The ‘August Coup’ Hoax That Legitimized the Fake Fall of Communism

 

Source: http://www.renegadetribune.com/the-august-coup-hoax-that-legitimized-the-fake-fall-of-communism/

 

By Anatoliy Golitsyn

 

Excerpt: The Perestroika Deception, pgs. 137-144 (1998)

 

THE FAKE ‘AUGUST COUP’ AND ITS CALCULATED FAILURE
A deliberately engineered ‘Break with the Past’

 

Who called the shots in the USSR before the ‘coup’ and who introduced the ‘reforms’? Gorbachev and his ‘liberals’? NO, the Party and its strategists.

 

Who is calling the shots now and who proposed the coup to replace Gorbachev? The ‘hardliners’, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the KGB? NO, the Party and its strategists.

 

The ‘coup’ was proposed in accordance with the requirements of the Soviet strategy of convergence leading to eventual World Government. This strategy and its moves, like the present Soviet ‘coup’, can only be understood in the light of the theories of one of the principal Soviet agents of influence, namely Sakharov, and his timetable for convergence. According to Sakharov, during the first phase the Leninist realists (i.e. Gorbachev and other ‘liberals’) will expand and strengthen ‘democracy’ and economic reform in the USSR and other socialist countries.

 

As we know, this has already happened.

 

According to Sakharov, in the second phase the pressure exerted by the Soviet example and by the internal progressive forces would lead to the victory of the Leftist Reformist Wing (the Soviet term for American liberals) which would begin to implement a program of collaboration and convergence with the USSR on a worldwide scale, entailing changes in the structure of ownership. According to Sakharov, this phase would include an expanded role for the intelligentsia and an attack on the forces of racism and militarism.We had reached this phase before the war with Iraq. In the assessment of the Soviet strategists, the US victory over Iraq adversely affected the political balance in the United States. In their view, the victory weakened and demoralized the liberals (or Leftist Reformists) and strengthened the centrist and conservative forces and the US military. This disturbed Soviet plans to carry out their strategy of convergence.

 

They saw that their main political allies in achieving convergence with the United States had been weakened. Accordingly they engineered this strategic ‘coup’ to reverse and improve the political fortunes of their American allies. Seen in strategic terms, the main purpose of Gorbachev’s ‘dismissal’ is further to confuse American opinion and to alter the political landscape in the United States so as to accelerate the progress of the Soviet strategy and to put it back on the rails.

 

This strategy is a deliberate and coordinated walk towards ultimate victory by advancing first the left leg of action by ‘liberals’, then the right leg of action by ‘hardliners’ and then once more the left leg of action by ‘liberals’. The ‘dismissal’ of Gorbachev is temporary. In earlier Memoranda I predicted a calculated ‘resignation’ by Gorbachev and his eventual return to power.

 

The ‘coup’ confirms this prediction. According to my analysis, the ‘coup’ is aimed at intensifying American anxieties over the fate of Gorbachev and the other ‘liberals’ and ‘reformists’ in the USSR like Shevardnadze. When these concerns reach their peak, the Soviet strategists’ next move can be expected. They will return Gorbachev and other ‘liberals’ to power through a campaign of strikes and demonstrations organized by the Party.

 

As the Soviet strategists see it, Gorbachev’s return and the strengthening of the ‘reformists’ in the USSR will also strengthen the American liberals, revive their fortunes and help them win future elections – leading eventually to the convergence of the United States and the USSR. In short, Gorbachev’s return will be a repetition of the device of the suppression of Solidarity in Poland, followed by its victory.

 

The main purpose of the ‘coup’ is to reverse an unfavorable situation for potential Soviet allies in the United States and to create favorable conditions for the implementation of the convergence strategy. The second objective is to secure the non-violent creation of the new Soviet Federation of Republics. The third objective is to provide any potential adventurers there may be in the Soviet military with a lesson and thereby to eliminate any possibility of a genuine coup in the future.

 

A FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECTIVES OF THE SOVIET ‘COUP’

 

The point has already been made that Gorbachev will be returned to power at the moment when it best serves the Soviet strategy of convergence. Depending on the circumstances prevailing at the appropriate time, he could be returned to power through an election, after a period of other activities .

 

His alleged removal from power and house arrest are deliberate devices to build up his popularity before such an election. Meanwhile one can expect that the Soviet strategists intend to replace him or to add to his team another ace card, the ‘anti-Communist’ (but, like Gorbachev, protege of Andropov) Boris Yeltsin, leader of the Russian Republic. As the Soviet strategists see it, Gorbachev has exhausted the influence he exerted on their behalf in the West. He was unable to extract more economic aid at the London Summit Meeting and his advice concerning a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Iraq was ignored by President Bush. It is the strategists’ belief that Boris Yeltsin will give greater credibility in the West to Soviet economic and political ‘reform’. He will be in a better position to exploit his influence to extract additional economic aid from the West and, in particular, to obtain from the West a commitment to a new Marshall Plan for Russia.

