The coverage of the economic disaster in Greece, a strategic NATO country, has mostly ignored the role of Vladimir Putin’s Russia in the growing global turmoil.
Reports continue to circulate that a new European Union (EU) bailout deal with Greece is possible, as Yanis Varoufakis, a self-described “erratic Marxist,” has resigned as finance minister. But these developments appear to be for the purpose of diverting attention away from the fact that Greece has already become, in effect, a satellite of Moscow.
The Greek regime is a Moscow-backed left-right coalition led by Alexis Tsipras, the pro-Marxist and pro-Russia head of Greece’s “Coalition of the Radical Left.” Tsipras, who presented himself as a moderate when he spoke at the Brookings Institution on January 22, 2013, was a member of the youth wing of the Greek Communist Party, the KKE.
The political party known as ANEL (The Independent Greeks) is supposed to be a “conservative” party in the ruling government and yet it is pro-Russian. This reflects Putin’s cultivation of right-wing forces throughout Europe and even in America.
Back from a recent visit to Russia, Tsipras is now counting on cheaper gas and increased Russian investment from Moscow. The prospect of Russian military bases in NATO territory—Greece—cannot be ruled out at this point.
Tsipras previously signed a memorandum that is designed to make 2016 into the “Year of Greece-Russia relations.”
After his coalition won the elections in January, Tsipras received a congratulatory call from President Obama. The two leaders “reviewed close cooperation between Greece and the United States on issues of European security and counterterrorism,” the White House reported.
That alleged “close cooperation” has been replaced by a Greek deal with Moscow.
It seems like just another foreign policy disaster under President Obama, except in this case the stakes are huge. NATO notes that “Greece is strategically located in the Southern region of the Alliance, in close vicinity to South Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa.”
But other than expressing a vague hope that European leaders would devise a plan to allow Greece “to return to growth and debt sustainability within the Eurozone,” Obama has been AWOL on the crisis, leaving it mostly in the hands of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The subject of reports and even a book suggesting she is a Russian agent, Merkel knows full well that Tsipras and Putin have been undermining the NATO alliance at a time when the West fears a Russian invasion of another former Soviet republic.
For example, in the report, “Stop Putin’s Next Invasion Before It Starts,” Terrence K. Kelly of the Rand Corporation argues that “The United States needs to seriously consider stationing forces in Eastern Europe to support the nation’s commitment to protect the independence of the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—NATO members all—against the specter of Russian aggression.”
Some news organizations have alluded to Russia’s role in the current crisis. “Russian President Vladimir Putin feted Tsipras in St. Petersburg last month as bailout negotiations took place in Brussels,” noted Michael Birnbaum and Griff Witte in The Washington Post.
During that meeting Tsipras discussed energy and the “Greek Stream” gas pipeline project with Russian Gazprom chief Alexei Miller during a meeting in St. Petersburg. In fact, Russia and Greece signed a deal to construct a Turkish pipeline across Greek territory. Tsipras also met with representatives of the new development bank for BRICS countries, referring to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, “who expressed their intense interest in cooperating with Greece,” one report noted.
“Russia has its eye on Athens, trying to break European unity to put an end to economic sanctions imposed over its actions in Ukraine,” Birnbaum and Witte noted in the Post.
But the situation is far more serious than the Post lets on. Syriza’s 40-point program includes undermining NATO, the global battle against Islamic terrorism, and Israel:
Closure of all foreign bases in Greece and withdrawal from NATO.
Withdrawal of Greek troops from Afghanistan and the Balkans. No Greek soldiers beyond our own borders.
Drastically cut military expenditures.
Abolition of military cooperation with Israel. Support for creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
Syriza, a Greek political party, is a member of The European Left (EL). Member Parties of the EL are described as “socialist, communist, red-green and other democratic left parties of the member states and associated states of the European Union (EU) that work together and establish various forms of co-operation at all levels of political activity in Europe, based on the agreements, basic principles and political aims laid down in the EL Manifesto.” The chairperson of EL is Pierre Laurent of the French Communist Party. Tsipras is the Vice-Chairperson.
