were provided. 
Most favored nation status was granted to additional communist 
countries, including Romania and, in 1980, China. The United States, 
which had for long opposed the expansion of East- 



320 NEWLIESFOROLD 

West trade, began to change its ground. By 1977, as the President's 
State of the Union Message for that year shows, the encouragement of 
trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe had become official 
American policy. Scientific and technical cooperation flourished, and 
the export of high-technology goods, including computers, was 
permitted even by the United States. All these steps were taken by 
Western nations acting individually, with little or no consideration of 
the possible long-term consequences. 

Particular favor was shown to the Yugoslavs on the grounds that, 
having broken with the Soviet Union in 1948, they had established a 
precedent for Eastern European independence. 

Next in favor were the Romanians, for the very reason that they 
appeared to have set off on the same independent course as 
Yugoslavia. The Romanian minister of foreign trade was received in 
France, West Germany, and the United States. Romania was given 
most favored nation status. Credit was made available to Romania 
more freely than to any communist country other than Yugoslavia and 
Poland. 

By the end of the 1970s the expansion of trade and credit had 
allowed overall communist indebtedness to the Western world to rise 
to a total of about $70 biUion. The growth of East- West trade had a 
pronounced effect on the overall Western approach to the communist 
world, since it built up powerful vested interests in the continuance of 
detente despite the growth of communist military power and other 
indications of aggressive communist intentions. 

Detente and disinformation on communist "evolution" provided 
grounds for socialist parties to view with greater favor the formation 
of united fronts with communist parties. Apart from improving the 
chances of socialists' gaining power, united fronts looked like a 
promising device for influencing communist parties to move closer to 
social democracy and further from the Soviet Union. Such ideas were 
strong in the Italian, West German, French, and Finnish socialist 
parties. In general, socialist parties looked less favorably on coalitions 
or electoral alliances with center parties. The general leftward trend of 
the 1960s had a polarizing effect. It widened the gulf between 
conservative and progressive parties and between the reforming and 
revolutionary wings of socialist parties. More often than not, the 
moderate center suffered. The pragmatic relationship between 
conservative American and socialist European ten- 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 321 

dencies seemed to have outlived its usefulness. 

Opposition to communism in principle became unfashionable. The 
basic differences between democracy and communism were lost from 
sight. It was considered more rewarding to seek out common interests 
through increasing East- West scientific, cultural, and sporting 
exchanges that, it was thought, would contribute to the liberalization 
of communist regimes. In the 1960s anticommunist writers virtually 
lost their admission tickets to the communications media; their 
attitude was deemed inimical to detente.'^ European radio and 
television organizations negotiated their own arrangements with their 
official Soviet government counterparts. The need for anticommunist 
broadcasts was called into question. The direct anticommunist content 
was drastically reduced.' Attention was focused instead on the Sino- 
Soviet split, other fissures in the bloc, and the growth of dissident 
movements. Official and semiofficial funding of noncommunist 
cultural and student organizations for the purpose of countering 
communist fronts was largely discontinued. 

Soviet expansionism in Africa and the intervention in Afghanistan at 
the end of 1979 drew attention to underlying Soviet aggressiveness. 
Some of the more naive Western illusions about detente were 
shattered. At the same time Western reactions to the Soviet action 
demonstrated the extent to which vested interests in detente had been 
built up in the West, not least in West Germany and France. Despite 
American opposition, the West Germans and French have shown 
themselves determined to proceed with the construction of a gas 
pipeline from the Soviet Union to Western Europe. It is doubtful if the 
Afghan situation will alter long-term Western attitudes to detente any 
more than did the Cuban crisis of 1962. It has not dissipated long-term 
Western expectations, fostered by twenty years of communist 
disinformation, that the decay of ideology and the growth of internal 
opposition will lead eventually to the liberalization of the Soviet 
regime. 

Meanwhile, China's vigorously expressed hostility to the Soviet 
Union offers apparent prospects of alliance with the West on the basis 
of a common interest in containing Soviet expansionism. Because 
there has been no understanding in the West either of disinformation 
or of long-range communist policy and the scissors strategy, "playing 
the China card" is now regarded as a serious strategic option for the 
United States. 



322 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Conclusion 

Communist strategic disinformation has had a profound influence 
on international relations. Western governments and their professional 
advisers have remained oblivious of the problem. The fundamental 
purpose of the disinformation program has been to create favorable 
conditions for the fulfillment of long-range communist policy. The 
communist strategists have achieved their purpose thus far by 
misleading the West on developments in the communist world with 
three main aims in view: to relieve Western pressure on the 
communist regimes while they are "building socialism" and laying the 
groundwork for an eventual worldwide federation of communist 
states; to provoke the Western responses they desire to their activist 
diplomacy and international communist strategy; and to prepare the 
ground for a major shift in communist tactics in the final phase of 
policy in the 1980s. 

The success of the communist disinformation program has engen- 
dered a state of crisis in Western assessments of communist affairs 
and therefore a crisis in Western poHcy toward the communist world. 
The meaning of developments in the communist bloc is 
misunderstood and the intentions behind communist actions are 
misinterpreted. Enemies are accepted and treated as though they were 
allies of the West. The Soviet military threat is recognized, but the 
strategic political threat is not comprehended and is therefore 
underestimated. Communist political offensives, in the form of detente 
diplomacy and disarmament negotiations, are seen as indications of 
communist moderation. Communist strategy, instead of being 
blocked, is unwittingly assisted by Western policies. 

The first communist strategy of strengthening and stabilizing the 
bloc pohtically and economically has been assisted by Western 
economic aid and by the acceptance of detente and cooperation with 
communist governments. By responding favorably to communist 
initiatives on SALT and collective security in Europe, the West has 
helped the communist strategists to prepare the ground for the 
dissolution of NATO and the withdrawal of US troops from Europe. 
By accepting Yugoslavia as independent, the West has given her the 
opportunity to organize much of the Third World into a socialist- 
orientated bloc with a procommunist, anti-Western bias. By accepting 
Sino-Soviet rivalry as genuine and considering 



IMPACT OF DISINFORMATION PROGRAM 323 

China as a possible ally against Soviet expansionism, the West is 
creating opportunities for the construction of new alignments that will 
rebound, in the long run, to its own detriment. By engaging in SALT 
talks and agreements with inadequate awareness of communist long- 
range policy and strategy and by providing advanced technology first 
to the Soviet Union, then to China, the West has helped to shift the 
balance of military power against itself. Failing to appreciate the 
control over communist intellectual and religious figures and taking 
detente at its face value, the West has been ready to accept the notion 
of a long-term evolution of communism and its ultimate convergence 
with the democratic system. The West has assisted communist 
ideological strategy by its own unilateral ideological disarmament. 

The spurious notion of a common interest between the United 
States and the Soviet Union against China in the 1960s was deliber- 
ately contrived and successfully exploited in the interests of commu- 
nist strategy. The same can be said of the common interest between 
Eastern and Western Europe in seeking collective security against 
West German "revanchism" and American "interference"; or the 
common interest between communist and developing countries in the 
struggle against "imperialism"; or the common interest between 
China, Japan, and the West in resisting Soviet expansionism. Even the 
genuine common interest between the Soviet Union and the United 
States in avoiding nuclear conflict has been successfully exploited to 
swing the military balance in favor of the communist bloc. 

The Western strategy of a mildly activist approach to Eastern 
Europe, with emphasis on human rights, is doomed to failure because 
it is based on misconceptions and will lead ultimately into a trap when 
a further spurious liberalization takes place in Eastern Europe in the 
final phase of long-range communist policy. Not the least disturbing 
aspect of the present crisis in Western assessments and policy is that, 
if it is recognized at all, its causes are misunderstood. As matters stand 
the West is acutely vulnerable to the coming major shift in communist 
tactics in the final phase of their policy. 



PART THREE 



The Final Phase and the 
Western Counter-Strategy 



25 



The Final Phase 



THE CONTENTION OF THIS BOOK has been that, during the past 
two decades, the communist bloc has substantially achieved the 
objectives of the first two phases of its long-range policy. The 
individual communist regimes have been consolidated. The bloc 
communist parties, with the help of the security services, have built up 
their active forces within revitalized national and international front 
organizations, especially those concerned with trade unions, 
intellectuals, and young people. The importance of this drive is 
demonstrated by the appointment of Shelepin as head of the Soviet 
trade union organization from 1967 to 1975. The credibility abroad of 
"dissidence" as a serious internal political factor in the communist 
world has been established. A degree of accommodation with 
organized religion has been achieved. A nexus of interparty 
relationships, transcending the formal structure of Comecon and the 
Warsaw Pact, has been built up. 

In consequence, the communist strategists are now poised to enter 
into the final, offensive phase of the long-range policy, entailing a 
joint struggle for the complete triumph of communism. Given the 
multiplicity of parties in power, the close links between them, and the 
opportunities they have had to broaden their bases and build up 
experienced cadres, the communist strategists are equipped, in 
pursuing their policy, to engage in maneuvers and strategems beyond 
the imagination of Marx or the practical reach of Lenin and 
unthinkable to Stalin. Among such previously unthinkable strategems 
are the introduction of false liberalization in Eastern Europe and, 
probably, in the Soviet Union and the exhibition of spurious 

327 



328 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

independence on the part of the regimes in Romania, Czechoslova- 
kia, and Poland. 



Western Misinterpretation of Events in Poland 

Because the West has failed either to understand communist 
strategy and disinformation or to appreciate the commitment to it of 
the resources of the bloc security and intelligence services and their 
high-level agents of political influence, the appearance of Solidarity in 
Poland has been accepted as a spontaneous occurrence comparable 
with the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and as portending the demise of 
communism in Poland. The fact that the Italian, French, and Spanish 
Communist parties all took up pro-Solidarity positions gives grounds 
for suspecting the validity of this interpretation. 

Western misreading of events led to predictions of Soviet inter- 
vention in Poland in 1981, which turned out to be unjustified. It may 
lead to more serious errors in the future. 



A New Analysis 

There are strong indications that the Polish version of "democra- 
tization," based in part on the Czechoslovak model, was prepared and 
controlled from the outset within the framework of bloc policy and 
strategy. For twenty years the Polish Communist party had been 
working on the construction of a "mature socialist society" in which 
the party and its mass organizations would play a more active and 
effective political role. In 1963 the party's ideological commission 
was set up. In 1973 new means of coordinating the activities of youth 
organizations were established. In 1976 a new law was adopted on the 
leading role of the party in constructing communism and on the 
party's interaction with the Peasant and Democratic parties. In the 
same year all youth organizations, including those of the army, were 
merged into one Union of Socialist Polish Youth. 

Party membership increased from 1 million in 1960 to 3 million in 
1980. In the same period Polish trade unions increased their 



THE FINAL PHASE 329 

membership from 5 to 13 million. The Union of Sociahst Pohsh 
Youth had 2 million members in 1980. By the end of that year, 85 
percent of the army's officer corps were party members. All Poles of 
Jewish origin had been eliminated from the army. 

Throughout the twenty-year period Polish leaders have been fully 
involved in the coordinating mechanisms of the bloc, such as Corne- 
con and the Warsaw Pact, as well as in bilateral meetings with other 
communist parties. The Polish security service took part in the 
conference in Moscow in 1959 of bloc security services at which their 
new political role was discussed and means of coordination were 
improved. Poland was among the countries visited by Mironov, the 
originator of this new political role, when he was head of the CPSU's 
Administrative Department. 



Developments in the 1970s 

Significantly two of the key figures in recent Polish events, the so- 
called "renewal," took up important positions soon after the "Prague 
spring" in 1968: Jaruzelski became Minister of Defense, and Kania 
became head of the Polish communist party's Administrative 
Department, with responsibility for the affairs of the Polish security 
service. In 1971 Gierek took over from Gomulka and the future leader 
of Solidarity, Walesa, began his political activity. Gierek and 
members of other important departments, including Kama's 
Administrative Department, consulted with their Soviet counterparts 
in Moscow. In the same year the Polish and Czech leaders had several 
meetings. In 1973 an agreement on ideological cooperation was 
signed between the two parties. In 1977 a delegation led by Gierek 
signed an agreement on the further strengthening of cooperation 
between them. Gierek also took part in Crimean summit meetings in 
the 1970s at which strategic questions were discussed. 

In the course of the 1970s Kania was promoted to be Minister of 
the Interior and a member of the Politburo with responsibility for 
supervising the army and the security police. He also acted as the 
government's principal link with the politically active Catholic church. 
After the "renewal" had begun, Kania was further promoted to be 
leader of the party. Two other security chiefs were also pro- 



330 NEW LIES EOR OLD 

moted, Moczar to membership in the Politburo and Kowalczyk to be 
deputy premier. These promotions arc the clearest indication of the 
involvement of Kania and the security services in the preparation of 
the Polish "renewal." 



Final Preparations for the "Renewal" 

There was intensive consultation between Polish and Soviet leaders 
and party officials in the two years preceding the "renewal." Among 
the more significant items, apart from Comecon and Warsaw Pact 
meetings, were the appointment of a new Soviet ambassador to 
Poland in 1978 (Aristov, a senior party official from Leningrad); a 
conference in Moscow of bloc officials (including Poles) on 
organizational matters and mass organizations; Jaruzelski's visit to 
Moscow in 1978; the meeting of Jaruzelski and the commander in 
chief of the Warsaw Pact forces in 1979; two meetings in 1978 and 
1979 between Soviet and Polish party officials responsible for strategy 
and coordination of the communist movement, at which there were 
discussions on international and ideological questions; visits to 
Moscow by Cruchek, the chairman of the Polish trade union 
organization, and by Shidlyak, head of the Polish-Soviet Friendship 
Society, who discussed the strengthening of Soviet-Polish cooperation 
with his Soviet counterpart, Shytikov. This last visit is particularly 
interesting, since between February and August, 1980 — just before the 
"renewal" — Shidlyak was head of the Polish trade unions. 

In 1979 Gierek had two meetings with Brezhnev and separate 
meetings with the Czechoslovak, East German, West German, and 
French Communist party leaders. At the meeting with Brezhnev in the 
Crimea in August 1979, the discussion focused on "favorable new 
conditions for joint action in Europe." In February 1980 a Soviet 
publication referred to the strengthening of fraternal relations between 
the two countries resulting from agreements reached at their meetings. 

A Polish party delegation attended a twenty-nine-party conference 
in Hungary in December 1 979 that discussed relations between 
communists and social democrats and perspectives for European 
security. Suslov, the late leading Soviet ideologist and strategist. 



THE FINAL PHASE 331 

headed the Soviet delegation to the Polish party congress in February 
1980. At the congress Gierek attacked NATO and the deployment of 
nuclear missiles in Western Europe and offered to act as host to an 
East-West disarmament conference in Warsaw. In May 1980 
Brezhnev, Gromyko, and other senior Soviet officials attended a 
conference of bloc leaders in Warsaw. In his introductory speech 
Gierek said that the conference would open new prospects for peace 
and security in Europe and the world. His speech was the only part of 
the proceedings to be published. 

There were frequent consultations between Polish party officials 
responsible for the press, TV, and radio with their Soviet colleagues, 
suggesting preparation of the Soviet and Polish media for a forth- 
coming important event. 

Brezhnev awarded honors to Gierek and Jaruzelski in 1978 and 
Gierek honored Rusakov, head of the CPSU's department for bloc 
affairs, in February 1980. The awards can be seen as recognition of 
the contributions made to the preparation of the "renewal" by some of 
its key figures. It may also be surmised that Gierek's departure from 
the scene was envisaged at this stage. He doubtless had good reason 
for saying, shortly after his dismissal, that "proper appraisal of the 
Polish developments in the 1970s could only be made from a certain 
distance in time." 

All of the foregoing evidence points to the conclusion that a major 
development in Poland, the "renewal," was planned thoroughly, and 
well in advance, by the Polish Communist party in cooperation with 
its communist allies and with a view to furthering the communist 
strategy for Europe. The conclusion is further supported by the 
evidence of the Polish Communist party's involvement in the 
formation and functioning of Solidarity. 



The Polish Communist Party within Solidarity 

Kania himself revealed that there were 1 million communist party 
members in Solidarity. Forty-two out of the 200 members of the 
party's Central Committee in 1981 were Solidarity members. Bog-dan 
Lis, Walesa's deputy, was a Central Committee member. Zofia Gryzb, 
another Solidarity leader, was a member of the Politburo. 

These leaders were not expelled from the party for their member- 



332 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

ship in Solidarity. On the contrary, Solidarity recognized the leading 
role of the party and the party recognized SoHdarity's existence. Kania 
and Moczar even made statements in favor of it. Solidarity enjoyed 
access to the state-controlled media. Obstacles were not placed in the 
way of Walesa's extensive foreign travels; indeed, the Polish 
ambassador to Japan, who defected after the introduction of martial 
law, assisted in arranging Walesa's contacts with Japanese trade 
unions. 