 

A Marshall Plan for Russia is one of the primary interim objectives of the Soviet strategists and one that Gorbachev failed to achieve. The strategists expect that Yeltsin will be able to exert greater influence in diplomatic, economic and political relationships and will receive more cooperation in the international arena particularly in the Middle East and at the United Nations. One can expect that the Soviet strategists will come forward with fresh initiatives combined with deliberate provocations and crises in order to enhance the role of the United Nations.

 

They will do this because they regard the United Nations as a stepping stone to a future World Government The Soviet political game and the Soviets’ trickery in ‘manipulating’ politicians like Gorbachev and Yeltsin for Western public consumption demand more imagination and a better grasp of these machinations from the Bush Administration. For example, to proceed with the appointment of Mr Robert Strauss as the new Ambassador in Moscow is a great mistake because the appointment is being made at a time when the Soviet strategists are deliberately undermining the credit and prestige President Bush gained from his dealings with Gorbachev. They are undercutting the President in favor of their political allies – namely, the American liberals. Nowadays the situation is more serious than it was after the Second World War. President Truman woke up to the nature of Stalin’s mentality, his deeds and his intentions. The Bush Administration, by contrast, has no understanding of Soviet strategy and its ultimate, aggressive, strategic designs against the United States.

 

Given this situation and the Soviet ‘game plan’, the President, instead of appointing a politician/businessman like Robert Strauss as American Ambassador in Moscow, should consider appointing someone like Richard Helms or General Vernon Walters – that is to say, a professional man and an intelligence expert who might see through the Soviet game plan and help the Administration as General Bedell Smith helped President Truman in 1947.

 

THE AUTHOR’S ANALYSIS OF THE OBJECTIVES OF THE CALCULATED SOVIET ‘COUP’ AND OF ITS CALCULATED ‘FAILURE’

 

According to my assessment, the Soviet ‘coup’ and its ‘failure’ constituted a grandiose display of deception – a provocation. The ‘ineptitude’ of the participants in the ‘coup’ and the ‘failure’ of it were skillfully planned and executed. The main argument in support of this assessment is that the Soviet military, the KGB, the Party and leading media figures apparently had neither the skill to launch a successful coup nor the guts to crush resistance to it. This is news indeed!

 

Facing a real crisis in Hungary in 1956, the same forces displayed exceptional skill, knowhow and determination in crushing a genuine revolt. Knowledge of the Soviet mentality and of Moscow’s record of ruthless action has convinced this analyst that the Soviet military, the Party and the leaders of the media all have the skill, the will and the courage to crush genuine resistance and opposition. They did not display them on this occasion because the abortive ‘coup’ was carried out in accordance with Party instructions; and it was the Party and the Komsomol themselves which organized the alleged resistance to it.

 

The real participants both in the ‘coup’ and in the ‘failure’ were some 20,000 or more chosen Komsomol and Party members in Moscow with two or three tank divisions guided by their political commissars and a handful of dedicated Party officials and generals who sacrificed their prestige in the interests of the Party’s strategy and under the guidance of its strategists. The calculated nature of the ‘coup’ and its timing show that it was staged by the Russian, President Yeltsin, to save the essence of the Union at the time of transition to a new form of federation.

 

The abortive ‘coup’ and the ‘resistance’ to it were carefully calculated displays intended primarily for the West. This explains why Western media contacts with Moscow were not curtailed. On the contrary, the big guns of the Soviet media like Vitaliy Korotich and representatives of the Arbatov Institute were on hand both in Moscow and in the United States to ‘help’ the Western media with their interpretation of developments in the USSR. The episode shows how well Soviet strategists like Arbatov and his experts on the American media have mastered the art of projecting such displays for consumption by the American media, and throughout the West.

 

The Soviet strategists sought to underline for the West the dramatic ineptitude of the ‘coup’ and the spectacular courage and resistance displayed by the new ‘Russian democrats’ and their leader Yeltsin in ‘defending’ the Soviet Parliament – their symbolic equivalent of ‘The White House’. The main external objective of the display was to demonstrate to the West that Soviet democratization is genuine, that it has the support of the people and that it is working. They want to convince the West that Western investment in the USSR will pay dividends.

 

They expect that the West will now respond with a new Marshall Plan which will bring Western technology flooding in to the Soviet Union, promoting joint ventures and stimulating a restructuring of the Soviet economy along the lines of the revival of the German and Japanese economies after the Second World War.

 

Internally, one objective is to influence the Soviet population towards acceptance of the new Party-controlled ‘democracy’ as a real power and to develop the strength and maturity of the new ‘democratic’ structure and the popularity of its leaders, especially Yeltsin. Another objective is to exploit this staged ‘coup’ in order to reorganize and ‘reform’ the Soviet bureaucracy, the military, the intelligence and counter-intelligence organizations and the diplomatic service, and to give them a new ‘democratic’ image.

 

The Soviet strategists realize that only with such a new image, implying a ‘Break with the Past’ and severance from Communism, can these organizations be converted into effective weapons for convergence with their counterparts in the United States. A further internal objective is to emphasize the change in the system by means of the spectacular, televised but calculated removal of old Communist symbols like the monuments to Lenin and Dzerzhinskiy, and the red banners.