In addition to the support from these international Marxist political parties and groups, Tsipras met with the leftist Pope Francis on September 19, 2014. Tsipras said, “We pleaded with him to continue struggling against poverty and to speak in behalf of the dignity of humans as well as the structural causes behind poverty which are the inequality in the distribution of wealth and the rampant behavior of the financial markets. …we agreed that the dialogue between the Left and the Christian Church must go on. We may have different ideological starting points; however, we converge on common values, like solidarity, love for the fellow human being, social justice, and our concern regarding world peace.”
“For the first time ever the head of the Catholic Church will meet a leader of the radical Left,” is how Tsipras described the meeting with the pope at his “Change Europe” website.
In their book, EUSSR, Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov argued that the European Union was itself a project of the old Soviet Union, and that the EU has always been subject to manipulation by Moscow and its agents. Based on this analysis, what’s happening in Greece is part of a process of pulling Europe as a whole to the left and away from the United States.
The eventual goal, some observers say, is the removal of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a development that would strike a mortal blow to the global capitalist system.
This is a rather prophetic lecture, if you ask me, by Don McAlvany on the false demise of Communism. It was recorded 25 years ago, in 1990, shortly following the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marked the beginning of the Weidervereinigung des Deutschlands (Reunification of Germany).
What I find particularly fascinating about McAlvany’s presentation are his references to KGB defector Anatoliy Golytsin’s book New Lies for Old. I have written previously (see here) about Anatoliy’s Golytsin’s startlingly accurate predictions concerning Soviet plans to deceive the West into believing Communism was dead, and that the Soviet Union was a thing of the past. Golytsin went on to write his second book entitled The Perestroika Deception in 1995.
Most of Golytsin’s predictions have proven true in hindsight. In 1984, when New Lies for Old first hit the bookshelves, Golytsin predicted that the Berlin Wall would be torn down in order to fool the West into believing that the Soviet Union was shattered. What makes Golytsin’s prediction even more eye-opening is the fact he had written the manuscript years before New Lies for Old reached publication.
The Soviets were masters at disinformation and deception. The sophistication of their subversive techniques are breathtaking in scope and audacity. Many in the West have failed to grasp the incredible lengths the Soviets and the KGB were willing to go to in order to deceive and subvert their enemies—namely, the United States and the entire Western world.
Many of the strategies and tactics employed by the Soviets—such as the dialectical and the “two steps forward, one step” back strategies—are foreign to many Western minds. But a thorough understanding of these strategies is paramount if one hopes to counter them. (You might’ve noticed I’ve switched to the present tense. I’ll get to that.)
Take the dialectical strategy, for example. Without getting into a dissertation on Marxist dialectics, the dialectical strategy entails the manipulation of friend and foe alike—playing both sides of the fence, so to speak. Communists are known for setting up “false opposition” groups in order to control and herd their opposition. Vladimir I. Lenin once said, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” Leading the opposition requires infiltration, also referred to as “controlled opposition.”
Communists are willing to take “one step back” in order to “move two steps forward”; giving a false impression they are in a position of weakness; when, in fact, they are strong. Such a strategy can provide an opportunity to offer “concessions” to the enemy—but only “concessions” that provide the ability to move “two steps forward.” The goal is to goad the enemy into offering real concessions (i.e. compromise), while only offering token concessions that have no real lasting consequences on the long-range strategy of crushing the enemy.
“We advance through retreat … when we are weak, we boast of strength. and when we are strong, we feign weakness.”
—V.I. Lenin
The strategy of feigning weakness in order to lull the enemy into complacency is a rather Machiavellian concept; but it also is derived from the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu’s maxims on war.
… Amid the turmoil and tumult of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all; amid confusion and chaos, your array may be without head or tail, yet it will be proof against defeat…. Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline, simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength….Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions….Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something, that the enemy may snatch at it…. [“two steps forward, one step back”] By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Back in February of 2014, I had the opportunity to sit down with world-renown researcher Trevor Loudon, author of the book Barack Obama and the Enemy Within. He relayed a story to me that left me incredulous, and it ties right into the whole Soviet strategy of feigning weakness.