Stripping away the disinformation as before, it becomes clear that 
the changes in the leadership of the Polish party from Gierek to Kania 
to Jaruzelski were not the outcome of power struggles between 
factions in the leadership, but reflections of different stages in the 
"renewal" process, in the planning of which all of the leaders were 
equally involved. 

The visits of Kania and other Pohsh leaders to Moscow and the 
visits of Suslov and Gromyko to Poland in April and July 1981 were 
part of the process of high-level coordination and readjustment of an 
agreed-upon strategic plan, not evidence of Soviet coercion being 
exercised over the Polish leaders. 

Soviet military and naval maneuvers in the vicinity while the 
"renewal" was being introduced would have been planned and agreed 
in advance with the Polish and East German governments as a 
warning to the Polish and East German peoples that genuine 
anticommunist feeling would not be allowed to get out of hand. 



Motives for the Creation of Solidarity 

As with the "Prague spring" of 1968, the motives for the Polish 
"renewal" were a combination of the internal and external. Internally 
it was designed to broaden the political base of the communist party 
in the trade unions and to convert the narrow, elitist dictatorship of 
the party into a Leninist dictatorship of the whole working class that 
would revitalize the Polish political and economic system. The 
"renewal" followed the lines of Lenin's speech to the Comintern 
congress in July 1921. "Our only strategy at present," said Lenin, "is 
to become stronger and therefore wiser, more reasonable, more 
opportunistic. The more opportunistic, the sooner will you assemble 
again the masses around you. When we have won over 



THE FINAL PHASE 333 

the masses by our reasonable approach, we shall then apply offensive 
tactics in the strictest sense of the word." 

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 Pohsh Catholic 
church ensured that the church would act as a force for moderation 
and compromise between Solidarity and the government. 

Externally the strategic objectives behind the creation of Solidarity 
resemble those behind the "Prague spring." In brief, they were to 
deceive Western governments, politicians, and public opinion 
generally as to the real nature of contemporary communism in Poland 
in accordance with the weakness and evolution pattern of 
disinformation. More specifically, the intention was 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. The name Solidarity is itself symbolic of this intention, which 
was made plain by Walesa's state-sponsored visits to trade unions in 
France, Italy, and Japan and to the Holy See. 

Solidarity's effort to strengthen its international ties was part of a 
wider effort by the international communist movement to press 
forward with its strategy. In February 1981 Brezhnev spoke about the 
new, favorable conditions for unity of action in the world trade union 
movement. The communist World Federation of Trade Unions and 
regional European, Latin American, and Arab trade union bodies 
stepped up their campaigns against monopolies and in favor of 
disarmament. Meetings in Moscow in October 1980 



334 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and Berlin in March 1981 discussed working class solidarity and new 
forms of cooperation with trade unions of differing political 
orientation. A Soviet trade union delegation visited Italy for talks with 
three major Italian trade union federations. The influence of Solidarity 
was felt throughout the labor movement, even in the United States, 
where the left showed interest in Solidarity's experience. The 
communist intention was, and will remain, to exploit this influence for 
strategic ends. 

The creation of Solidarity and the initial period of its activity as a 
trade union may be regarded as the experimental first phase of the 
Polish "renewal." The appointment of Jaruzelski, the imposition of 
martial law, and the suspension of Solidarity represent the second 
phase, intended to bring the movement under firm control and to 
provide a period of political consolidation. In the third phase it may be 
expected that a coalition government will be formed, comprising 
representatives of the communist party, of a revived Solidarity 
movement, and of the church. A few so-called liberals might also be 
included. 

A new-style government of this sort in Eastern Europe would be 
well equipped to promote communist strategy by campaigning for 
disarmament, for nuclear-free zones in Europe, perhaps for a revival 
of the Rapacki Plan, for the simultaneous dissolution of NATO and 
the Warsaw Pact, and ultimately for the establishment of a neutral, 
socialist Europe. The revival of other elements of communist strategy 
for Europe — Eurocommunism and CSCE negotiations, for example — 
would be timed to coincide with the emergence of such a government. 

Intensified solidarity campaigns between East and West European 
trade unions and peace movements could be expected; preparations 
are, in fact, already in train. In October 1980 a new all-European 
structure for youth organizations was set up at a conference of five 
hundred national youth organizations held in Budapest. A meeting of 
the World Parliament was held in Sofia in September 1980 in which 
leading communist authorities on united action took part. The Soviet 
and East European Committee for European Security was reactivated. 
A meeting of parliamentarians from communist states was held in 
Moscow in March 1981, at which Shytikov was much in evidence. 

There are increasing signs of preparation for a communist initia- 



THE FINAL PHASE 335 

tive on Germany, the key to progress toward a neutral, socialist 
Europe. Among these were the meeting between Brezhnev and the 
East German leader, Honecker, in the Crimea in 1980 at which a 
European conference on disarmament was discussed. Similar dis- 
cussions took place between the Soviet and West German peace 
committees in February 1980. A specialist on Germany, Czyrek, was 
appointed Polish foreign minister. Another specialist on Germany, 
Kvitsinskiy, was chosen late in 1981 to be chief negotiator for the 
Geneva nuclear arms reduction talks. Winkelman, former head of the 
International Department of the East German Communist party, was 
appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union in March 1981. Falin, a 
senior CPSU official and former ambassador to West Germany, was 
appointed deputy head of the USSR-West Germany Society, and 
Zamyatin, a CPSU Central Committee official, was appointed head of 
the section of Soviet parliamentarians in contact with West Germany. 

A revived Solidarity movement could be expected to extend its 
influence in Latin America, drawing together social democrats. 
Catholics, and progressives against military dictatorships. Here again 
there are signs of preparation. There was a meeting of Soviet and 
Latin American trade union leaders in Moscow in April 1981, and 
there were other, WFTU-sponsored, preparatory meetings for a World 
Congress of Trade Unions of Different Orientation in Cuba. 



The Threat to the West from the Polish "Renewal" 

A coalition government in Poland would in fact be totalitarianism 
under a new, deceptive, and more dangerous guise. Accepted as the 
spontaneous emergence of a new form of multiparty, semidem- 
mocratic regime, it would serve to undermine resistance to commu- 
nism inside and outside the communist bloc. The need for massive 
defense expenditure would increasingly be questioned in the West. 
New possibihties would arise for splitting Western Europe away from 
the United States, of neutralizing Germany, and destroying NATO. 
With North American influence in Latin America also undermined, 
the stage would be set for achieving actual revolutionary changes in 
the Western world through spurious changes in the communist system. 



336 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

If in a reasonable time "liberalization" can be successfully achieved 
in Poland and elsewhere, it will serve to revitalize the communist 
regimes concerned. The activities of the false opposition will further 
confuse and undermine the genuine opposition in the communist 
world. Externally, the role of dissidents will be to persuade the West 
that the "liberalization" is spontaneous and not controlled. 
"Liberalization" will create conditions for establishing solidarity 
between trade unions and intellectuals in the communist and 
noncommunist worlds. In time such alliances will generate new forms 
of pressure against Western "militarism," "racism," and "military- 
industrial complexes" and in favor of disarmament and the kind of 
structural changes in the West predicted in Sakharov's writings. 

If "liberalization" is successful and accepted by the West as 
genuine, it may well be followed by the apparent withdrawal of one or 
more communist countries from the Warsaw Pact to serve as the 
model of a "neutral" socialist state for the whole of Europe to follow. 
Some "dissidents" are already speaking in these terms. 

Yugoslavia may be expected to play a conspicuous role in the new 
scenario. A display of Sino-Soviet rivalry for influence in Europe may 
be expected on the lines of the "struggle for hegemony" already being 
witnessed in South-East Asia. Its purpose would be to assist in the 
creation of new, false alignments between communist and 
noncommunist powers, and to break up the existing NATO structure 
and replace it with a system of European collective security entailing 
the ultimate withdrawal of the American military presence from 
Western Europe and the growth of communist influence there. 

It is through flexible maneuvers such as these that the ruling 
communist parties, in contrast with the damaging rigidities of their 
performances during the Stalinist period, will provide the international 
communist movement with the kind of strategic backing Togliatti had 
in mind. 

The recent travels of Chairman Hua to Yugoslavia and Romania 
and the closer ties between the French and Italian Communist parties 
and the Chinese are portents of things to come. In fact, using the new 
methodology, more and more signs can be detected that the onset of 
the final phase of communist long-range policy is imminent. The 
"arrest" and "exile" of Sakharov, the occupation of Afghanistan, 
developments in Poland, and the Iraqi attack on 



THE FINAL PHASE 337 

Iran in the autumn of 1980 are among the pointers. 

The last two are of special strategic importance. The developments in 
Poland look like a major move toward the final phase of communist strategy 
for Europe. The Iraqi attack on Iran looks like a concerted effort by radical 
Arab states, each of which is in a united front relationship with the Soviet 
Union against "imperialism," to use dual tactics (hostihties by Iraq, assistance 
by Syria and Libya) with the single overall objective of bringing Iran into an 
anti-Western alliance with them. The object of the alliance would be to gain 
control over a strategically vital area of the Middle East. Its success could but 
serve the strategic interests of the communist bloc. Despite Saddam Hussein's 
alleged purges of communists in Iraq and the moderation in his attitude 
toward the United States, he is continuing to receive arms supphes from 
communist sources, as are his Iranian opponents. 

Certainly, the next five years will be a period of intensive struggle. It will 
be marked by a major coordinated communist offensive intended to exploit 
the success of the strategic disinformation program over the past twenty years 
and to take advantage of the crisis and mistakes it has engendered in Western 
policies toward the communist bloc. The overall aim will be to bring about a 
major and irreversible shift in the balance of world power in favor of the bloc 
as a prehminary to the final ideological objective of establishing a worldwide 
federation of communist states. 

There are a number of strategic options at the disposal of the communist 
strategists that can be used in various combinations to achieve their ultimate 
objectives. It would be impossible to list them all but five likely 
interconnected options are as follows: 

• A closer alignment of an independent socialist Europe with the Soviet 
bloc and a parallel alignment of the United States with China. Japan, 
depending on whether it remains conservative or moves toward sociahsm, 
might join either combination. 

• A joint drive by the Soviet bloc and a socialist Europe to seek allies in 
the Third World against the United States and China. 

• In the military field, an intensive effort to achieve US nuclear disarma- 
ment. 

• In the ideological and politicai field, East-West convergence on communist 
terms. 

• The creation of a world federation of communist states. 



338 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

In each of these the scissors strategy will play its part; probably, as 
the final stroke, the scissors blades will close. The element of apparent 
duality in Soviet and Chinese policies will disappear. The hitherto 
concealed coordination between them will become visible and 
predominant. The Soviets and the Chinese will be officially 
reconciled. Thus the scissors strategy will develop logically into the 
"strategy of one clenched fist" to provide the foundation and driving 
force of a world communist federation. 

The suggested European option would be promoted by a revival of 
controlled "democratization" on the Czechoslovak pattern in Eastern 
Europe, including probably Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. 
The intensification of hard-line policies and methods in the Soviet 
Union, exemplified by Sakharov's arrest and the occupation of 
Afghanistan, presages a switch to "democratization" following, 
perhaps, Brezhnev's departure from the political scene. [The 
following observations were made prior to Brezhnev's death. They are 
followed by comments on developments subsequent to that 

event, beginning on page 347. Ed .] Brezhnev's successor may 

well appear to be a kind of Soviet Dubcek. The succession will be 
important only in a presentational sense. The reality of collective 
leadership and the leaders' common commitment to the long-range 
policy will continue unaffected. Conceivably an announcement will 
be made to the effect that the economic and political foundations of 
communism in the Soviet Union have been laid and that democ- 
ratization is therefore possible. This would provide the framework for 
the introduction of a new set of "reforms." 

The Brezhnev regime and its neo-Stalinistic actions against "dissi- 
dents" and in Afghanistan would be condemned as Novotny's regime 
was condemned in 1968. In the economic field reforms might be 
expected to bring Soviet practice more into line with Yugoslav, or 
even, seemingly, with Western socialist models. Some economic 
ministries might be dissolved; control would be more decentralized; 
individual self-managing firms might be created from existing plants 
and factories; material incentives would be increased; the independent 
role of technocrats, workers' councils, and trade unions would be 
enhanced; the party's control over the economy would be apparently 
diminished. Such reforms would be based on Soviet experience in the 
1920s and 1960s, as well as on Yugoslav experience. The party would 
be less conspicuous, but would continue to control 



THE FINAL PHASE 339 

the economy from behind the scenes as before. The picture being 
dehberately painted now of stagnation and deficiencies in the Soviet 
economy should be seen as part of the preparation for deceptive 
innovations; it is intended to give the innovations greater impact on 
the West when they are introduced. 

Political "hberahzation" and "democratization" would follow the 
general lines of the Czechoslovak rehearsal in 1968. This rehearsal 
might well have been the kind of political experiment Mironov had in 
mind as early as 1960. The "liberahzation" 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 and 
deputies greater apparent independence. The posts of president of the 
Soviet Union and 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 
abroad. 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. Censorship would be relaxed; controversial books, plays, 
films, and art would be published, performed, and exhibited. Many 
prominent Soviet performing artists now abroad would return to the 
Soviet Union and resume their professional careers. Constitutional 
amendments would be adopted to guarantee fulfillment of the 
provisions of the Helsinki agreements and a semblance of compliance 
would be maintained. There would be greater freedom for Soviet 
citizens to travel. Western and United Nations observers would be 
invited to the Soviet Union to witness the reforms in action. 

But, as in the Czechoslovak case, the "liberalization" would be 
calculated and deceptive in that it would be introduced from above. It 
would be carried out by the party through its cells and individual 
members in government, the Supreme Soviet, the courts, and the 



340 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

electoral machinery and by the KGB through its agents among the 
intellectuals and scientists. It would be the culmination of Shele-pin's 
plans. It would contribute to the stabilization of the regime at home 
and to the achievement of its goals abroad. 

The arrest of Sakharov in January 1980 raises the question of why 
the KGB, which was so successful in the past in protecting state 
secrets and suppressing opposition while concealing the misde- 
meanors of the regime, is so ineffective now. Why in particular did it 
allow Western access to Sakharov and why were his arrest and 
internal exile so gratuitously publicized? The most likely answer is 
that his arrest and the harassment of other dissidents is intended to 
make a future amnesty more credible and convincing. In that case the 
dissident movement is now being prepared for the most important 
aspect of its strategic role, which will be to persuade the West of the 
authenticity of Soviet "liberalization" when it comes. Further high- 
level defectors, or "official emigres," may well make their appearance 
in the West before the switch in policy occurs. 

The prediction on Soviet compliance with the Helsinki agreements 
is based on the fact that it was the Warsaw Pact countries and the 
Soviet agent Timo who initiated and pressed for the CSCE process. 
Since the Soviets signed the CSCE agreements, they may be expected 
at some stage, at least, to go through the motions of complying with 
them. Their present ostentatious noncompliance, noted at the follow- 
up conferences in Belgrade and Madrid, is intended to heighten the 
effect of their switch to apparent compliance in the final phase of 
policy. 

"Liberalization" in Eastern Europe would probably involve the 
return to power in Czechoslovakia of Dubcek and his associates. If it 
should be extended to East Germany, demolition of the Berlin Wall 
might even be contemplated. 

Western acceptance of the new "liberalization" as genuine would 
create favorable conditions for the fulfillment of communist strategy 
for the United States, Western Europe, and even, perhaps, Japan. The 
"Prague spring" was accepted by the West, and not only by the left, as 
the spontaneous and genuine evolution of a communist regime into a 
form of democratic, humanistic socialism despite the fact that 
basically the regime, the structure of the party, and its objectives 
remained the same. Its impact has already been de- 



THE FINAL PHASE 341 

scribed. A broader-scale "liberalization" in the Soviet Union and 
elsewhere would have an even more profound effect. Eurocommun- 
ism could be revived. The pressure for united fronts between com- 
munist and socialist parties and trade unions at national and interna- 
tional level would be intensified. This time, the socialists might finally 
fall into the trap. United front governments under strong communist 
influence might well come to power in France, Italy, and possibly 
other countries. Elsewhere the fortunes and influence of communist 
parties would be much revived. The bulk of Europe might well turn to 
left-wing socialism, leaving only a few pockets of conservative 
resistance. 

Pressure could well grow for a solution of the German problem in 
which some form of confederation between East and West Germany 
would be combined with neutralization of the whole and a treaty of 
friendship with the Soviet Union. France and Italy, under united front 
governments, would throw in their lot with Germany and the Soviet 
Union. Britain would be confronted with a choice between a neutral 
Europe and the United States. 

NATO could hardly survive this process. The Czechsolovaks, in 
contrast with their performance in 1968, might well take the initiative, 
along with the Romanians and Yugoslavs, in proposing (in the CSCE 
context) the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in return for the 
dissolution of NATO. The disappearance of the Warsaw Pact would 
have little effect on the coordination of the communist bloc, but the 
dissolution of NATO could well mean the departure of American 
forces from the European continent and a closer European alignment 
with a "liberalized" Soviet bloc. Perhaps in the longer run, a similar 
process might affect the relationship between the United States and 
Japan leading to abrogation of the security pact between them. 

