Anatoly Golitsyn
New Lies For Old
The Communist strategy of deception and Disinformation
An ex-KGB officer warns how communist deception threatens survival
of the West
Dodd, Mead & Company, 1984, 412 pp., $15
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 fro Khrushchev's overthrow to Tito's
revisionism, from Dubchek's liberalism to Ceausecu'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 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 counterintelligence. 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 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 Khrushchev, Brezhnev,
and Bulganin.
For three months in 1952-52 the author worked as a head of section in
the department of the Soviet intelligence service responsible for counterintelligence
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, graduation from there with
a law degree in 1959. As a student of the institute and a s party member,
he was will placed to follow the power struggle in the Soviet leadership
that was reflected in secret party letters, briefings, and conferences.
From 1959 to 1060, 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 his decision, be began systematically to elicit
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 that 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 intelligence 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 split, 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 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 noncommunist 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 Sisphean 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).
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 out
maneuvered by communist guile. My researches have not only strengthened
by 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 theat 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....
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Part I
The Two Methodologies
Part II
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...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 of more communist parties in one country was advocated openly. One Chinese paper use 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 will versed in dialectics, who developed the idea of the contradiction between the left and right leg 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 the practical collaboration in the exploitation of fictitious schismatic difference on ideology and tactics. (page 181)