An ex-Communist friend of Trevor’s from New Zealand actually attended Lenin’s Institute for Higher Learning in Moscow. Promising members of the Communist Party, from all over the world, were sometimes offered the opportunity to travel to Russia for further training at the International Lenin Institute, where they learned things like racial agitation, trade union building, every facet of Russian history (albeit selective Russian history)—even training in explosive devices, small arms and guerrilla warfare tactics. Trevor’s friend said that a Soviet official at the Moscow institute told the students the reason the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan was that the Soviet Union needed “their own Vietnam.”
Yes, you read that correctly.
But, if you ever listen to former Soviet officials speak about the Russian experience in Afghanistan, they often times make the comparison to the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. According to Trevor’s friend, it was all done to feign weakness and lull the West into thinking the Soviet Union wasn’t the military force they purported themselves to be. The fact of the matter is the Soviets could’ve wiped Afghanistan off the map, had they so chosen to do so.
As I drove home from my meeting with Trevor, I could scarcely believe what he had told me. But I began to ponder my own knowledge of Soviet history. The more I thought about what Trevor had told me, the less incredible it seemed.
For example, in the late 30s, the Soviet regime under Josef Stalin was systematically liquidating thousands of Russian citizens every single day. It was known as the “Great Purge.” Stalin’s depraved and blood-thirsty executioner, Lavrenti Beria, oversaw the murder of millions of Russians, and even participated on countless occasions in the executions of his own people.
After war broke out between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, there were numerous incidents of Soviet units being ordered to attack German positions and strongholds in suicidal frontal assaults that resulted in horrific casualties, often numbering in the hundreds or thousands. There are accounts of the dog tags being stripped from the dead in order to cover up the crimes of the Soviet regime. Rarely has there been an example in history of a nation that treated its own war dead with such utter contempt.
So, as I thought more and more about what Trevor had told me, it started to seem quite plausible—if not to be expected from such a morally bankrupt regime. When President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” it was not unwarranted hyperbole. For it is not possible, in words, to describe the horrors and terrors that have been visited upon the Russian people under the Soviet system—and, more than likely, are still being visited upon the Russian people … albeit not at the astonishing levels as was experienced during Stalin’s merciless and bloody reign.
As Don McAlvany points out in his lecture, there had been six periods of “glasnost” dating back to the 20s prior to 1990. During all of the so-called glasnost periods, the United States and the West were duped into believing the Soviets were changing their tune—only to watch the Soviets return to their oppressive and tyrannical ways after securing concessions from the United States. The old dialectical doctrine of “two steps forward, one step back” has proved wildly successful against the United States and its allies, helping to further the Russian strategy for international rule and subversion.
The Soviets (i.e. Communists) employ long-range strategies. Like a master chess player, they think ten steps ahead. Stalin’s henchman Lavrenti Beria said in the early 50s, “Capitalism’s short-term view can never envisage the lengths across which we can plan.” Sadly, the United States has never really formulated long-term strategic goals to counter such threats.
Golytsin predicted the Soviets would put a “happy face” on Communism by calling for “democratic reforms” in Russia, and in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc countries.
Many in the West viewed the chummy meetings between Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan as a clear sign the Cold War was over, and that Soviet-style Communism had been defeated. Talk of glasnost (“openness” or “publicity”) and perestroika (i.e. restructuring, remaking, reforming, regrouping) filled the airwaves and Western press at the time.
Did Mikhail Gorbachev ever renounce Communism? Was he really a reformer who only wished to move Russia toward “democracy”?
During the 70th anniversary of the Marxist revolution [in October 1987], Gorbachev reaffirmed his country’s expansionist desires: “In October of 1917, we parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a New World, the World of Communism. We shall never turn off that road.”