The EEC on present lines, even if enlarged, would not be a barrier 
to the neutralization of Europe and the withdrawal of American 
troops. It might even accelerate the process. The acceptance of the 
EEC by Eurocommunist parties in the 1970s, following a period of 
opposition in the 1960s, suggests that this view is shared by the 
communist strategists. The efforts by the Yugoslavs and Romanians to 
create stronger links with the EEC should be seen not as inimical to 
Soviet interests, but as the first steps in laying the foundation for a 
merger between the EEC and Comecon. 



342 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The European Parliament might become an all-European socialist 
parliament with representation from the Soviet Union and Eastern 
Europe. "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals" would turn out to be a 
neutral, socialist Europe. 

The United States, betrayed by her former European aUies, would 
tend to withdraw into fortress America or, with the few remaining 
conservative countries, including perhaps Japan, would seek an alli- 
ance with China as the only counterweight to Soviet power. The 
greater the fear of a Soviet-socialist European coalition, the stronger 
the argument for "playing the China card" — on the false assumption 
that China is a true enemy of the Soviet Union. 

"Liberalization" in Eastern Europe on the scale suggested could 
have a social and political impact on the United States itself, espe- 
cially if it coincided with a severe economic depression. The commu- 
nist strategists are on the lookout for such an opportunity. Soviet and 
other communist economists keep a careful watch on the American 
economic situation. Since the adoption of the long-range policy, an 
Institute of World Economy and International Relations, originally 
under Arzumanyan and now under Inozemtsev, has been analyzing 
and forecasting for the Central Committee the performance of the 
noncommunist, and especially the American, economic system. 
Inozemtsev is a frequent visitor to the United States and was a 
member of a Soviet delegation received by the U.S. Congress in 
January 1978. The communist bloc will not repeat its error in failing 
to exploit a slump as it did in 1929-32. At that time the Soviet Union 
was weak politically and economically; next time the situation would 
be different. Politically the bloc would be better poised to exploit 
economic depression as proof of the failure of the capitalist system. 

Information from communist sources that the bloc is short of oil 
and grain should be treated with particular reserve, since it could well 
be intended to conceal preparation for the final phase of the poHcy and 
to induce the West to underestimate the potency of the bloc's 
economic weapons. The bloc would certainly have an interest in 
secretly building up reserves of oil and grain that could be used for 
political purposes in a time of crisis to support newly established 
procommunist governments in Europe or elsewhere. It is worth noting 
that the scale of Soviet oil exports to India is already producing 
political dividends for the Soviet Union. 



THE FINAL PHASE 



343 



Sino-Soviet Relations 

"Liberalization" in the Soviet Union could well be 
accompanied by a deepening of the Sino-Soviet split. This might 
include a rupture in trade and diplomatic relations, an increase in 
spectacular frontier incidents, and perhaps deeper incursions into 
one another's territory on the lines of the Chinese "invasion" of 
Vietnam in 1979 — an invasion that could well have been intended 
as a rehearsal for a future Sino-Soviet operation. 

A deepening of the split would sharpen the scissors strategy. It 
would encourage an even closer alignment with China of the 
United States and any other surviving conservative nations 
against a Soviet-sociaHst European coalition. Military 
cooperation would be included in this alignment and China might 
go so far as to offer bases in return for help in building up her 
military potential. In this connection, the agreements on bases 
between the United States and Somalia and Egypt may be a 
portent. 

A breach in diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and 
China might complicate but would not interrupt the process of 
policy coordination between them. They have now had twenty 
years in which to build up experience and mutual confidence in 
handling a bogus split. The existing Sino-Soviet bilateral links — 
political, diplomatic, and economic — could have been used for 
the purpose of coordinating Sino-Soviet disinformation activity 
connected with the split. Interruption of those channels might be a 
handicap, but there has been time in which to prepare alternative 
solutions to the problem of coordination. The breach in Soviet- 
Albanian diplomatic relations in 1960 was not followed by a 
breach in relations between Albania and all the other East 
European communist states. Following this precedent, Romania 
and Yugoslavia at least might be expected to maintain their 
representation in Peking if the Soviets were to withdraw or be 
"thrown out." To some extent, Sino-Soviet coordination could be 
carried on through Romanian and Yugoslav intermediaries. 
Another possibility is that direct, secret communications links 
exist between the Soviet Union and China that are not accessible 
to the West. In addition there is the possible existence of a secret 
bloc headquarters staffed by senior representatives of the major 
communist states, to which allusion has been made above. 



344 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

The Third World 

An alignment of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe with a 
socialist Western Europe would exert a powerful influence over Third 
World socialist parties and trade unions. Some of the remaining 
conservative Third World countries would be strongly drawn toward a 
socialist orientation. Resistance to communism from the Socialist 
International would be replaced by a combined communist-socialist 
drive for Third World influence, backed by economic aid. It would 
have far-reaching consequences, especially if US aid should be 
curtailed in response to a severe depression. Soviet oil and grain could 
be used to good effect. 

In his article on Nicaragua, Arismendi, the leading Latin American 
communist strategist, envisaged international solidarity between 
socialists and communists in support of the "national liberation" 
struggle in Latin America." Cuba, which might follow the Soviet 
example of "liberalization" (the 1980 Cuban emigration might be part 
of the preparation for such a move) would play an active part in the 
liberation struggle. Those leaders of the nonaligned movement who 
had close relations with communist countries would try to involve the 
rest of the nonaligned movement in concerted actions with 
communists and social democrats to promote the joint aims of 
procuring the disarmament of the United States and the reduction of 
its role as a world power; of isolating Israel, South Africa, and Chile; 
and of helping liberation movements in Latin America, Southern 
Africa, and the Middle East, especially the PLO.' A variety of 
forums — the UN, the OAU, and the Brandt commission on the North- 
South problem — would be used for exerting political and economic 
pressure, including, if possible, the denial of oil. 

In apparent competition with the Soviet Union, China would step 
up its Third World activity. The United States could be tempted to 
encourage the growth in influence of China and her associates, such as 
Egypt, Somalia, and the Sudan, as a barrier to Soviet expansion. 
American support for China would greatly improve her openings for 
maneuver and for making false alliances with Thailand and Islamic 
countries, such as Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other 
conservative Arab states. It would also open doors for Chinese 
penetration of Latin America. 



THE FINAL PHASE 345 

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was used by the Chinese to 
improve their position in Pakistan. Following this pattern, more Soviet 
and Chinese interference could be expected in the affairs of neighbor 
states. Sino-Soviet "rivalry" did not impede the communist victory in 
Vietnam; it would not impede their Third World penetration. If the 
Third World were to be divided into pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese 
camps, it would be at the expense of the interests of the United States 
and any other surviving conservative Western nations. The final 
outcome of support for Chinese influence in the Third World would 
be the emergence of additional regimes there that would be hostile to 
the West. 



Disarmament 

A Soviet-socialist European coalition, acting in concert with the 
nonaligned movement in the United Nations, would create favorable 
conditions for communist strategy on disarmament. The American 
military -industrial complex would come under heavy fire. "Lib- 
eralization" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe would provide 
additional stimulus to disarmament. A massive U.S. defense budget 
might be found no longer justified. The argument for accommodation 
would be strengthened. Even China might throw in its weight in favor 
of a Soviet-socialist line on arms control and disarmament. 



Convergence 

After successful use of the scissors strategy in the early stages of 
the final phase of policy to assist communist strategy in Europe and 
the Third World and over disarmament, a Sino-Soviet reconciliation 
could be expected. It is contemplated and implied by the long-range 
policy and by strategic disinformation on the split. 

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 



346 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

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. Pressures would build up for 
changes in the American political and economic system on the lines 
indicated in Sakharov's treatise. 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. 



The Worldwide Communist Federation 

Integration of the communist bloc would follow the lines envisaged 
by Lenin when the Third Communist International was founded. That 
is to say, the Soviet Union and China would not absorb one another or 
other communist states. All the countries of the European and Asiatic 
communist zones, together with new communist states in Europe and 
the Third World, would join a supranational economic and political 
communist federation. Soviet-Albanian, Soviet -Yugoslav, and Soviet- 
Romanian disputes and differences would be resolved in the wake, or 
possibly in advance of, Sino-Soviet reconciliation. The political, 
economic, military, diplomatic, and ideological cooperation between 
all the communist states, at present partially concealed, would become 
clearly visible. There might even be pubHc acknowledgment that the 
splits and disputes were long-term disinformation operations that had 
successfully deceived the "imperialist" powers. The effect on Western 
morale can be imagined. 

In the new worldwide communist federation the present different 
brands of communism would disappear, to be replaced by a uniform, 
rigorous brand of Leninism. The process would be painful. Conces- 



THE FINALPHASE 347 

sions made in the name of economic and political reform would be 
withdrawn. Religious and intellectual dissent would be suppressed. 
Nationalism and all other forms of genuine opposition would be 
crushed. Those who had taken advantage of detente to establish 
friendly Western contacts would be rebuked or persecuted like those 
Soviet officers who worked with the allies during the Second World 
War. In new communist states — for example, in France, Italy, and the 
Third World — the "alienated classes" would be reeducated. Show 
trials of "imperialist agents" would be staged. Action would be taken 
against nationalist and social democratic leaders, party activists, 
former civil servants, officers, and priests. The last vestiges of private 
enterprise and ownership would be obliterated. Nationalization of 
industry, finance, and agriculture would be completed. In fact, all the 
totalitarian features familiar from the early stages of the Soviet 
revolution and the postwar Stalinist years in Eastern Europe might be 
expected to reappear, especially in those countries newly won for 
communism. Unchallenged and unchallengeable, a true communist 
monolith would dominate the world. 



Comments on the Appointment of Andropov and on Other 
Developments Following the Death of Brezhnev. 

These predictions and analyses were made during Brezhnev's tenure 
in office in anticipation of his departure. Brezhnev's succession and 
other developments confirm, in essence, the validity of the author's 
views. For example, the expeditiousness of the appointment of 
Andropov as Brezhnev's successor confirmed one of the main theses 
of this book; namely, that the succession problem in the Soviet 
leadership has been resolved. The practical consideration of the long- 
term strategies has become the major stabilizing factor in this solution. 
The promotion of the former KGB chief, who was responsible for the 
preparation of the false liberalization strategy in the USSR, indicates 
that this factor was decisive in his selection and further points to the 
imminent advent of such "liberalization" in the near future. 

The rise of Andropov fits into a familiar pattern whereby the former 
security chief becomes the party leader in order to secure 



348 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the important shift in the reahzation of the strategy. Kadar, who 
introduced the so-called "liberalization" in Hungary; Hua Kuo-feng, 
under whom China shifted to "capitalist pragmatism"; and Kania, who 
initiated the Polish "renewal" and recognized Solidarity — all had been 
former security chiefs. This pattern reflects the crucial role of the 
security services in the "liberalization" of communist regimes. The 
appointment of Andropov also implies that Shelepin would have been 
the successor of Brezhnev, because of his initiation of preparation for 
the "liberalization" in the USSR, except for the compromise by 
Stashinskiy, who exposed Shelepin's role in the assassination of the 
emigre leader Bandera, and further, because of the exposure, by this 
author, of Shelepin's role in the strategic reorientation of the KGB. 

Another important factor in the selection of Andropov was his 
leadership role in the preparation for the Czechoslovakian "liberali- 
zation" in 1967-68 and the "liberalization" in Hungary, which took 
place when he was the head of the Central Committee's department 
responsible for relations with communist countries until mid- 1967. 
Therefore, the timing of the release of the SoHdarity leader and the 
news of the appointment of Andropov confirm another point in the 
book: that the "liberalization" will not be limited to the USSR, but will 
be expanded to Eastern Europe and particularly to Poland. The 
experiment with "renewal" in Poland will be repeated again. This 
time, however, it will be with full strategic initiatives and implications 
against Western Europe and NATO. The appointment of Andropov, 
the release of the Solidarity leader, and the invitation to the Pope to 
visit Poland in June 1983, made by the Polish Government, all 
indicate that the communist strategists probably are planning the 
reemergence of Solidarity and the creation of a quasi-social 
democratic government in Poland (a coalition of the communist party, 
the trade unions, and the churches) and political and economic 
reforms in the USSR for 1984 and afterward. 

The coming offensive of the communist strategists will pursue the 
following objectives: 

• The establishment of a model government for Western Europe, which will facilitate 
the inclusion of the so-called Eurocommunist parties into government coalitions with 
socialists and the trade unions. 



THE FINAL PHASE 349 

• The dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pacts, the neutrahzation of 
Western Europe, and the Finlandization of Western Europe in general, 
through the advocacy of European collective security. 

• The provision of a broader basis and impetus for expansion of the 
antimilitary movement by a more active involvement of Catholics and other 
believers in the West, thereby forcing the United States into a 
disadvantageous disarmament. 

• Influencing the 1984 United States presidential election in favor of 
candidates who are more hkely to deal with the leaders of the "liberalized" 
regimes in the USSR and East Europe and are more inclined to sacrifice the 
US military posture. 

The dialectic of this offensive consists of a calculated shift from the old, 
discredited Soviet practice to a new, "liberalized" model, with a social 
democratic facade, to realize the communist planners' strategy for 
establishing a United Europe. At the beginning they introduced a variation of 
the 1968 Czechoslovakian "democratization." At a later phase they will shift 
to a variation of the Czechoslovakian takeover of 1 948. 

Developments have accurately confirmed the prediction that the 
communist strategists would undertake the political initiative on 
disarmament, particularly against West Germany. The trip of Gro-myko to 
Bonn, the invitation of social democratic opposition leaders to Moscow, and 
the statements of Andropov on missile concessions (made to influence the 
West German elections) are all clear indications of such a political initiative. 
As expected, the communist initiative revealed that its main target was the 
socialist parties. It also showed that there are elements in their leadership who 
are vulnerable to such an initiative, especially those in the West German 
social democratic party who have anti-NATO and anti-US views, or who like 
Brandt and Sweden's social democrat Palme are ready to embrace Rapacki's 
idea of a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe. The initiative increased also 
the pressure on the US for concessions to the USSR. In the opinion of the 
author, however, the communist initiative has not yet reached its peak. How 
will the Western German social democrats respond when the communist 
regimes begin their "liberalization" by making concessions on human rights, 
such as easing emigration, granting amnesty for the dissidents, or removing 
the Berlin wall? One can expect that Soviet agents of influence 



350 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

in Western Europe, drawing on these developments, will become 
active. It is more than likely that these cosmetic steps will be taken as 
genuine by the West and will trigger a reunification and neutralization 
of West Germany and further the collapse of NATO. The pressure on 
the United States for concessions on disarmament and accommodation 
with the Soviets will increase. During this period there might be an 
extensive display of the fictional struggle for power in the Soviet 
leadership. 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. 



Sino-Soviet Developments 

It is also necessary to comment on developments in Sino-Soviet 
relations and their actions. The sending by China of a high level 
delegation to the funeral of President Brezhnev, headed by Foreign 
Minister Huang Hua; the conduct of talks between Huang Hua and 
Gromyko; and the unusual statement made by Huang Hua 
characterizing Brezhnev as "an outstanding statesman of the Soviet 
Union" — all have some significance. Especially significant and con- 
tradictory was a reference to the "loss of Brezhnev, a great statesman." 
This characterization ignores the fact that the worst hostilities with 
China — if one accepts the conventional point of view — took place 
under Brezhnev. Such a favorable assessment of Brezhnev seems 
accurate and sound, however, if one accepts Sino-Soviet hostilities as 
strategic disinformation. According to the analysis developed in this 
book, these developments add to and strengthen the validity of the 
author's argument that the Sino-Soviet split was a disinformation mask 
over their secret coordination for the realization of their common 
strategies. Because of the secret strategic Sino-Soviet cooperation, still 
according to this analysis, the primary objective for the Soviet move 
into Afghanistan, aside from achieving its Sovietization, was not to 
encircle China, but to force the United States and Pakistan into a close 
political and military cooperation with China. It is not inconceivable 
that the Soviets will make concessions on Afghanistan in order to gain 
new strategic advantages. 

Andropov's proposals about improving relations with China are 



THE FINAL PHASE 351 

not aimed at undermining China's relations with the United States, but 
at stimulating a revival of an American interest in closer relations with 
China, which are presently perceived as weakened after the departure 
of such strong proponents of United States-Chinese military 
cooperation as Brzezinski and others. Its main purpose is to facilitate 
the acquisition by China of American weaponry and military 
technology. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan also may be 
designed to create more favorable conditions for China's penetration 
into Moslem countries, capitalizing on China's success with Pakistan. 
The recent trip of China's premier to Africa, which included visits to 
Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco, confirms another point in the book 
about the existing division of labor between the Soviet Union and 
China. It seems that the influencing of Moslem countries has been left 
to China by the Soviet strategists. As for China's role in the realization 
of communist strategy in Europe, the Sino-Soviet rivalry might be 
exploited by China's intervening in European politics under the pretext 
of resisting "Soviet hegemony." In this case, the Chinese strategists 
might try to gain a Rapallo type of arrangement with some 
conservative governments of Western Europe. 