 

These changes do not represent a genuine and sincere repudiation of Soviet design and intentions to secure an eventual world victory. Although very spectacular, the changes are cosmetic. They demonstrate only that Arbatov and others know how to manipulate the American and other Western media through the use of powerful symbols such as the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the toppling of Lenin and Dzerzhinskiy statues and Yeltsin’s staged ‘defense’ of the Soviet ‘White House’.

 

If the Soviets were truly moving towards genuine democracy, and were intent on a true ‘Break with the Past’, these symbolic changes would be accompanied by the introduction and implementation of a de-communization program, the irrevocable (not cosmetic) prohibition of the Communist Party and Komsomol organizations at all levels throughout the USSR, and the removal of ‘former’ Party and Komsomol members from all the main seats of power including the KGB, the Soviet army and its political commissar administration, the Ministries, especially those for the Interior and Foreign Affairs, and the trade unions.

 

Yeltsin has allegedly banned the Communist Party in Russia. But the question should be asked: ‘Why did he forget to ban the Komsomol youth organization?’ [Note: According to ‘The New York Times’ of 29 September 1991, the Komsomol voted to dissolve itself; its regulations were changed ‘to allow subordinate youth leagues in the Soviet Republics to succeed it’ – Author’s emphasis].

 

To carry conviction, the necessary purge of former Communists would have to be carried out at all levels, as was the intention with the brutal and unnecessary de-Nazification program in Germany after the war. Without any such program, present changes, however impressive, will remain cosmetic.

 

There are at present no means of distinguishing reliably between a genuine democrat and a former Communist in Russia. However one important criterion for judging the sincerity of the abrupt and virtually simultaneous conversion of former Communist leaders into true democrats would be a frank official statement from them that the Soviet Party and Government adopted a long-range strategy in the years 1958 to 1960, that ‘perestroika’ is the advanced phase of this strategy, and that it is to be abandoned forthwith in favor of normal, open, civilized relations. There has been no sign whatsoever of any such admission.

 

Further criteria for judging the sincerity of the abrupt conversion of ‘former’ Communist leaders into believers in true democracy would need to include:

 

·         An official admission that the ‘dissident movement’ and its leader, Sakharov, were serving the interests of that strategy under KGB control;

 

·         Public exposure of the main KGB agents among Soviet scientists, priests, writers and theatre and movie personalities who have been playing an active role in the KGB-controlled political ‘opposition’ – especially those like the ‘conservative’ Kochetov and the ‘liberal’ Tvardovskiy who in the 1960s engaged in a Party- and KGB-controlled debate intended to convey the false impression that Soviet society was evolving towards democracy;

 

·         And finally: a categorical repudiation of any strategic intention on the part of the Soviets of working towards ‘convergence’ with the United States.

 

The self-evident absence of any of these criteria indicates that the symbolic changes mean no more than that the strategists had reached the conclusion that the old symbols had outlived their usefulness – at least, in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe – and had to be replaced by new, more attractive, popular symbols.

 

Moreover these cosmetic changes are logical and were predicted earlier by this analyst. The Soviets realized that convergence with the United States cannot be achieved under the old compromised symbols like Lenin, Dzerzhinskiy and others associated in the Western mind with terror, repression, exile and bloodshed. Convergence requires the introduction of new, attractive, national and ‘democratic’ symbols conveying the impression that Soviet ‘democracy’ is approaching the Western model.

 

No doubt these cosmetic changes, the reorganization of the Soviet bureaucracy and the new, more enigmatic status of its leaders like Yeltsin will be seen by the West as a deepening of the process of Soviet’ reform’, offering new opportunities for Western policy. But the West’s main weakness remains unchanged: it cannot grasp the fact that it is facing an acceleration in the unfolding of Soviet convergence strategy which is intended to procure the subservience of the West to Moscow under an ultimate Communist World Government.

 

The Machiavellian boldness and imagination displayed by the Soviet strategists through their staged ‘coup’ and its preordained defeat are alarming. No doubt these maneuvers will be followed not only by faked suicides, but also by staged trials of the alleged leaders of the ‘coup’. These leaders may well be sentenced to apparent prison terms. But in fact they will live in comfortable retirement in resort areas like the Crimea and the Caucasus. Russia is a big country and places can be found for them to hide.

 

The ‘coup’ and its ‘defeat’ show that the Soviets will go to any lengths in pursuit of their convergence strategy. This reminds me of remarks by Vladimir Zhenikhov, the former KGB Rezident in Finland, and Aleksey Novikov, another KGB officer, at the time the strategy was adopted in 1961.

 

Both of them had recently returned from home leave in Moscow. When I asked for the latest news from headquarters, both replied using different words but to the same effect: ‘This time the KGB are going to finish with capitalist America once and for all’. I believed them then, and I believe that what is happening now is a bad omen for Western democracy.

 

The other alarming aspect of the situation is Western euphoria and the uncritical acceptance of present Soviet developments at their face value. This shows how easily the West can be taken in by staged Soviet spectacles, and how justified the strategists are in believing that their ‘era of provocations’ will produce the intended results. Furthermore, Western euphoria and naivete serve only to encourage the Soviet strategists to stage new spectacles more convinced than ever that their strategic designs are realistic.