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).

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

1. 1. The Problems Facing Western Analysts
2. 2. The Patterns of Disinformation--"Weakness an Evolution"
3. 3. The Patterns of Disinformation--"Facade and Strength"
4. 4. The Patterns of Disinformation--Transitional
5. 5. The New Policy and Disinformation Strategy
6. 6. The Shelepin Report and Changes in Organization
7. 7. The New Role of Intelligence
8. 8. Sources of Information
9. 9. The Vulnerability of Western Assessments
10. 10. Communist Intelligence Successes, Western Failures and the Crisis in Western Studies
11. 11. Western Errors
12. 12. The New Methodology
    

Part II

1. The Disinformation Program and its impact on the West
2. 13. The First Disinformation Operation: The Soviet-Yugoslav "Dispute" from 1958 to 1969
3. 14. The Second Disinformation Operation: The "Evolution" of the Soviet Regime (Part I)
4. 15. The Third Disinformation Operation: The Soviet-Albanian "Dispute" and "Split"
5. 16. The Fourth Disinformation Operation: The Sino-Soviet "Split"
6. 17. The Fifth Disinformation Operation: Romanian "Independence"
7. 18. The Sixth Disinformation Operation: The Alleged Recurrence of Power Struggles in the Soviet, Chinese and Other Parties
8. 19. The Seventh Disinformation Operation: "Democratization" in Czechoslovakia in 1968
9. 20. The Second Disinformation Operation: The "Evolution of the Soviet Regime (Part II)-- The Dissident Movement
10. 21. The Eighth Disinformation Operation: "Eurocommunism"
11. 22. The role of Disinformation and Intelligence Potential in the Realization of the Communist Strategies
12. 23. The Evidence of Overall Coordination Between the Communist Governments and Parties
13. 24. The Impact of the Disinformation Program
    
    Part III

1. The final phase and the Western Counter-Strategy
2. 25. The Final Phase
3. 26. Where Now?

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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)

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