The Attempted Assassination of the Pope 

It is also necessary to comment on the attempt to assassinate the 
Pope. The author is not naive about the attitude, involvement, and 
practice of poHtical terrorism by the KGB. Earlier in the book he 
expressed the view that the Soviet and other communist services were 
behind the political terrorism of the Red Brigade in Italy and terrorism 
in Western Germany. The question here, however, is not whether the 
Soviets control the Bulgarian services as they control other communist 
services, or whether the Soviets and Bulgarians are involved in 
terrorism in Western Europe, but whether the KGB and the Bulgarian 
services are involved in this particular attempted assassination. In 
order to make an assessment of the assassination attempt against the 
Pope, it is not enough to refer to Soviet control of the Bulgarian 
service. One must first examine the Soviet rationale for political 
assassinations, and then address the basic question: whether the Soviet 
strategists have a political 



352 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

interest and a rea! need to get involved in such an affair. The author does not 
share the view that the KGB and the Bulgarian service are involved in the 
assassination attempt against the Pope perpetrated by Agca, a Turkish 
gunman. This conclusion is based on the following reasons: 

1. This assassination attempt does not fit into the rationale of assassina- 
tions as practiced by the KGB. According to the author's understanding, the 
Soviet government and the KGB would resort to a political assassination of a 
Western leader only under the following conditions: 

A. If a Western leader, who is a recruited Soviet agent, is threatened 
in office by a pohtical rival. This is based on a statement made by 
Zhenikhov, a former KGB resident in Finland. He stated that if 

his agent, holding a high office, was threatened by an anticommunist 
social democrat during the elections, the latter would be poisoned 
by a trusted KGB agent. 

B. If a Western leader became a serious obstacle to communist 
strategy and to the strategic disinformation program, he would be 
quietly poisoned at a summit meeting during negotiations or while 
visiting a communist country, since detente provides such opportuni 
ties in abundance. The practical lesson here is that a Western leader 
who is involved in furthering an effective counterstrategy against 
the communists should not visit communist countries or take part 

in any summit meetings with their leaders. The technique for a 
poisoning was described in a statement made by a KGB general, 
Zheleznyakov, at an operational briefing devoted to an assassination 
proposal against Tito in 1953 in Moscow. Zheleznyakov stated that 
the major requirement for success is mere physical contact with 
the target, as the Soviet service has technical means (special poisons) 
to inflict mortal diseases without leaving traces of the poison, so 
that death will be attributed to natural causes. 

C. If the assassination of a leader provides the opportunity for a 
controlled Soviet agent to take over the position. According to Levi- 
nov, a KGB adviser in Czechoslovakia, this rationale was used by 
both the Soviet and the Czech services in the assassination of Presi 
dent Benes, thus vacating a place for a communist leader, Gottwald. 

D. If a communist leader decided to eliminate his communist rival. 
It is a well-known fact that, based on this rationale, Stalin got rid 
of many of his rivals, including Trotskiy in Mexico. According to 



THE FINAL PHASE 353 

the author, this rationale is not used any longer because of the cessation 
of the struggle for power in the Soviet party leadership. 

2. In view of the arguments and reasoning made about Polish develop- 
ments in this book, particularly those concerning Solidarity as a product of 
"mature sociahsm," it is clear that there is no motive for such an assassiantion 
(of the Pope) by the KGB and their communist partners. 

3. The author regards as erroneous the perception that the KGB is a 
primitive and inefficient service that would resort to the use of the Bulgarian 
service to recruit a killer for hire, especially one who was guilty of murdering 
a progressive editor in Turkey, and who had earlier escaped from prison and 
had somehow made a strange visit to Bulgaria. According to the author's 
understanding, the KGB is always apprehensive about using escapees, 
suspecting the possibility of their being police provocateurs. The KGB would 
not consider such a candidate, unknown to them and over whom they had no 
control, for an operation of such importance and sensitivity. 

4. If the Soviet strategists had reason for such assassinations, they would 
not attempt to act through the Bulgarian service. More likely, the KGB would 
undertake such a mission through their trusted illegals or through 
opportunities available to the Polish service. It is well known that the Pope 
maintains a vast staff of secretaries and kitchen help, almost all consisting of 
Polish nationals. He further receives visitors from Poland. The Polish 
security service, through its antireligious department, would study the 
relatives of people on the Pope's staff and would use them as hostages in the 
preparation of such an operation. It would be a quiet, secret operation. 

5. The author is also of the opinion that the Italian services, which are 
seriously weakened by recent scandals and investigations, are too inexpe- 
rienced to assess the strategic complexity and implications of such an 
operation. This affair can be assessed and understood only in terms of 
communist strategies (communist liberalization and Western disarmament 
and its implications for the West). 

6. The author is more inclined to agree with the views of the Israeli and 
West German services, as expressed in a December 17, 1982, New York 
Times article written by Henry Kamm, in which he states that implicating the 
KGB in the assassination affair is outright disinformation. The author, 
however, does not agree with the article as to the purpose of such 
disinformation. In his opinion, the purpose was not to undermine or discredit 
Andropov, but to confuse the strategic implications. 



354 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

7. There is also a serious contradiction in the actions of the Pohsh 
and Soviet governments regarding this affair. If the Soviet government 
perceives the Pope as an anticommunist involved in subversive activities 
against Poland and other communist countries, as imphed in a TASS 
statement, it is incongruous that the Polish government would invite 
the Pope to visit Poland in June of 1983, since all such matters are 
coordinated with the Soviets. 

Another relevant comment probably should be added here. In view 
of the ardent public statements of some Italian socialist ministers 
regarding their acceptance of the communist involvement in this 
affair, such a position strengthens their vulnerability to an erroneous 
response to future Polish developments. Despite their genuine 
anticommunism, they would be pressured to accept the Polish 
"liberalization" as spontaneous. 



26 



Where Now? 



THIS BOOK HAS TRIED to give an objective assessment of the 
current long-range communist policy and the threat it poses for 
the West. The assessment has been based partly on secret 
information available only to an insider; partly on an intimate under- 
standing of how the communist strategist thinks and acts; partly on 
knowledge of political readjustments, the use of strategic disinfor- 
mation, and the extent of KGB penetration 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 past twenty years. It leaves no doubt in the 
author's mind that the threat is more serious, its scope wider, and its 
culmination more imminent, than scholars and politicians in the West 
have led him to beheve. 

This is not because they have consciously played down the threat. It 
is due to a genuine and, to some extent, excusable lack of under- 
standing. They accept at face value what the communists choose for 
them to see and hear. They accept the existence of communist tactical 
disinformation in the form of covert political actions and forgeries of 
Western government documents, but fail to appreciate the problem of 
strategic disinformation in the shape of communist forgeries of 
differences, splits, and independence in the communist bloc. Tactical 
forms of disinformation are intended to divert attention from the onset 
of the communist offensive in the final phase of policy. Strategic 
disinformation is a root cause of the current crisis in Western foreign 
policies. Even those who recognize the dangers of disinformation 
cannot conceive that it can be practiced 

355 



356 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

on SO grand a scale and with a subtlety so disarming. They forget — or 
perhaps have never fully reahzed — that their predecessors were 
similarly deluded in the 1920s, and they fail to take into account that 
communist penetration of Western governments and intelligence 
services provides an accurate early warning and monitoring service of 
Western reactions to disinformation. 

It is not easy, living in a democracy, to accept that total, obsessive 
commitment to world revolution could survive through sixty years 
and then be rekindled with fresh zeal. The West, basing itself on its 
own experiences, expects splits and cracks to appear in the communist 
bloc. Any hint of differences between communist states or parties is 
avidly seized on, while evidence of cooperation is ignored or 
misinterpreted. Diplomatic overtures, based on what the West sees as 
common interests, are hastily pursued; detente and disarmament are 
discussed in all seriousness. 

The West recognizes the communist military threat but misinter- 
prets the political threat. With the best of intentions, United States 
policy has labored hard to bring about a liberalization in the USSR 
and Eastern Europe with its human rights policy and encouragement 
for the internal dissident movement; but it has failed to realize that the 
dissident movement has been shaped and controlled by the party 
apparatus and the KGB, and that a sham "liberalization" may well be 
the next major step in the disinformation program. 

Pursuit of a realistic foreign policy by the United States has been 
made even more difficult by the demoralization of their intelligence 
and counterintelligence services that followed the Watergate 
exposures and the overblown campaign to restrict the functions of the 
CIA and FBI. The CIA's capacity for political action was curtailed and 
two thousand experienced officers were retired. Particular damage 
was done to US counterintelligence, whose task it should be to 
analyze communist policy and tactics, forecast communist intentions, 
and so help to protect the nation and its intelligence services from 
communist penetration, subversion, agents of influence, and 
disinformation. 

What, at the eleventh hour, can now be done? With all due 
diffidence the author feels that his book would not be complete until 
he has sketched in the direction in which he feels the West should 
now move. For the sake of brevity the difficulties of accom- 



WHERE NOW? 357 

plishment are brushed aside. The aims are stated baldly and uncom- 
promisingly. 

Although time is fast running out, the balance of forces between 
East and West has not yet tilted irrevocably. It is still possible for the 
West to recover the initiative and to frustrate the communist strategy 
to isolate Western Europe, Japan, and the Third World from the 
United States, but it is a difficult road to travel. The initial lead must 
be positive, and it must come from the United States. 



Reassessment 

The logical consequence of the argument of this book, and of the 
new methodology which it introduces, is that a group of ac- 
knowledged American experts should reexamine and reevaluate 
communist policy, tactics, and strategy of the past twenty years. They 
should be drawn from the intelligence, counterintelligence, military, 
and diplomatic services and from the academic world. They should 
have the support of their heads of services or institutions in providing 
research facilities and should have access to all information and 
records relating to communist state and party affairs since the 1950s. 
Their report should define the communist long-range strategy, predict 
its course of action, estimate its time scale, assess the political strength 
of the communist bloc and the subversive potential of the communist 
movement, expose communist disinformation, and estimate the extent 
and impact of communist penetration of, and agents of influence 
within, the United States and other governments. 

Having set in train its own fact-finding and mind-clearing exercise, 
the United States should then seek to inspire a revival of allied unity 
on a new basis. Since the provocation of division and friction between 
member nations of the Western alliance is one of the prime objectives 
of communist long-range strategy, it is essential that all Western 
governments and their peoples should have a clear understanding of 
that strategy, and of the disinformation which supports it, before any 
other remedial measures can become effective. That is why 
reassessment of the threat comes first. Ideally 



358 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

each major Western country should, Hke the United States, set up its 
own commission of enquiry into communist policy, tactics, and 
strategy as reflected in its own intelligence, counterintelligence, 
military inteUigence, and diplomatic records of the past twenty years. 

To counter communist strategy and regain the initiative for the 
West, a new Western strategy is needed, based on a true under- 
standing of the situation, policy, and strategic disinformation of the 
communist bloc. Without a clear appreciation of the deceptive nature 
of Sino-Soviet rivalry and of "liberalization" and splits in the 
communist world, Western governments, whatever their political 
complexion, cannot recover from the crisis in their foreign policy and 
are at risk of sliding into false alliances with one communist state 
against another. If possible, a moratorium should be imposed on any 
form of rapprochement with any member of the communist bloc while 
the reevaluation takes place. The publication could then follow of an 
allied defense document setting out calmly and clearly the agreed 
overall Western assessment of current communist bloc policy and the 
means being used to implement it. Public discussion of the findings 
would be encouraged by conferences of the Western governments, of 
political groupings such as the Socialist International, and of the 
leaders of the moderate, pro- Western Third World nations; parallel 
professional exchanges would take place between the Western 
intelligence and counterinteUigence services. 

The effect that an expose on this scale would have should not be 
underestimated. The communist bloc leaders and strategists would 
find, if the Western assessment were correct, that their next strategic 
offensives and moves in the deception plan had been preempted. The 
initiative would have been snatched from them. Their complicated 
political, diplomatic, and disinformation operations still in the pipeline 
would, if pursued, confirm the correctness of the Western assessment. 
The peoples of the communist bloc, the majority learning for the first 
time of the deceit on which their country's policy had been based, 
would — whatever their feelings about its morahty — realize that it 
would not work in the future and that their leaders had failed. While a 
communist regime remains successful, the people can be coerced into 
going along with it. It is when failure — or, at least, lack of new 
successes — sets in that, as was shown in Hungary and Poland in 
1956, real and radical 



WHERE NOW? 359 

changes may happen. Exposure of a bankrupt policy would unleash 
powerful political pressures on communist leaders and on their re- 
gimes, parties, and governments, perhaps forcing them to change their 
conduct in international relations. 

It will be argued by faint hearts in the West that to proclaim 
publicly that the full significance of the communist threat is now 
recognized and that a realistic response is on its way is only to drive 
the communist leaders to an openly hard-line attitude and even to war. 
But does this argument stand up? If the threat has been correctly 
evaluated and properly explained, it will be clear to public opinion 
that, although disinformation may have concealed the intentions of 
communist policy, its line could scarcely have been harder. Indeed, if 
the Western expose were to result in the reemergence of the 
communist monolith — China and the USSR "reconciled," Romania 
and Yugoslavia openly back in the fold — that would be no cause for 
alarm. For the West it would be the most advantageous of all possible 
outcomes, for it would mean that the communist bloc had had to 
retreat; and that the Western miscalculations, which the bloc had 
striven so long and hard to create, would be left unexploited while the 
innate strength of the West was still intact. It would, moreover, have a 
salutary effect on the peoples of the Western nations. A full-strength 
communist bloc, all illusions of splits and rifts removed, would inspire 
them to close ranks and face up to reality. It would demonstrate that 
their governments had made the right assessment. It would give 
breathing space during which past mistakes could be corrected. It 
would give solidarity to the alhance and heart to the whole 
noncommunist world to be able to say to the communist leaders: "We 
have seen through your disinformation and pretences; we can interpret 
your double-talk; we now call halt." 

The cynics in the West will argue that it is an illusion to imagine 
that, at this late hour, the communist threat can be averted by 
exhortations to close ranks and unite. The peoples of the West detest 
uniformity; the nations of the West will never give up their traditions 
of independence. A common cause may bring them together, but no 
cause has ever held them together for long. But as Professor Goodman 
points out in his book The Soviet Design for a World State (p. 487): 
"The communists have acted cautiously when confronted by strong 
external power and aggressively when 



360 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

they have been tempted by weakness. ... If one of the principal 
sources of weakness of the contemporary non-communist world is its 
disunity, then the surest way to precipitate war is to provide 
seemingly easy targets of Soviet conquest through dissension or 
neglect on the part of the non-Soviet world to formulate unmistakably 
affirmative policies. ..." 

For one who, like the author, was brought up in the communist 
world, who in his early years worked for the communist cause only to 
reject its code of ethics in maturity, it is difficult to believe that, faced 
with imminent subjection to the communist way of life, the Western 
nations would be unable to find lasting ideological and political 
solidarity. Solidarity does not mean conformity. The spiritual strength 
of the West hes in its freedom and diversity, but freedom and 
diversity should not be cultivated to the point where they become an 
obstacle to survival. 

To achieve the lasting solidarity that can withstand the communist 
challenge, the West should make a number of fundamental changes of 
attitude, direction, and counterstrategy. These changes emerge 
logically from an understanding of the long-range communist policy; 
they seek to frustrate what the communist strategists aim to 
accomplish. Above all, the Western alliance should refresh its sense of 
common purpose, common interest, and common responsibility. The 
main causes of internal dissension should be removed or mollified. 
They are: national rivalries, originating deep in history; the distrust 
that American conservatism and European democratic socialism hold 
for each other; the growing hostility between conservatives and 
sociahsts inside Western Europe. 



End to National Rivalries 

The deep-seated national rivalries and suspicions between the 
nations of Western Europe, between Western Europe and America, 
and between America and Japan must somehow be controlled. Despite 
the tragic conflicts of the past, despite the present mutual distrust, the 
advanced nations of the noncommunist world now all share a 
democratic process of government, freedom of opposition and dissent, 
and an economic system that relics, at least in part, on free market 
competition. If the peoples of these nations would 



WHERE NOW? 361 

realize that the communist threat to their way of life, far from receding 
as they had thought, is now at their heels; if they would see that unless 
they present a cohesive force in the face of the communist challenge, 
they will be picked off one by one; surely then they would insist that 
their governments sink their differences. National interests can no 
longer be protected by purely national efforts. The communist threat is 
now so formidable that for any nation, be it France or even the United 
States, to stand half-aloof from the alliance is irrational and potentially 
suicidal. The aUies themselves should establish, and then submit to, 
some form of supranational authority for policy coordination. Perhaps 
the most effective initial step would be for the United States to offer to 
sacrifice a measure of her own sovereignty in favor of such a body if 
the Western European nations would do Hkewise. 