“We are for a Lenin who is alive! In building our future we are basing ourselves upon the gigantic intellectual and moral potential of the socialist idea linked with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. We see no rational grounds to give up the spiritual[sic!!!]richness contained in Marxism.Through restructuring [i.e. ‘perestroika’], we want to give socialism a second wind and unveil in all its plenitude [meaning: globally!] the vast humanist potential of the socialist system.” – “In order to achieve this, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union returnsto the origins and principles of the Bolshevik Revolution, to the Leninist ideas about the construction of a new society… Our Party was and remainsthe Party of Lenin… In short, we are for a Lenin who is alive.” – “We must seek these answers guided by the spirit of Leninism, the style of Lenin’s thinking, and the method of dialectical cognition.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking to a group of Russian students, Nov. 15, 1989
“Gentlemen, Comrades, do not be concerned about all that you hear about ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’ and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant change within the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans, and to let them fall asleep.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev, early in his tenure, speaking before the Politburo
The Party has made “specific decisions on how to update our political system”. – “Thus we shall give a fresh impetus to our revolutionary restructuring. We shall maintain our quiet [i.e. Leninist] creativity and daring in an efficient and responsible fashion in a Leninist Bolshevik manner.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking at the 27th CPSU Congress, March 1986
“Adopting a bold, realistic, mobilising and inspiring strategy, one that is Leninist in spirit, the struggle for the triumph of Communist ideals, of peace and progress, the 27th Congress of the CPSU expresses the Party’s firm determination to honourably follow our great road, and open up new vistas for the creative energy and revolutionary initiative of the… people’s intelligentsia. The Congress calls on all Soviet people to dedicate all their strength, knowledge, ability, and creative enthusiasm to the great goals of Communist construction, and to worthily continue Lenin’s victorious revolutionary cause, the cause of the October Revolution!”
—Mikhail Gorbachev, closing address to the 27th CPSU Congress, March 6, 1986
“Perestroika is a revolutionary process for it is a leap forward in the development of socialism, in the realization of its crucial characteristics.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev: ‘Perestroika’, 1987
“What is meant [by the term ‘revolution from above’] is profound and essentially revolutionary changes implemented on the initiative of the authorities themselves but necessitated by objective changes in the situation. It may seem that our current perestroika could be called ‘revolution from above’. True, the perestroika drive started on the Communist Party’s initiative, and the Party leads it. I spoke frankly about it at the meeting with Party activists in Khabarovsk [already!!!] in the summer of 1986. We began at the top of the pyramid and went down to its base, as it were. Yes, the Party leadership started it. The highest Party and state bodies elaborated and adopted the program. True, perestroika is not a spontaneous but a governed process.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev: “Perestroika,” 1987
“We openly confess that we refuse the hegemonial endeavours and globalist claims of the United States. We are not pleased by some aspects of American policy and of the American Way of Life. But we respect the right of the American people, just as the right of all other peoples, to live along its own rules and laws, its own morals and inclinations.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev: “Perestroika,” 1987
“Those who hope that we shall move away from the socialist path will be greatly disappointed.”
—Mikhail Gorbachev: “Perestroika,” 1987
“We see that confusion has arisen in some people’s minds: aren’t we retreating from the positions of socialism, especially when we introduce new and unaccustomed forms of economic management and public life, and aren’t we subjecting the Marxist-Leninist teaching itself to revision? … No, we are not retreating a single step from socialism, from Marxism-Leninism …”
—Mikhail Gorbachev, 1988
Many in the West are also of the belief that the KGB no longer exists. But nothing could be farther from the truth. While no longer called the KGB, the secretive security agency merely restructured (i.e. perestroika), and is now known as the FSB (Russian Federal Security Forces). The FSB is still headquartered in the infamous Lubyanka building in Moscow. The FSB is the KGB.
A little while back, I visited the official FSB website (fsb.ru). I used Google translation services to translate the pages. One link titled “Our Leaders” lists the names of such notorious figures as Felix Dzerzhinsky, Yakov Peters, Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, Lavrenti Beria, Yuri Andropov … and Vladimir Putin. Remember, the official FSB website lists these individuals as their “leaders.” It doesn’t look like anything has changed to me, as far as the old KGB is concerned, except for the name.
One of the main goals of the Soviets was to eliminate NATO. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the dialectical application of their “two steps forward, one step” back strategy, Moscow hoped to gain concessions from the United States—namely, the dissolution of NATO. But the United States was resistant to the idea of breaking apart the NATO alliance. So, like the saying goes, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”—NATO, that is. Once again … infiltrate and take over from within.