Ideological Solidarity 

Differences between American conservatives and European social 
democrats in their attitudes toward capitalism should not be allowed 
to weaken the Atlantic alliance. Democratic socialism is now firmly 
entrenched in Western Europe. Its economic ideals show some 
common features with the communist system and differ markedly 
from American economic ideals. But, like Americans, European social 
democrats regard democratic freedoms as sacrosanct; when faced by 
communists, the two are natural alhes. They joined together when 
faced by Stalin's "police socialism"; now they must join forces again 
to face the more insidious deception of "communism with a human 
face." Their common interest is overwhelming, for both Europe and 
America are targets of a political offensive that seeks to embrace them 
now only to strangle them later. 

Within Europe itself, conservatives and social democrats must draw 
closer together, for both need to protect themselves against the 
growing radicalism of the far left of European socialism, which, if it is 
not halted soon, will inevitably lead to a united front with the 
communists. Both conservatives and social democrats must un- 
derstand and, together, combat the communist long-term strategy; the 
survival of both depends on it. 



362 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Inward Heart-Searching 

The West should devote the effort that it now expends on detente, 
SALT, and European collective security (communist-style) to 
concentrating on its own affairs. The advanced countries are afflicted 
by a malaise that stems from disillusionment. Criticism of traditional 
values and national institutions is rife. Military forces and the 
military-industrial machine are held in low esteem; intelligence and 
security services have been savaged; private enterprise, as represented 
by the multinational concerns, is dubbed as greedy and power -hungry; 
in the United States even the presidency is belittled. Each individual 
nation must find its own way to recover self-respect before the 
Western alliance can regain the initiative. A start might be made if 
thinking and concerned men and women — from the political parties, 
the labor movement, the universities, the media — would form cross- 
party political alliances in defense of democratic institutions. 



Widening Defense Alliances 

As a major strategic goal the West should seek to widen its 
defensive organization by inviting other threatened countries to share 
the security and the responsibilities of NATO membership. Japan, 
Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi 
Arabia, and Israel are examples, taken at random, of countries with an 
incentive to join the noncommunist defense alliance; by doing so, they 
would lift Western defense planning from regional to global 
dimensions. The benefits would be mutual, guaranteeing oil supplies 
for the West, extending beyond strict defense considerations. The case 
for unity of the noncommunist nations was made by H. C. Allen in his 
book The Anglo-American Predicament. It is still valid today. 

Complementary to the expansion of formal alliances, closer rela- 
tions should be forged with the developing nations. Public exposure of 
the long-term communist bloc policy toward them, and of the Trojan 
horse role of Yugoslavia, Romania, and Cuba, should by itself alert 
the leaders of these nations to the danger. But the Western objective 
should be not merely to frustrate communist intentions, but to 
strengthen the political and economic basis for their 



WHERE NOW? 363 

independent development. National rivalries, spheres of influence, 
and patronage would be replaced by joint efforts to give aid, trade, 
and credit to enterprising young nations not only for future commer- 
cial gain, but to mould their national traditions along democratic lines 
and against communist subversion. 

The Western military alliance should maintain superiority in 
nuclear weapons — not mere parity. 



Reorientation of Intelligence Services 

The intelligence, counterintelligence, and security services of the 
Western nations should be strengthened and reorientated to match the 
changed direction of the communist threat. Overriding priority should 
no longer be given to countering traditional KGB espionage and 
information gathering; the main task now should be to neutralize the 
political damage caused by communist agents of influence and their 
disinformation. Appreciation of the problem of disinformation should 
be raised from the tactical to the strategic level. 

To interpret communist actions and detect communist agents of 
influence, the Western services should use the new methodology. A 
central coordinating staff, working on behalf of the security and 
diplomatic services of the whole Western alliance, should be set up to 
exchange experience, coordinate operations, and provide research on 
patterns of disinformation. 

Security screening should be resumed for all important recent 
emigres, including "dissidents." Their background and activities 
should be reviewed in the light of communist long-range policy and 
disinformation. 



Diplomatic Disengagement 

To protect themselves from communist strategic disinformation and 

activist diplomacy, the Western powers should probe every political 
action for its true motive. Detente discussions, SALT negotiations, 
and communist proposals for European collective security should be 
broken off or declined. There should be no independent consultations 
between communist leaders and member nations of 



364 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the alliance. 

The number of Western missions on communist territory should be 
reduced to the minimum — preferably no more than two or three — and 
strict reciprocity should be maintained when allowing communist 
missions and delegations into the West. 



Denial of Trade and Technology 

The communist bloc is still striving to level up economic and 
industrial strength among its more backward members — China among 
them — and to increase still further its military strength. Denial of 
trade, credit facilities, and technological know-how delays completion 
of these programs; strains the economies of the more advanced 
members, such as the USSR and Czechoslovakia; and, in the long run, 
breeds pubHc discontent. The denial of credit facilities has a further 
advantage in that it limits communist opportunity to damage Western 
economies. Economic action by the West hits the communist bloc 
where it is most vulnerable, and should be relentlessly pursued against 
every bloc country, including Yugoslavia, Romania, and Poland. A 
central coordinating and planning staff should be set up to conduct the 
economic offensive. 



Isolating Communist Parties 

The long-range strategy of the communist movement is to broaden 
its political base in noncommunist countries by forming a united front 
with socialist and nationalist parties; when a parliamentary majority 
has been won, the communists will seek, through the development of 
extra-parliamentary mass action, to bring about fundamental changes 
in the democratic system. The stratagem will only succeed if the 
democratic parties being wooed are either ignorant of communist 
intentions or imagine that they can control the outcome. Exposure of 
the communist long-range policy, strategy, and tactics and the coming 
sham liberalization in Eastern Europe, with its implications for the 
West — in particular, for countries with Eurocommunist parties — 
should warn the unwary and detach the deceived. 



WHERE NOW? 365 

Addressing the Peoples of the Communist Bloc 

It is not the communist leaders or the dissidents (brain children of 
the KGB) on whom the West should pin its hopes for genuine changes 
in the communist empire. It is the people — Russians, Chinese, and the 
Eastern European nationals — who, despite Western errors and 
miscalculations, are still potential allies. It is to the peoples of the 
communist bloc that Western foreign policy should be addressing 
itself. 

They should be distinguished from their rulers and from the false 
opposition their rulers have invented. They expect to be addressed as 
equals and allies. They want to be told the truth in plain, unvarnished 
terms about both communist and Western policies, successes, and 
failures. They will respect a true picture, blemishes included, of the 
guiding moral, political, and economic principles of the West. They 
will listen to exposes of their own country's policies and malpractices, 
provided they are factual and dispassionate, but they will expect to be 
told, equally plainly, the implications of what the West is doing to 
combat them. If over a period of years the peoples of the communist 
bloc could be kept informed, objectively and scrupulously fairly, of 
what is taking place in the world around them, one day they might 
find ways to turn their thoughts into actions. 



The Next Half Century 

Suppose all that has been suggested here were to happen. Suppose 
the Western alliance did publicly proclaim its realization that it had 
been deceived by communist disinformation, that its policies of 
detente and arms hmitation had been misguided, that the alliance was 
now united in its determination to face the challenge. What then? It is 
obvious that there can be no quick solution to an ideological struggle 
that has continued unabated since 1917. Perhaps there never can be a 
solution. Perhaps the two camps, each representing a way of life 
abhorrent to the other, must for all foreseeable time oppose each other. 
But is this so bad a thing? Is it unthinkable that ideological and 
political competition should become permanent? Might not open 
competition between two fundamentally opposed systems be the best 
way to sort things out? Might not 



366 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the two systems, in vying with one another, improve each other? 

There seem to be three possible scenarios around which the history 
of the next half century will be written: 

In the first, communism, meeting neither ideological nor political 
resistance from the West, continues along its present course to 
disarmament, then to convergence with the West on its own terms, 
and so to world domination. 

In the second, the West realizes in time the nature of the communist 
threat, solves its own national problems, unites the noncom-munist 
world, and adopts a policy of open competition between the two 
systems; as a result, the peoples of the communist bloc repudiate their 
leaders and the communist empire disintegrates. 

The third scenario resembles the second except that both systems 
remain intact and competition continues for a very long time. 

And who shall say that unrelenting competition between two 
opposing systems of government, each secured by the nuclear deter- 
rent, would not prove fruitful? But where are the statesmen who will 
recognize this path to possible safety and guide their peoples along it? 



Glossary 



AAPSO 
CHEKA 



Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Organization. 

The Soviet security service in the early post- 
revolutionary days under Dzerzhinskiy. See 
also VCHEKA. 



Chekist 



Comecon 



Member of VCHEKA staff. Also a secret 
KGB magazine. 

Council of Mutual Economic Assistance of 
Communist States. 



Cominform 



(Informatsionnoye Byuro Kommunistiches- 
kikh Partly). Information Bureau of the Com- 
munist Parties from 1947 to 1956. 



Comintern 



(Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional). Commu- 
nist International, also known as the Third 
Communist International. Abolished in 1943. 



CPSU 
CSCE 

DVR FCD 



Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 

Conference on Security and Cooperation in 
Europe. 

(Dal'ne-Vostoch'naya Respublika). Far East- 
ern Republic, established in 1920. Incorpo- 
rated into the Soviet Union in 1922. 

First Chief Directorate of the KGB. Soviet 
intelligence service. 
367 



GPU 



368 

See OGPU. 



NEW LIES FOR OLD 



GRU 



GSE 



(Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye). Chief 
Intelligence Administration, the Soviet mihtary 
intelhgence service. 

(Bol'shaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya). The Great 
Soviet Encyclopaedia. 



Illegal resident Intelligence representative operating abroad under 

nonofficial cover. 



Izvestiya Daily newspaper, organ of the Supreme Soviet. 



KGB 



KI 



(Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopastnosti). Committee 
of State Security, the Soviet foreign intelligence and 
internal security service, created in 1954. 

(Komitet Informatsii). Committee of Information, the 
political and military intelligence service from 1947 to 
1949 under the Council of Ministers. From 1949 to 
1 95 1 , the political intelligence service under the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1951 to 1957, the 
research and disinformation service under the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs. From 1958 to the present, the 
research, disinformation, and special operational 
political service under the Central Committee of the 
CPSU, probably under cover of the State Committee 
for Cultural Ties. 



Komsomol 



(Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodezhi). 
Communist Youth Organisation. 

(Ministerstvo Gosuparstvennoy Bezopastnosti). 
Ministry of State Security, including. 



MGB 



GLOSSARY 369 

from October 1946 to March 1953, the Soviet 
intelligence and security service. 



MID 



MVD 



(Ministerstvo Inostrannykh Del). Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs. 

(Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del). Ministry of 
Internal Affairs, responsible for general inter- 
nal security. For one year, from March 1953 to 
March 1954, it was also responsible for 
foreign intelligence and state security. 



NEP 



(Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika). The 
New Economic Policy, initiated by Lenin in 
1921 and continued until 1929. 



Novosti 
Novyy Mir 



Soviet press agency, abbreviated as APN. 

Literary and political monthly publication in 
Moscow. 



NTS 



(Natsional'nyy Trudovoy Soyuz). National 
Labor Union, an emigre political anticom- 
munist organization in the West. 



OGPU 



(Ob'yedenennoye Gosudarstvennoye Politi- 
cheskoye Upravleniye). Federal State Political 
Administration, the Soviet intelligence and se- 
curity service from February 1922 to July 
1934. 



Oktyabr' 



Literary and political monthly publication in 

Moscow. 



Politburo 



(Politicheskoye Byuro). Political Bureau. The 
leading organ of the Central Committee of the 
CPSU. Renamed the Presidium before Stalin's 
death; reverted to Politburo under Brezhnev. 



370 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

Pravda Daily newspaper, organ of the CPSU. 

Residency KGB secret intelligence apparatus in a non-communist 
country. The KGB itself uses the term Rezidentura. 

Chief of the KGB intelligence apparatus in a 
Resident noncommunist country. The KGB term is Rezident. 

Russian Federation, or Russian Republic. 

RSFSR Second Chief Directorate of the KGB, Soviet security and 
counterintelligence service. 

SCD 

(Telegrafnoye Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza). Telegraph 
Agency of the Soviet Union, a Soviet news agency. 

TASS 

(Vsesoyuznaya Chrezvychaynaya Kommissiya po Bor'be s 

Kontrrevolyutsyyey, Spekulyatsi-yey i Sabotazhem). All- 
Union Extraordinary Commission for Combatting 
Counterrevolution, Speculation, and Sabotage, the Soviet 
security service from December 1917 to February 1922. 

Women's International Democratic Federation 

Yugoslav League of Communists, Yugoslav Communist 
party. Also referred to as YCL and CPY. 



WIDF 



YLC 



Notes 



Chapter 1: The Problem Facing Western Analysts 

1. Recognition of this may be found in, for example, The Communist Party of the 
Soviet Union (Random House, New York, 1960), by Leonard Schapiro, p. 542: "The 
secrecy with which the USSR has been able to surround itself had broken down, 
largely as the result of the testimony which thousands of Soviet citizens who had been 
displaced during the war, and who did not return, were able to provide. For the first 
time, serious academic study of Soviet histor}', politics and economics was providing 
the non-communist countries with a basis for countering Soviet propaganda claims 
about itself." 

2. Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (1952), p. 566 (hereafter cited as GSE). 
Publishers — "The State Scientific Agency," "Great Soviet Encyclopaedia" in Mos- 
cow. This is the second edition published at the end of the 1940s and the early 1950s. 
Since 1957 it has published annual supplemental volumes. The volumes will be cited 
hereafter as GSE with an indication of the year of the supplement. (Supplements are 
not numbered but go by the year.) 

Chapter 3: The Patterns of Disinformation: "Weakness and Evolution" 

1. In the eighteenth century Count Poiemkin organized a river journey for his 
sovereign, Catherine ii, and the ambassadors to her court. Anxious to display the high 
living standards enjoyed by the local peasantry under her rule, he had artificial mobile 
villages constructed on the banks of the river. Once the royal barge had passed the 
villages, they were hastily dismantled and reassembled for display again farther along 
on the barge's course. 

2. Former head of Soviet intelligence in Sweden and other countries. 

Chapter 4: The Patterns of Disinformation: Transition 

1. These statements are supported by the official records of the speeches made by 
various members of the Presidium at the Twentieth Party Congress, including those of 
Khrushchev, Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, and Kaganovich. 

Chapter 5: The New Policy and Disinformation Strategy 

1. See Mao's articles "On the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the 
Proletariat" and "More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of 

371 



372 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

the Proletariat," published in Pravda on April 5 and December 29, 1956, respectively. 
Mao wrote: "in struggles inside as well as outside the party, on certain occasions and 
on certain questions he confused two types of contradictions which are different in 
nature — contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and contradictions among 
the people — and also confused the different methods needed in handling them. In the 
work led by Stalin of suppressing the counter-revolution, many counter- 
revolutionaries deserving punishment were duly punished, but at the same time there 
were innocent people who were wrongly convicted, and in 1937 and 1938 there 
occurred the error of enlarging the scope of the suppression of counter- 
revolutionaries. In the matter of party and government organization, he did not fully 
apply proletarian democratic centralism and, to some extent, violated it. In handling 
relations with fraternal parties and countries he made some mistakes. He also gave 
some bad counsel in the international communist movement. These mistakes caused 
some losses to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement." 

2. See, for instance, the 1956 speeches of Mao, Liu Shaochi, and Teng Hsiao- 
ping. 

3. In December 1957 party members in the KGB Institute, including the author, 
were given a secret briefing on the November conference of bloc countries by 
General Kurenkov, the head of the institute, who had been a guest at conference 
meetings and who had himself been briefed by General Serov. This and other hitherto 
unpublished information about the conference is taken from that briefing. 

4. During these years the author was serving in the KGB Institute and KGB 
headquarters. 

5. World Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, (December 1960) 
and (January 1961). 

6. The author's account of disinformation is based on Shelepin's articles in the 
secret KGB magazine Chekist; on Popov's manual; and on the author's conversations 
with Grigorenko, Sitnikov, Kelin, Kostenko, and Smirnov of the Disinformation 
Department. The author borrowed Popov's book from the library on the grounds that 
his work on document assessment in the KGB's Information Department required 
that he should be able to distinguish authentic information from disinformation. The 
librarian called him twice daily to ask when he would return the book. 

7. Lenin's Works, 5th ed., vol. 45, (The State Publishing Agency for Political 
Literature, Moscow), p. 63. The fifth edition was prepared by the Institute of 
Marxism-Leninism and published by the Central Committee of the CPSU during the 
late 1950s and the early 1960s. 

8. Questionsof History of the CPSU, no. 4, (1962), p. 152. 

9. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford University Press, 
London, Oxford, and New York 1963), pp. 45-56, 66, 93, 183, 190, 191. 

10. See page 160. 

11. The issues were dead as between party leaders. Nationalism was still very 
much alive in the Yugoslav Communist party. Tito admitted this in his conversations 
with the Soviet leaders in 1955 and promised to deal with it. He explained, however, 
that it would take time to neutralize and eradicate it. 



NOTES 373 

Chapter 6: The Shelepin Report and Changes in Organization 

1. The author read and studied the Shelepin report in the KGB Institute while a 
student there. 



Chapter 7: The New Role of Intelligence 

1. Material based on a secret lecture given KGB staff by the Soviet Deputy 
Minister of Defense responsible for scientific and technical research and develop- 
ment. 

2. Information made available to the French authorities in 1962-63. 

3. See Henry Hurt's article in the October 1981 issue of Reader's Digest, supported 
independently by George Lardner, Jr., in his article in the Washington Post of 
September 3, 1981. According to Hurt, the FBI reexamined the Fedora case, which 
concerned a KGB official whom the FBI regarded as its reliable agent from 1962 
onward and some of whose information was passed on to the White House. The FBI 
concluded that Fedora had been under Moscow's control during the years of his 
association with the FBI. 

If this is correct, it confirms that the Soviets were actively creating new channels 
for disinformation in the early 1960s and the US government owes it to the public to 
produce an official white paper on the activities of this Soviet plant and the 
disinformation he provided. Such a publication would be a revolutionary contribution 
to the enlightenment of Western scholars and journalists on communist affairs, and to 
the general public, on the little-known subject of communist strategic disinformation. 
It should throw light on concrete Soviet disinformation themes, particularly on 
intrabloc relations, and would illustrate how such disinformation shaped or influenced 
US attitudes and decisions during the period. 

4. Material based on secret instructions, given between 1959 and 1961, from the 
head of Soviet intelligence to the intelligence residents in those countries. 

5. Told to the author by Zenikhov himself. 



Chapter9: The Vulnerability of Western Assessments 

1. Some details on the subject are available in "Interlocking Subversion in 
Government Departments," the Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the 
Administration of the Internal Security Act and other Internal Security Laws to the 
Committee on the Judiciary of the US Senate, 83rd Cong., 1st sess., July 30, 1953. 

Chapter 10: Communist Intelligence Successes, Western Failures, and the Crisis in 

Western Studies 

1. A special secret review of Popov's case (known as "Operation Boomerang") was 
circulated to KGB staff after his arrest. It stated that Popov was uncovered as a result 
of reports from agents abroad (not named) and from surveillance over Popov and his 
case officer. Popov could not be arrested earlier because a GRU 



374 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

colonel was "in American hands." Popov's use in an operational "game" against the 
Americans was excluded because he was known to be very anti-Soviet and would 
therefore be likely to disclose the game to the Americans. 

2. See B. Nikolayevskiy's article on the Nineteenth CPSU Congress, The New 
Leader, October 6, 1952. See also Franz Borkenau, Sino-Soviet Relations, Depart- 
ment of State ERS paper, series 3, no. 86, February I, 1952; and "Mao Tse-tung," The 
Twentieth Century, August 1952. 

3. Use of the facade and strength pattern has sometimes been recognized. See, for 
example. Walker's China under Communism, (Richard Lewis Walker; George Allen 
and Urwin, Ltd., London, 1956) pp. 240-45. 



Chapter 1 1 : Western Errors 

1. W. A. Douglas Jackson, The Russo-Chinese Borderlands, (D. Van Nostrand, 
Princeton, New Jersey, 1962) p. 95. 

2. "Bear and Dragon: What Is the Relation between Moscow and Peking?", 
supplement to the National Review, November 5, 1 960. 

3. Suzanne Labin, The Anthill: The Human Condition in Communist China 
(Stevens and Sons Ltd., London I960), pp. 419-20, in which the author quotes Dr. 
Tang: "The fact that in all questions basic to their survival both regimes always agree 
helps us to understand that their disagreements on tactical questions simply stem from 
a division of labour by which Russia and China take turns in throwing the ball. For 
example, where the one makes an aggressive move, the other comes forward to play 
the role of mediator, and so calm the free world's fears. It is, I think, what is called in 
American slang 'working both sides of the street.' Please remember, Madame, that 
until comparatively recently the Soviet Union alone staged the international moves on 
behalf of the whole Communist world, and thus the Soviet Union itself had to 
alternate the tough and the soft lines according to the reactions of the West. But in 
recent years Communist China has come on to the international scene as a partner, 
and the two of them working together can now follow these disparate policies 
simultaneously — the one from Moscow, the other from Peking. This gives the 
Communist powers great advantage and increases the disarray of the West." 

4. Tibor Mende, China and Her Shadow, (Thames and Hudson, London 1 960), pp. 
162, 180-81: "There are indeed few imaginable developments in the world today 
which could more completely alter the existing balance of forces than the eventual 
drifting apart of the two major Communist powers. For the same reason, there are few 
subjects on which, based on so little concrete evidence, so much speculation has been 
built. If, at the beginning, fascination with the immense impact of the Sino-Soviet 
collaboration tended to discount signs of disagreements now the danger is rather that, 
under the influence of political mystery literature, the importance of existing 
differences may be vastly exaggerated. . . 

"The outside world's understandable interest in the detection of the symptoms of 
discord inevitably leads to a distorted picture in which dissension is magnified at the 
expense of the much more important field where there is coincidence of interests. To 
mistake the occasional creakings of the Moscow-Peking axis for symp- 



NOTES 375 

toms of deep-seated conflict is, and is likely to remain for many years to come, a 
dangerous miscalculation. The image of a Russia frightened by a reckless China is a 
poor substitute for a coherent Western policy in Asia. The illusion that the West can 
thrust a wedge between the two allies is likely to remain fashionable for some time 
even though its victims continue to do their utmost to weld the two countries even 
closer together. 

"When China and the Soviet Union meet it is not merely to bargain but also to 
concert their action." 

5. Supplement to the National Review, November 5, 1960. 

6. According to Diversity in International Communism, ed. Alexander Dallin 
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1963; p. xxxviii, note 4), the term "esoteric 
communications" came into use through Myron Rush's Rise of Khrushchev 
(Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1958), which made extensive use of this 
technique of analysis. In his note on methodology in The Sino-Soviet Conflict, 1956- 
1961, Donald S. Zagoria wrote: "Since the time five or ten years ago when systematic 
analysis of Communist communications was dismissed as "Kremlinoi-ogy," Western 
students have developed a considerable amount of sophistication in using these 
sources. Although this approach is still regarded in some circles as a black art, there 
can be no reasonable doubt that a rich body of work has grown up which provides 
important insights into various aspects of Communist politics. . . . [Because] 
factionalism and open airing of differences have been proscribed. Communists are 
forced to differ with one another through the employment of . . . "esoteric 
communication" or Aesopian language. As often as not, differences over policy or 
strategy alternatives are heavily veiled in doctrinal exegesis. Yet behind the 
seemingly arid doctrinal polemics lie real and serious political problems." 

7. Edgar Snow, The Other Side of the River: Red China Today (New York: 
Random House, 1961), pp. 97-100,431. 

8. See, for example, Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, The Soviet Bloc Unity and Conflict, 
rev. ed. (New York: Erederick A. Praeger, 1961), pp. xx, xxii, 424-25, and footnote 
43, p. 514. 

9. See also William E. Griffith, "The November 1960 Moscow Meeting: A 
Preliminary Reconstruction," China Quarterly, no. 1 1 (July-September 1962). 

Chapter 12: The New Methodology 

1. See Lenin's Works, vol. 8, p. 96. 

Z An alternative possibility would be a deceptive Chinese alignment with a 
conservative Japan and the United States. 

3. Edvard Kardelj, Socialism and War: A Survey of the Chinese Criticism of the 
Policy of Coexistence (Methuen, 1961), p. 11. 

4. Ibid., p. 238. 

5. Ibid., p. 229. 

6. Ibid., p. 9. 

7 Quoted from Yugoslav Eacts and Views (New York: Yugoslav Information 
Center), no. 50 (May 5, 1958). 



376 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

8. Yuriy Krasin, "The International and the National in the Revolutionary 
Process," Novoye Vremya, no. 7, February 13, 1981. 

9. Denis Warner, Hurricane from China (New York: Macmillan, 1961), p. 123. 

10. Documentary record of the Extraordinary Twenty-first CPSU Congress, 
Current Soviet PoJicies, vol. 3, Leo Gruliow, editor, Praeger (January 1959), p. 
206 (hereafter cited as CSP). 



Chapter 13: The First Disinformation Operation: The Soviet-Yugoslav "Dispute" of 
1958-60 

1. Pravda, June4, 1958. 

2. The author was a subordinate of Grigorenko in the Counterintelligence 
Department in 1951. On one occasion in December 1959 Grigorenko visited the 
Information Department, where the author was then working, seeking staff with 
expertise on Yugoslavia and Albania for service in his department. The nature of this 
quest obliged Grigorenko to give information on the kind of work for which the 
officers were required. The information on Pushkin's involvement in this operation 
was confirmed to the author independently by another KGB officer, Kurenyshev. 

3. Georgiy Maksimovich Pushkin, Soviet diplomat since 1 937, ambassador in East 
Germany until the beginning of 1958, with previous experience in Hungary, Sinkiang, 
and Middle East affairs. Listed officially as Deputy Minister of foreign affairs from 
1959. 

4. Yugoslav Facts and Views, no. 56, 1958. 

5. CSP, Leo Gruliow ed., (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1959), vol. 3, p. 62. 
Khrushchev stated: "On many questions of foreign policy we speak a common 
language." 

6. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, English ed. (Moscow: 
Foreign Languages Publishing House, I960), pp. 701-2. 

7. Ibid., p. 641: "Subsequently, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on its 
own initiative, took steps to restore norma] relations between the USSR and 
Yugoslavia. 

"The policy of friendship and mutual assistance, pursued by the CPSU, triumphed. 
The mistakes made occasionally in the relations with fraternal countries were of a 
secondary, accidental character. The essence of these relations was genuinely 
Socialist, and accorded fully with the principles of proletarian internationalism. The 
CPSU directed all its efforts to strengthening friendship with People's China and the 
other People's Democracies, and this policy was entirely successful. The joint 
activities of the CPSU and the other Communist Parties standing at the helm of their 
respective States, resulted in the establishment of a fraternal community of Socialist 
countries, and no amount of intrigue on the part of their enemies could, or can, shake 
their solidarity and unity. This unity is a source of the strength of the Socialist camp. . 
. The problem of relations between the Socialist countries was, for all its complexity 
and novelty, successfully solved in the interests of each country and of the entire 
Socialist camp." 



8. CSP, vo!.3, pp. 68-6 

9. GSE(196I), p. 374. 



NOTES 377 



Chapter 14: The Second Disinformation, Operation: The "Evolution" of the Soviet 
Regime (Part One: The Major Changes in the USSR) 

1. For an example, see Pravda, September 9, 1962. 

2. Officially introduced in 1961. 

3. Izvestiya, May 19, 1959. 

4. Izvestiya, January 28, 1959, p. 9: "There is not now condemnation by the courts 
in the Soviet Union for political crimes. It is a big achievement which speaks for the 
exceptional unity of the political views of the people with the Central Committee of 
the Party." 

5. Kommunist, no. 1 1 (1960), p. 44. 

6. The author learned this from Grigorenko, whose department helped Shul'gin to 
write and publish the brochure. 

7. See, for example, the letter from Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko to the United 
Nations, September 20, 1958, about a 10-15 percent reduction in the military budgets 
of the major powers. (Pravda, September 1958) 

8. On June 6, 1958, Pravda published Khrushchev's letter of June 2 to President 
Eisenhower in which he forwarded to the American government the Soviet govern- 
ment's proposal for "joint measures for an increase in trade." The letter stated that the 
Soviet Union and the US, as the two most economically powerful states, could "carry 
on trade with one another on a wide scale." 

9. See Khrushchev's report to the Twenty-second CPSU Congress in October 1961 
(CSP, vol. 4, p. 69): "the Soviet Union is giving particular attention to the 
development of ties with its neighbours. The differences between our social and 
political systems have not been preventing the development of friendly, mutually 
beneficial relations between the USSR and such countries as Afghanistan and Finland. 
Our relations with Austria and Sweden are coming along quite well. We have been 
making efforts to improve our relations with Norway and Denmark and shall continue 
doing so. Relations with neighbouring Turkey have been improving of late. We want 
these relations to develop still further." 

10. See, for example, Khrushchev's report to the Twenty-second CPSU Congress 
(CSP, vol. 4, p. 46): "To-day, the USA, which has become the centre of world 
reaction, takes the role of the chief aggressive nucleus. The US imperialists are acting 
in alliance with the West German militarists and revanchists and threatening the peace 
and security of peoples. . . ." Ibid., p. 45: "Comrades, the 20th party congress, 
analysing the situation in the countries of capitalism, came to the conclusion that they 
were moving steadily toward new economic and social upheavals. Has this conclusion 
been borne out? Yes, it has. In the years that have elapsed there has occurred a further 
sharpening of contradictions, both within the capitalist countries and among them; 
colonial empires have collapsed and the struggle of the working class and the peoples' 
national liberation movement have assumed tremendous proportions." 

11. Detente; Cold War Strategies in Transition, ed. Eleanor Lansing Dulles 



378 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

and Roberl Dickson Crane (Published for the Center for Strategic Studies, George- 
town University, by Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1965), p. 268. 

12. Lazar Pistrak, The Grand Tactician (New York, Praeger 1961), p. 269. 

13. G. A. von Stackelberg, Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of the USSR, vol. 
7, no. 4 (April I960), pp. 16-20. 

14. A penetrating explanation of Soviet provocation of the Berlin Crisis as being 
based, in large part, on Lenin's Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder was 
given by Nikolay Galay, "Berlin and Soviet Foreign Policy," Bulletin of the Institute 
fortheStudy oftheUSSR, vol. 6, no. 6 (June 1959). 

15. See CSP, vol. 4, p. 23: "Having brought about the complete and final victory 
of socialism, the first phase of communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat has 
fulfilled its historical mission and has ceased to be essential in the USSR from the 
point of view of internal development. The state which arose as a state of the 
dictatorship of the proletariat has turned into a state of the entire people, which 
expresses the interests and will of the people as a whole." 

16. Satyukov said [CSP, vol. 4, p. 176): "The delegates to the 22nd congress 
should know that in October of this year, just before the congress opened, Molotov 
sent a letter to the Central Committee. Without having a word to say about his 
subversive, factionalist work against the Leninist party and against the decisions of its 
20th congress, he tries afresh in this letter to pose as interpreter of Leninism and again 
attacked the Central Committee and the draft of the CPSU programme. Molotov 
declares in his letter that the draft programme fails to co-ordinate communist 
construction in the USSR with the prospects for the revolutionary struggle of the 
working class in capitalist countries, with the prospects for socialist revolution on an 
international scale. And this at a time when the draft programme has been 
unanimously approved not only by our party and the Soviet people but by the 
international communist movement. . . . His contentions lead to the conclusion that it 
is impossible to continue the advance to communism without the most serious 
political conflicts with the imperialist countries, and hence without war. We say to 
Molotov: no, the CPSU has been and is doing everything possible to ensure peace for 
the Soviet people, the people who are building communism. The Leninist principle of 
peaceful co-existence has been and remains our general line in foreign policy. This is 
plainly stated in the new programme and the party will pursue this line consistently." 

17. The Soviet Academy of Sciences includes historians, lawyers, and economists 
as well as scientists in the conventional sense. The expression "Soviet Scientists" 
should be interpreted as including these additional categories. 

18. Mose L. Harvey, Leon Goure, and Vladimir Prokofieff, Science and Technol- 
ogy as an Instrument of Soviet Policy (Center for Advanced International Studies, 
University of Miami, 1972), pp. 93-94. 

Chapter 15: The Third Disinformation Operation: The Soviet-Albanian 

"Dispute" and "Split" 

1. See Albania and the Sino-Soviet Rift by William E. Griffith (Cambridge, 
Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1963), p. 37. 



NOTES 379 

2. Izvestiya, January 10, 1981. 

3. In one article (June 1962) David Floyd in the London Daily Telegraph noted 
that "it was through Durres and . . . Vlora . . . that the Albanians received last year the 
grain shipments which enabled them to resist the Russian economic blockade. It was 
the Chinese who brought the wheat from Canada, paid for it in clearing rubles, and 
shipped it to Albania in West German ships." 

4. Zeri-I-Poppulit, February 14, 1961; reprinted as Document 6 in Albania and the 
Sino-Soviet Rift, p. 207. 

Chapter 16: The Fourth Disinformation Operation: The Sino-Soviet "Split" 

1. Joy Homer Dawn Watch in China, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1941), pp. 
194-95: "from the day that I set foot in Yenan, I noticed a lukewarm attitude towards 
Russia on the part of students and young officials. Far more popular than Russia were 
America and Great Britain. At least once a day I was told very earnestly something 
like this: 'You must not confuse our communism with the communism of Russia. 
Today we do our own thinking. In your country, you would probably call us 
socialists. We believe in sacrifice for each other, and in hard work and love for all 
men. Almost it is like your Christianity." 