“Russian membership of the Council of Europe will open up intensified new cooperation between Russia and Europe and will assist us in reaching our objectives of achieving membership of the European Union and of NATO.”
—Then Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev, after Russia’s admission to the Council of Europe by February 8, 1996
Perhaps one of the most important predictions Anatoliy Golytsin made was his repeated insistence that the purpose of all these subversive tactics was “the establishment of a neutral, socialist Europe” (New Lies for Old, pg. 334).
Enter the European Union.
“The collective security model … should pave the way for a gradual evolutionary synthesis of several processes: integration within the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] and the EU [European Union], strengthening and increasing the role of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, transforming NATO [and] working together to prevent or resolve conflicts.”
—Yuriy Ushakov, Director of the Directorate for European Cooperation at the Russian Foreign Ministry, in International Affairs, Vol. 4, #5 (1995): “Europe: Towards a New Security Model”
Of particular note in the above quote is the reference to “transforming NATO.”
For those who may still be of the opinion that talk of a “one-world government” (i.e. “new world order”) is strictly relegated to the realm of crackpots and so-called “conspiracy theorists,” consider the words of the unelected full-time President of the EU, Herman Van Rompuy, who has openly referenced the agenda for “global governance” on more than one occasion. Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky has referred to the European Union as a “pale version of the Soviet Union.”
In 2009, Van Rompuy said:
“2009 is also the first year of global governance with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen, is another step towards the global management of our planet.”
Van Rompuy has also stated his desire to work closely with Russia in order to further the agenda of global governance:
“By working together, the EU and Russia can make a decisive contribution to global governance … to global economic governance in the G8 and the G20.”
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine shows the “Russian Bear” still has its claws. Just today there was a report Russia was reviewing the “legality” of Baltic states’ independence. The level of disinformation coming from Putin’s state-run media machine has reached fever pitch within Russia. The Russian people are being fed a steady and constant diet of hyper-nationalistic and intensely anti-American rhetoric; it resembles a war-time footing.
Ex-Communist turned vocal anti-Communist, Dr. Bella V. Dodd (1904-1969), author of the book School of Darkness, pointed out there are three concepts that are important to differentiate concerning Communism, i.e., the Communist Conspiracy (i.e. “world conspiracy”), the Communist Party (political arm), and the Communist Movement (“social action,” i.e. praxis).
At the heart of Communism lies conspiracy. In order to subvert and deceive, conspiracy is a vital and necessary component. Communists are taught to lie … the predetermined ends always justify the means. Period.
The one thing Communists and their ilk cannot withstand is their strategy and process being exposed. Communism is a form of psychological warfare (i.e. psyops) based on deception. Psyops only work if the party who is being deceived and manipulated is unaware of the tactics being employed against them. In essence, it’s a mind game. This is why it absolutely crucial to understand the dialectic process when it comes to Marxism-Leninism, if one wishes to have any success at countering such subversive and deceitful tactics.
Unfortunately, for many Americans and Westerners, it is still inconceivable that such a conspiracy is, and has been, employed against them. As one long-time and well-known researcher on Russian (i.e. Communist) strategy and tactics, J.R. Nyquist, recently wrote:
This last point is not to be made in polite society, and few are well-informed enough to know something of its validity. For 99 out of 100 persons, it is preferable to believe a lie. As a former British MP once said within my hearing; “Reagan and Thatcher saved the West from socialism.” But a former Russian GRU colonel, sitting across the table, whispered in my ear, “But America is the Marxist paradise.”
If you still find it hard to believe that the U.S.A. is already a “Marxist paradise,” and the world is moving toward global governance (i.e. worldwide socialism), I would encourage you to read the Communist Manifesto. Pay particular note to what has been referred to as the “10 planks of the Communist Manifesto” in Chapter Two. And then ask yourself, how many of these 10 points have already been implemented in the United States? I think, if you’re intellectually honest with yourself, the answer will shock you. And if it’s still too hard to digest and believe, just apply the scientific method: observe, make predictions, test your predictions, and then draw your own conclusion.