2. An account of Harriman's interview is in The China Tangle by Herbert Feis 
(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1953), p. 140. 

3. Charles B. McLane, Soviet Policy and the Chinese Communists 1931-1946 
(Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, Copyright 1958 by Columbia 
University Press, 1972), pp. 1-2. 

4. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History (New York: 
Harper & Bros., 1948), p. 902-3: "[Stalin made the] categorical statement that he 
would do everything he could to promote unification of China under the leadership of 
Chiang Kai-Shek. . . . He specifically stated that no Communist leader was strong 
enough to unify China." 

5. McLane, op. cit. 

6. Robert Payne, Portrait of a Revolutionary: Mao Tse-Tiing (London and New 
York: Abelard-Schuman, 1961), footnote, p. 175. 

7. See the official announcement in Pravda, October 23, 1949. Tikhvinskiy was 
named as an intelligence officer by the former Soviet intelligence officer Rastvorov in 
his article in Life, December 6, 1 954. 

8. See Chiang Kai-Shek, Soviet Russia in China (New York: Farrar, Straus, and 
Cudahy, 1957), p. 369. 

9. This treaty remained in force throughout the Vietnam War. On its expiry in 
April 1980, it was not renewed; by then, there was no discernible threat to China from 
any Western nation. 

10. Walt Whitmaa Rostow in The Prospects for Communist China (Cambridge, 
Massachusetts: Technology Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1954), 
pp. 216-220, notes "under what circumstances, if any, is a break up of the alliance to 
be foreseen? In a technical sense the evidence of an alliance lies in the relative 
weakness of China vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. This means that 



380 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

three conditions are probably required to effect a Chinese withdrawal from the Sino- 
Soviet alliance: 

"1. Acute dissatisfaction among an effective group of Chinese leaders with the 
workings of the Soviet alliance, and probably with the consequences of 
applying Soviet technique to the problem of China's economic growth. 

"2. Assurance that withdrawal would be met by more favourable terms of 
association with the West. 

"3. The neutralization of potential Soviet strength vis-a-vis China either by 
severe internal Soviet difficulties or by some third power. 

"In the light of this basic situation there are several conditions, now beyond the 
horizon of immediate possibility. . . . The Sino-Soviet tie might be definitively altered 
if the uneasy process of adjustment ... in the Soviet Union created by Stalin's death 
should break into open conflict, resulting in either a drastic weakening of Moscow's 
power on the world scene or a drastic shift in its internal and external political 
orientation, even the present Chinese communist rulers might be prepared to rethink 
their relationship to Moscow and move towards a greater degree of independence 
from the Soviet Union or association with the non-communist world. Their precise 
course of action would depend on many factors, notably the character and probable 
duration of changes in the Soviet Union and the terras the Free World might offer for 
a change in [Chinese] orientation." 

11. See CSP, vol. 3, p. 129: "in the U. S., I was asked many questions about the 
relations between the Soviet Union and China. I must assume that these questions 
derived from the revisionist anti-Chinese propaganda in the Yugoslav press which 
recently . . . published insinuations about incipient disagreements, if you please, 
between the Soviet Union and China. ... 1 replied that the gentlemen questioners were 
evidently dreaming sweet dreams in which, lo and behold, magic could cause 
disagreements to appear in the socialist camp between the Soviet Union and China. 
But I said that . . . the dream was unrealisable. Soviet-Chinese friendship rests on the 
unshakable foundation of Marxist-Leninist ideology, on the common goals of 
communism, on the fraternal mutual support of the peoples of our countries, on joint 
struggles against imperialism and for peace and socialism. [Applause.] The greetings 
of the CPC Central Committee to our congress, signed by Comrade Mao Tse-tung . . . 
are a reaffirmation of the eternal, indissoluble friendship between our parties and 
between our countries. [Applause] We shall cherish this friendship as the apple of our 
eye. Our friendship is a sacred thing, and let not those who would seek to defile it 
reach out with unclean hands for this purpose. [Applause.]" 

12. "Imperialist, renegade and revisionist hopes of a split within the socialist camp 
are built on sand and doomed to failure. All the socialist countries cherish the unity of 
the socialist camp like the apple of their eye." (Manifesto) 

13. "I want to emphasize our constant effort to strengthen the bonds of fraternal 
friendship with the CPC, with the great Chinese people. ... the friendship of our two 
great peoples, the unity of our two parties ... are of exceptional importance in the 
struggle for the triumph of our common cause. . . . The CPSU 



NOTES 381 

and the Soviet people will do their utmost to further increase the unity of our parties 
and our peoples, so as not only to disappoint our enemies but to jolt them even more 
strongly with our unity, to attain the realisation of our great goal, the triumph of 
communism." (Khrushshev's speech, January 6, 1961) 

14. In his speech to the Twenty-first CPSU Congress (CSP, vol. 3, pp. 77-78), 
Chou En-lai said: "The Soviet Union and China are fraternal socialist countries . . . 
the close friendship of the peoples of our two countries is eternal and indestructible." 
In an interview published in Peking Review on November 8, 1960, he said, "The 
solidarity between the two great countries, China and the Soviet Union, is the bulwark 
of the defence of world peace. What the imperialists and all reactionaries fear the 
most is the solidarity of the socialist countries. They seek by every means to sow 
discord and break up this unity." 

15. The Sino-Soviet Dispute, an article by Geoffrey Francis Hudson, Richard 
Lowenthal, and Roderick MacFarquhar which was published by the China Quarterly, 
1961, p. 35. 

16. A timely warning against false historical analogies was given by former 
leading American communist Jay Lovestone in testimony before the Internal Security 
Committee of the U. S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary on January 26 and 
February 2, 1961: "We must guard against the temptation to resort to historical 
analogies. Since Communist Russia and Communist China are bound together by this 
overriding common objective [communist conquest and transformation of the world], 
it would be dangerously false to equate their differences or jealousies with the hostility 
and clash of interests between Czarist Russia and pre-World War I China." 

17. Kommunist, no. 5 (1964), p. 21. 

18. PartyLife, no. 10(1964), p. 65. 

19. Ibid., no. 7(1964), p. 9. 

20. Problems of Philosophy (October 1958). 

21. See his speech at Leipzig on March 7, 1959, reprinted in World without Arms, 
World without Wars (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1960), vol. 1, 
p. 198: "Broad co-operation is developing between the sovereign countries of the 
socialist camp in every sphere of economic, public, political and cultural life. 
Speaking of the future, I believe that the socialist countries' further development will 
in all likelihood follow the line of consolidating the single world socialist economic 
system. The economic barriers that divided our countries under capitalism will be 
removed one after another, and the common economic basis of world socialism will 
be steadily strengthened, eventually making the question of boundaries pointless." 

22. CSP, vol. 3, p. 188: "The thesis in Comrade N. S. Krushchev's report that 
"from the theoretical standpoint it would be more correct to assume that by 
successfully employing the potentialities inherent in socialism, the countries of 
socialism will enter the higher phase of communist society more or less simulta- 
neously" will be of tremendous interest not only to Communists of the Soviet Union 
but also to Communists of all the socialist countries as well as Communists of the 
entire world. This is the first formulation of the new thesis that the law of planned and 
proportional development applies not only to individual socialist 



382 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

countries but also to the economy of the socialist camp as a whole. This is a new 
pronouncement in the theory of scientific communism. It expresses the profound truth 
of Leninism that the world socialist camp constitutes a single economic system. As 
time goes on, the economic plans of these countries will be more and more co- 
ordinated and the more highly developed countries will help the less developed 
countries in order to march in a united front toward communism at an increasingly 
faster pace." 

23. Mende, China and Her Shadow, pp. 175-76, 338-39. 

24. The following is an extract from this letter: "It is not only at present that the 
Soviet leaders have begun to collude with US imperialism and attempt to menace 
China. As far back as 20th June 1959, when there was not yet the slightest sign of a 
treaty on stopping nuclear tests, the Soviet government unilaterally tore up the 
agreement on new technology for national defence concluded between China and the 
Soviet Union on 15 October 1957, and refused to provide China with a sample of an 
atomic bomb and technical data concerning its manufacture. This was done as a 
presentation gift at the time the Soviet leader went to the US for talks with 
Eisenhower in September." 

25. For an example, see Trud, August 31, 1963: "The 10 MW pilot nuclear power 
plant and the 24 million electron volt cyclotron commissioned in 1958 were another 
aspect of Soviet aid to China which was too many-sided to be mentioned in all the 
details." 

26. See Peking Review, April 26, 1960: "A new nuclear particle — anti sigma 
minus hyperon — has been discovered by scientists of the socialist countries working 
together at the Joint Nuclear Research Institute in Dubna, outside Moscow (estab- 
lished in 1956 by representatives of 12 governments of the socialist states). In 
addition to the Soviet physicists who led in obtaining this remarkable result. Professor 
Wang Kan-chang, prominent Chinese scientist who is the vice-director of the Joint 
Institute played a big part. He has long been a figure of world reknown in the field of 
physics. Speaking of the new success. Professor Wang described it as the first 
discovery of a charged anti-hyperon ever made, marking another step forward in 
man's knowledge of the basic particles of the micro-world. Professor Wang attributed 
this triumph first of all to leadership and support by the Soviet director of the Institute 
and to close co-operation in work by scientists of other socialist countries, it is truly, 
he said, a fresh testimony to the superiority of the socialist system." 

27. Snow, Other Side of the River, p. 642. 

28. See Mende, China and Her Shadow, pp. 182-93. 

29. Military Strategy: Soviet Doctrine and Concepts, ed. Marshal V. D. Soko- 
lovskiy (Moscow, 1962). 

30. For an instance, see Pravda, August 27, 1963, on the alleged Chinese objection 
to the admission of the Soviet delegation to the Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in 
1963 in Moshi on the grounds that the Soviet delegates were neither black nor yellow. 

31. See Douglas Jackson, Russo-Chinese Borderlands, p. 91: "Salisbury also 
attributes the Khrushchev virgin and idle lands programme which in 1954-56 resulted 
in the ploughing of millions of acres of unused land in Western Siberia 



NOTES 383 

and Northern Kazakhstan and the setthng of several hundred thousand Russians and 
Ukrainians there, as proof of Soviet concern for its vast empty Siberian spaces. The 
Khrushchev programme unquestionably has political overtones, but more compelling 
reasons for its implementation may be found in domestic conditions in the Soviet 
Union than in the Chinese population problem." 

32. In Moscow on September 2, 1980, the Chinese Friendship Association 
celebrated the anniversary of the Japanese defeat in Manchuria. A report was 
delivered by the association's deputy chairman, Tikhvinskiy. 

33. New York Times, November 22, 1966. 

34. Kommunist, no. 5 (1 964), p. 21 . 

35. See Douglas Jackson, Russo-Chinese Borderlands, p. tlO: "As events have 
unfolded their role has changed with circumstances. From zones of tension between 
Imperial Russia, Imperial China, Soviet Russia and Nationalist China, the borderlands 
have become, since the Communist revolution in China, zones of co-operation and 
stabilisation. Their further economic development will undoubtedly strengthen the 
hold that the Communists have over them — and in turn, they will contribute much to 
the overall Communist strength. Indeed, the role of the borderlands in future Sino- 
Soviet relations may in some ways be as dramatic as that played in preceding 
centuries of Russo-Chinese competition and distrust. Whatever the future may bring, 
the lands of Asia, where Russia and China meet, will continue to fascinate us, and 
what is more, demand our awareness and understanding." 

36. For examples, see the speeches of Mao, Liu Shaochi, Peng Te-huai, and Teng 
Hsiao-p'ing at the Eighth CPC Congress in September 1956. (Jen min-Jih-Pao, 
September 1956) 

37. See Field-Marshal the Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, Three Continents 
(London: Collins, 1962), p. 40: "Chou emphasized again and again that China must 
have peace, although she will always fight to resist aggression against her own 
territory. . . . Marshal Chen Yi, the foreign minister, had given me exactly the same 
views during my talks with him." See also Chou En-lai's emphasis on China's 
recognition of the policy of peaceful co-existence in the article in Peking Review, 
Novembers, 1961. 

38. See Khrushchev's speech of January 6, 1961: (the war in Algeria) is a 
liberation war, a war of independence waged by the people. It is a sacred war. We 
recognize such wars; we have helped and shall continue to help peoples fighting for 
their freedom. ... is there a likelihood of such wars recurring? Yes, there is. Are 
uprisings of this kind likely to recur? Yes, they are. But wars of this kind are popular 
uprisings. Is there the likelihood of conditions in other countries reaching the point 
where the cup of the popular patience overflows and they take to arms? Yes, there is 
such a likelihood. What is the attitude of the Marxists to such uprisings? A most 
favourable attitude. These uprisings cannot be identified with wars between countries, 
with local wars, because the insurgent people are fighting for the right to self- 
determination, for their social and independent national development; these uprisings 
are directed against the corrupt reactionary regimes, against the colonialists. The 
Communists support just wars of this kind wholeheartedly and without reservations." 



384 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

39. "The interests of the struggle for the working-class cause demand of each 
communist party and of the great army of communists of all countries ever closer 
unity of will and action." (Manifesto) 

40. Kommunist, no. 13 (1964), p. 21; and Jen-min Jih Pao and Iluntzi, February 4, 
1964. 

41. World Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, no. 6 (1964), p. 
33. 

Chapter 17: The Fifth Disinformation Operation: Romanian 

"Independence" 

I. See, for examples, David Floyd, Rumania: Russia's Dissident Ally (New York: 
Frederick A. Praeger, 1965). 

2 Ibid 

3. Ibid, pp. 119-20. 

4. Ibid., p. 108. 

Chapter 18: The Sixth Disinformation Operation: The Alleged Recurrence of Power 
Struggles in the Soviet, Chinese, and Other Parties 

I. In the author's opinion, Robert Conquest and Myron Rush both misinterpreted 
the change of leadership from Khrushchev to Brezhnev in their books, respectively, 
Russia after Khrushchev (New York. Frederick A. Praeger, 1965) and Political 
Succession in the USSR (New York Research Institute on Communist Affairs, 
Columbia University Press, 1965). 

According to Conquest's interpretation, Khrushchev was removed as the result of a 
sudden secret coup in accordance with Kremlin traditions for his mistakes in domestic 
and foreign policy, the "conservatives" uniting with "modernizing moderates" and 
"defectors from Khrushchev's own faction" (Brezhnev) to oust him. The reasons were 
objections to his ill-prepared schemes. It is very notable that by far the most 
powerfully urged cpmplaints were the fact that he acted without consulting them, that 
he turned Central Committee meetings into crowd scenes to carry his proposals by 
acclaim, that he used his son-in-law, Alexey Adzhu-bey, as a personal agent in foreign 
affairs without informing the Presidium, and so on. But the crucial point was reached 
when Khrushchev openly proposed to them the installation of Adzhubey in the 
machinery of power. Here was a threat to old Khrushchevites and non- 
Khrushchevites alike. The former must have remembered how Stalin, too, had 
replaced his old followers with men of his personal entourage." 

Conquest bases his interpretation on the parallel with the struggle for power after 
Stalin's death. "The present situation differs in many important respects from that 
which followed Stalin's death in March 1953. However, the events of that time are the 
only parallel we have and some further examination of them must certainly prove 
fruitful. For the more the structure of power depends on one man, the more it is likely 
to be shaken when that one man is removed. On Khrushchev's departure, as after 
Stalin's, a power vacuum came into being. . . . There were then a number of figures of 
the second rank with long experience 



NOTES 385 

at the top and high prestige in the apparat ready to move." 

According to Rush's interpretation, struggles for power in the Soviet Union 
continue as after Lenin's and Stalin's deaths, since the problem of the political 
succession has not been solved. Rush's interpretation also accepts Khrushchev's 
dismissal as the result of a conspiracy. "Khrushchev's surrender of the posts that made 
him the effective ruler of the Soviet Union, announced on October 15, 1964, came as 
a surprise to the West and to Khrushchev as well. The coup d'etat prevented him from 
attending a celebration for Soviet space-men he had just announced over radio and 
television. Khrushchev's overthrow was the result of a conspiracy, not the culmination 
of a series of moves aimed at reducing his power." Rush sees Khrushchev as a dictator. 
"A conspiracy was necessary to remove Khrushchev because sovereignty resided in no 
collective but in Khrushchev's person." 

According to Rush's view, an arranged political succession in the Soviet Union is 
impossible and the ruler's demise or removal begins the succession crisis. "In the 
USSR the ruler evidently cannot inherit authority but must win it, and it is difficult to 
see how such vast powers can be seized against the certain opposition of rivals 
without producing a political crisis. Its depth and effects, however, are variable, 
according to the scope and intensity of the struggle and the manner of its resolution. 
Succession is initiated by the political or physical demise of the ruler. The 
circumstances in which this event occurs may significantly affect the course of 
succession, yet even the ruler who attempts to arrange his succession cannot know 
with confidence what these circumstances will be. The ruler's demise may be a 
political rather than a physical event as when he is removed in a palace revolt, as 
Khrushchev was in fact, in which case his person and politics immediately become a 
central issue in the succession. . . . However it begins, the succession crisis is at the 
outset largely colored by the personal rivalry of the most ambitious of the former 
ruler's heirs. In their efforts to inherit his power, they are compelled to manoeuvre and 
compromise, forming factions in the top leadership according to the shifting 
calculation of personal interest and political principle." 

Rush recognizes Khrushchev's concern over the succession problem: "if, as we 
shall argue, Khrushchev tried to deal with the problem of succession, his dispositions 
did not lose significance because he was ousted before he could achieve his purpose. 
On the contrary, his succession arrangements shaped the situation that resulted from 
his fall, and even helped to bring it about. Khrushchev was deeply aware of the Soviet 
succession problem, although Marxism contributed little to that awareness. 
Preoccupied with the problem of the transfer of power from one class to another, it 
has relatively little to say about the transfer of power between rulers. Khrushchev 
learned of the succession problem through experience — not theory. He was already in 
his thirties during Lenin's succession and he in some measure relived that experience 
in his campaign against Stalin's memory." 

2. See Lenin's letter of 1923, published in Kommunist, no. 9 (1956), pp. 11-17: 
"Comrade Stalin, having become General Secretary, has concentrated enormous 
power in his hands and I am not at all certain that he is capable of always utilising this 
power with sufficient caution." 



386 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

3. Rush's analysis of the succession problems after Lenin's and Stalin's deaths, 
given in Political Succession in the USSR, is in general accurate. See pp. 39-43: 
"Lenin's effort to influence the succession with respect to personalities, policy, and 
organization met complete defeat. His advice, offered after serious deliberation and 
with due gravity, was disregarded even while he lived by men who professed to serve 
him. They not only failed to act on Lenin's recommendations; they also failed to learn 
from the arguments by which he justified them. Stalin, however, may be an exception 
to this; Lenin's testament may have taught him caution and dissimulation even beyond 
what was natural to him. Lenin's last writings had not exhausted their historical 
significance in 1930. A third of a century later, they were finally handed over to the 
Party's Congress by a new pretender to Lenin's mantle, who had learned that his 
ambitions could be advanced by attacking Stalin. Khrushchev's use of Lenin's 
testament in 1956 serves as a reminder that it remained an important part of the Soviet 
political scene even after the XIII Congress decided to suppress it. . . . [Stalin's] chief 
preoccupation was assuredly the continued exercise of his own authority rather than 
arranging its transfer to his heirs, so that the need to preserve his own vast power 
intact narrowly limited his succession arrangements." 

4. See his concluding remarks to the Twenty-second CPSU Congress (CSP, vol. 
4, p. 200): "It is wrong, comrades, it is simply impossible to permit the inception and 
development of instances when the merited prestige of an individual may assume 
forms in which he fancies that everything is permissible to him and that he no longer 
has need of the collective. In such a case this individual may stop listening to the 
voices of other comrades who have been advanced to leadership, just as he was, and 
may begin suppressing them. Our great teacher V. I. Lenin resolutely fought against 
this, and the Party paid too dear a price for not heeding his wise counsel in good time. 
So let us be worthy disciples of Lenin in this important matter." 

5. Ibid.: "But each leader must also understand the other side of the matter — 
never to plume himself on his position, to remember that in holding this or that post 
he is merely fulfilling the will of the Party and the will of the people, who may have 
invested the greatest power in him but never lose control over him. The leader who 
forgets this pays heavily for his mistake. I would add that he will pay while he is 
alive, or even after his death the people will not forgive him, as has happened with the 
condemnation of the cult of Stalin. A person who forgets that he is obliged to fulfill 
the will of the Party and of the people cannot, properly speaking, be called a true 
leader; there must be no such 'leaders' either in the Party or in the state apparatus." 

6. Ibid., p. 198: "In the conditions of the cult of the individual, the Party was 
deprived of normal life. People who usurp power cease being accountable to the 
Party, they escape from under its control. Herein is the greatest danger of the cult of 
the individual. The situation in the Party must always be such that every leader is 
accountable to the Party and its agencies, and the Party can replace any leader when it 
considers this necessary." 

7. Ibid., p. 200: "I would like to say a few words about the following question. In 
many speeches at the Congress, and not infrequently in our press as well. 



NOTES 387 

when mention is made of the activity of our party's Central Committee, a certain 
special emphasis is placed on me personally and my role in carrying out major Party 
and Government measures is underlined. I understand the kind feelings guiding these 
comrades. Allow me however to emphasise emphatically that everything that is said 
about me should be said about the Central Committee of our Leninist Party, and about 
the Presidium of the Central Committee. Not one major measure, not one responsible 
pronouncement has been carried out upon anyone's personal directive; they have all 
been the result of collective deliberation and collective decision. And this concluding 
speech, too, has been considered and approved by the executive collective. Our great 
strength. Comrades, lies in collective leadership, in collegial decisions on all 
questions of principle." 

8. Ibid., pp. 199-200: "The 22nd Congress is confirming this beneficial course. 
The Party Programme and Statutes and the resolutions of the congress set forth new 
guarantees against relapses into the cult of the individual. The role of the Party as the 
great inspiring and organising force in the building of communism is rising higher 
still." 

9. Stenographic records of the Twenty-second Congress (Moscow, 1962), vol. 3, 
pp. 356-60. 

10. The information about the relationship of these leaders to Khrushchev 
was obtained from KGB officials in the Ukraine and Moscow (Kolesnikov and 
Kochurov) and was partially confirmed in Zhukov's attack on Khrushchev at the 
meeting of the Politburo in the fall of 1957. 

Chapter 19: The Seventh Disinformation Operation: "Democratization" in 

Czechoslovakia in 1968 

1. The Soviet leaders contributed to the promotion of this analogy. For instance, 
while visiting Sweden in the summer of 1968, Kosygin three times made a slip of the 
tongue confusing Czechoslovakia and Hungary. 

2. CSE(1962), p. 458. 

3. CSE(1962), p. 16. 

4. GSE(I963), p. 18. 

5. See Prague Notebook: The Strangled Revolution (Boston. Little, Brown & Co., 
1971), p. 30. M. Salomon, however, misinterpreted this evidence attributing 
Khrushchev's proposal not to long-range bloc policy, but to the example of President 
Kennedy's "brain trust." 

6. Ibid., p. 30, note I. Salomon overlooked the significance of the close relations 
between Barak and Sik. 

7. Ibid. 

8. Ibid., pp. 101-10. 

9. Ibid., p. 69. 

10. Ibid., p. 229. 

11. See the following extract from the Czechoslovak communist party letter to the 
five Warsaw Pact powers, dated July 20, 1968, quoted in [Salomon], Prague 
Notebook, p. 121. "The manoeuvres of the armed forces of the Warsaw Treaty on 
Czechoslovakian territory constitute a concrete proof of our faithful 



388 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

fulfilment of commitments of alliance. In order to assure the success of these 
manoeuvres, we have, on our side, taken all necessary steps. Our people as well as the 
members of our army have welcomed the Soviet army and the allied armies to our 
territory in a friendly way. The supreme leaders of the party and the government, by 
their presence, have testified to the importance we attach to these manoeuvres and the 
interest we take in them. The confusion and certain doubts expressed in our public 
opinion appeared only after the reiterated changes in the date of departure of the 
allied armies from Czechoslovakia at the end of the manoeuvres." 

12. See the Czechoslovak party's letter of July 20, 1968, quoted [Salomon], in 
Prague Notebook, pp. 120-21: "We will never accept that the historic achievements of 
socialism and the security of the nations of our country should be threatened or that 
imperialism, in a peaceful manner or by violence, should shatter the socialist system 
and modify the balance of power in Europe in its favour. The principal content of our 
evolution after January is just this tendency to increase the internal strength and the 
stability of the socialist regime and thus that of our relationships of alliance." 

13. Prague Notebook, Michel Salomon, p. 243. 

14. See the Czechoslovak party letter dated July 20, 1968, quoted in Prague 
Notebook, pp. 1 18-19: "Our alliance and our friendship with the USSR and the other 
socialist countries are deeply rooted in the social regime, in the traditions and the 
historical experiences of our nations, in their interests, their sentiments and their 
thoughts. . . . We behave in such a way that friendly relationships with our allies, the 
countries of the world's socialist community, will deepen on a basis of mutual respect, 
sovereignty and equality of rights, and international solidarity. In this sense, we 
contribute more actively to the common activity of [Comecon] and the Warsaw 
treaty." 

15. Here, while maintaining that "democratization" was on the whole controlled, 
one can allow for the existence of genuine antiregime individuals either inside or 
outside the country, who, without realizing what was really going on, acted 
completely independently during the last months of the crisis, thereby revealing 
themselves to the regime as counterrevolutionary elements. No doubt they were 
registered as such. 

Chapter 20: The Second Disinformation Operation: The "Evolution" of the Soviet 
Regime (Part Two: The "Dissident") 

1. Andrey D. Sakharov, Sakharov Speaks, ed. Harrison E. Salisbury (London: 
Collins & Harvill Press, 1974). 

2. Leon Goure, Foy D. Kohler, Richard Soil, and Annette Stiefbold, Convergence 
of Communism and Capitalism — The Soviet View (Miami, Florida Centre for 
Advanced International Studies, University of Miami, 1973), pp. 44-46; Sakharov 
Speaks, pp. 107 et seq. 

3. Sakharov Speaks, p. 108, gives these dates as 1968-80. 

4. Sakharov Speaks, pp. 107 et seq. 

5. See note 3. Ibid. 



NOTES 389 

6. It is not clear why Sakharov and Kapitsa, who are both so outspoken, have not 
been expelled from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, although Sakharov, at least, was 
allegedly stripped of his state honors and awards. For some unexplained reason, this 
did not occur until January 1980. 



Chapter 21 : The Eighth Disinformation Operation: Eurocommunism 

1. Leonard Schapiro, The Soviet Union and "Eurocommunism, " Conflict Study 
no. 99 (London: The Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1978). Some Spanish 
socialists also seem to regard Eurocommunism as a deceptive device. 

2. See, for examples. World Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, 
no. 6 (1974); Pravda, August 6, 1975; and Novoye Vremya, no. 9 (1976). 

3. Schapiro, Soviet Union and "Eurocommunism," p. 2. 

4. Ibid., p. 5. 

5. B. N. Ponomarev, "The World Situation and the Revolutionary Process," World 
Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, no. 6, (1974): "Detente 
strengthens the realistically minded elements within the bourgeois camp and helps to 
isolate the more reactionary, imperialist forces, the 'war parties' and the military- 
industrial complexes." 

6. Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism: International Dimensions, Conflict Study no. I 13 
(London: The Institute for the Study of Conflict, 1979). 

7. See Kevin Devlin, "The Challenge of 'Eurocommunism,' " Problems of Com- 
munism (Washington, D. C), January-February 1977. 

8. GSE(I968), pp. 480-481. 

9. Devlin, "The Challenge of 'Eurocommunism,' " p. 3. 

10. Schapiro, Soviet Union and "Eurocommunism," p. 8 

11. World Marxist Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, no. 7 (1964), pp. I- 
2. 

12. Rabochiy klass i sovremennyy mir, 1976, no. 4, as quoted in Schapiro, Soviet 
Union and "Eurocommunism. " 

Chapter 22: The Role of Disinformation and Intelligence Potential in the Realization 
of the Communist Strategies 

L GSE(I969), p. 52. 
2 GSE(I972), p. 269. 

3. GSE(I974), p. 278. 

4. See, for example, the Chinese People's Daily, September 6, 1963: "The 
leadership of the CPSU has become increasingly anxious to strike political bargains 
with U.S. imperialism and has been bent on forming a reactionary alliance with 
Kennedy even at the expense of the interests of the socialist camp and the interna- 
tional communist movement." 

5. GSE(1977), p. 294. 

6. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, p. 77. 

7. Boris Ponomarev, "Topical Problems in the Theory of the World Revolutionary 
Process," Kommunist, no. 15 (October 1971). 



390 NEW LIES FOR OLD 

8. The award of an Order of Lenin to Timo followed the award earlier of an Order 
of Friendship. 

9. GSE(1965), p. 374. 

10. GSE(1969), pp. 388-S9. 

11. Aliyev became the Soviet Premier under Andropov. 

12. Information from Kirilin, deputy head of the KGB religious department, and 
Lapshin, officer of the religious section of the KGB emigre department. See Izvestiya, 
November 26, 1960. 

13. Izvestiya, December 16, 1960. 

14. CSE(1970), p. 318. 

15. GSE(1971), p. 323. 

16. See "Political Shifts in the Middle East: Roots, Facts, Trends," World Marxist 
Review — Problems of Peace and Socialism, no. 2 (1980). The article is a summary of 
a discussion on events in Iran and Afghanistan; participants included a Soviet Afghan 
scholar. It notes: "Albeit difficult, it is fully realistic (and the experience of Soviet 
Central Asia is highly instructive in this sense) in some way to enlist Islam into 
serving the revolution and the building of a new life." 

17. Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, no. 9 (1976). 

18. Yu venal iy was replaced, allegedly for reasons of health, in April 1981. 

Chapter 23: The Evidence of Overall Coordination Between the Communist 
Governments and Parties 

1. See CSP vol. 4, p. 44. 

2. GSE(1962), p. 460. 

3. GSE(1963), p. 451. 

4. GSE(1966), p. 52. 

5. GSE(1967), pp. 447, 472-73. 

6. For Prague, GSE ( 1 973), p. 49 1 , for Warsaw, GSE ( 1 975), pp. 502-503. 

7. GSE(1971), p. 55. 

8. GSE(1976), p. 487. 

9. GSE(1974), p. 6. 

10. GSE(1975), p. 502. 

11. GSE(1976), p. 42. 

12. GSE (1977), pp. 18,44. 

13. GSE(1977), p. 454. 

14. See, for example, GSE (1967), p. 35. 

15. GSE(1966), p. 598. 

16. See the section on the development of communist contacts in GSE each year 
from 1958 onward. 

17. GSE(1969), p. 468. 

18. GSE(1962), p. 283. 

19. GSE (1964), p. 15. 

20. GSE(1965), p. 285. 

21. GSE (1965), pp. 47, 69, 75, 459; also GSE (1970), p. 63. 

22. GSE (1966), pp. 26, 51. 

23. GSE (1967), pp. 473, 475. 



NOTES 391 

24. GSE(1970), pp. 53,62. 

25. GSE(1970), p. 53. 

26. GSE(1971), p. 80. 

27. Ibid. 

28. GSE(1971), p. 66. 

29. GSE(1974), p. 310. 

30. GSE(1975), p. 64. 

31. GSE(1976), p. 59. 

32. GSE(1977), pp. 65, 295. 

33. GSE(1978), p. 56. 

34. GSE(1980), p. 64. 

35. New York Times, March 25, 1982. 

36. In 1980-8 1 he led the Soviet delegation to the CSCE conference in Madrid. 

37. GSE(1970), pp. 9-22. 

38. GSE(1966), pp. 466-67. 

39. GSE(I971), p. 34. 

Chapter 24: The Impact of the Disinformation Program 

1. Quoted in Alvin Z. Rubinstein The Foreign Policy of the Soviet Union (New 
York: Random House, 1960), p. 405. 

2. New York Times, August 10, 1962. 

3. David M. Abshire, 'Grand Strategy Reconstructed: an American View,' in 
Detente: Cold War Strategies in Transition, ed. Eleanor Lansing Dulles and Robert 
Dickson Crane (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 269. 

4. "The New Drive Against the Anti-Communist Program," hearing before the 
Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the internal Security Act and 
Other Internal Security Laws of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, 
D.C, July 11, 1961, p. 10. 

5. R. Strausz-Hupe, W. R. Kintner, J. E. Dougherty, and A. J. Cotrell, Protracted 
Conflict, (New York: Harper Brothers, 1959) pp. 1 15-16: "It is no exaggeration to say 
that in recent years the Western governments have shown neither enthusiasm for, nor 
skill in, the conduct of their official "information programs" which are a poor 
substitute for ideological-political warfare. Western peoples, in general, are hardly 
exercised about the future of the free way of life. So defensive has the Western 
mentality become that many intellectuals devote most of their time to apologizing for 
the institutions and the processes of liberal society. Paradoxically, even those 
intellectuals who are most dedicated to the cause of individual freedom within their 
own nations do not manifest as profound a concern over the threat which communist 
expansion poses to human freedom." 

Chapter 25: The Final Phase 

1. New York Times, December 1, 1981. 

2. Questions of History, no. 2 (1980). 

3. The involvement of socialists with "national liberation" movements can already 
be seen, for example, in relation to El Salvador and the meeting in 1979 between the 
Austrian socialist leader Kreisky and Arafat of the PLO.