A Russian Communist Defector Warn America: Anatoliy Golitsyn and the Perestroika Deception
Golitsyn warned the United States that the KGB, since 1959, had engaged in a massive disinformation campaign to convince the West that Russia was moving away from Communism.
This Substack article is an excerpt from my book The Truth About Neo-Marxism, Cultural Maoism, and Anarchy: Exposing Woke Insanity in an Age of Disinformation.
Question: For 34 years, Golitsyn has remained in hiding. He is never seen in public; his whereabouts are a closely guarded secret.… Is Golitsyn’s secrecy a reflection of his prudence, or of paranoia?
Answer: Golitsyn was condemned to death in 1962, after Semichastniy, then head of the KGB, had formally asked the party [Russian Communist Party] for its approval that he should be liquidated.… In the Perestroika Deception, Golitsyn clearly acknowledges that his life is in danger. If this is so, it proves he is a living threat to the Soviet strategists—since he has released the essence of their long-range strategy. Incidentally, Golitsyn explains that a strategy differs from a policy in the following respect: Whereas a policy is overt, a strategy contains within it a secret maneuver or dimension which is not revealed, the purpose of which is to ensure the realization of the strategy.
Christopher Story, Interview, 19951
In December 1961, Anatoliy Golitsyn, a KGB major who worked in the KGB’s strategic planning department, defected with his family to the United States in Helsinki, Finland. Golitsyn joined the Soviet army in 1944 and was assigned to a military counterintelligence unit. After World War II, he was transferred to the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, where he ran operations against the United States. The CIA arranged to fly Golitsyn to the United States, where James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s counterintelligence director, debriefed him. Angleton came to trust Golitsyn, although there were doubters with the CIA.
Golitsyn provided Angleton clues to the identity of a secret mole Angleton suspected the KGB had planted within the CIA’s counterintelligence division. Golitsyn’s working knowledge of Soviet intelligence guided Angleton to identify and remove a prime suspect, Peter Karlow, a career officer in the CIA’s Technical Service Division.2 Golitsyn further solidified his worth with Angleton by providing the names of several Soviet spies operating in the West.3 Golitsyn confirmed that British intelligence officer Kim Philby was a double agent working for the KGB.4 But, most importantly, Golitsyn confirmed what Angleton suspected was true, namely, that the Soviet Union had not changed since the death of Stalin. Angleton, as CIA head of counterintelligence, suspected that Khrushchev’s talk about “peaceful coexistence” was an elaborate disinformation ploy to deceive the West.5
Golitsyn brought with him a potentially game-changing message that confirmed Angleton’s suspicions. Golitsyn warned the United States that the KGB, since 1959, had engaged in a massive disinformation campaign to convince the West that Russia was moving away from Communism. In a book completed in 1980 and published in 1984, entitled New Lies for Old: An Ex-KGB Officer Warns How Communist Deception Threatens the Survival of the West, Golitsyn explained the Russian deception strategy as follows:
The conclusion was reached that, if the factors that had previously served to forge a degree of Western cohesion—that is, communist ideological militancy 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.6
Alexander Shelepin, a Russian politician and member of the Politburo whom Khrushchev appointed as KGB chairman in 1958, devised a long-term strategy for Communism to achieve worldwide dominance. “After the end of the Second World War, the threat of monolithic, Stalinist communism drove the West into military and political alliances, such as NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], SEATO [Southeast Asia Treaty Organization], and the Bagdad pact [Middle East Treaty Organization, METO, that Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the UK developed in 1955], and into other forms of military, political, economic, and security collaboration,” Golitsyn wrote.7 He also identified the factors that tended to undermine Western unity. These included moderation in official Soviet policy, emphasis on the conflicting national interests of Communist parties at the expense of ideological solidarity, and the dissolution of the Comintern in 1943, which led Western observers to believe Russia had abandoned worldwide Communist subversion.
The split between Stalin and Josip Tito in Yugoslavia in 1948 showed that not all consequences were adverse. “Open defiance of Stalin had sent Tito’s prestige soaring in his own country and throughout the world,” Golitsyn noted. “Independence of the Soviet Union had enabled Yugoslavia to obtain 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 demonstrated in 1957–58 that, despite the Western support he had received, he remained a faithful Leninist willing to work wholeheartedly with the other leaders of the bloc.”8
Shelepin realized “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.”9 Golitsyn stressed the importance of the Bilderberg Group that he described as a “group of distinguished Western statesmen and commentators” who were studying “the possibilities of a Sino-Soviet split, the likely consequences of such a split for the communist bloc, and the ways it might be exploited for the benefit of the west.”10
The Bilderberg Group’s first conference was in 1954, at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Netherlands. The annual invitation-only, off-the-record meeting involves elite government and business leaders whose original interests were to foster dialogue between the United States and Europe. Since Communist strategists studying the Bilderberg papers realized the West “half expected and ardently desired the disintegration of the communist bloc,” Shelepin came to understand that projecting to the world a fictitious disintegration of the Communist 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.”11 Golitsyn analyzed the utility of Khrushchev’s 1957 secret speech as follows:
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 powers.12
Golitsyn argued that Stalin’s negativity toward Mao during and after World War II was feigned, as was Mao’s inaccurate statement, after the dissolution of the Comintern, that Russia had given China no assistance or advice since the Seventh Congress in 1935. Golitsyn reasoned the Stalin-Mao rift was an engineered disinformation campaign designed to cloak the close cooperation Russia gave Mao in defeating the Kuomintang army and subverting Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government. Still, Golitsyn acknowledged that China in the 1950s was not a Soviet satellite.
Unresolved issues continued to divide the two countries. The extent of Soviet infiltration and control over the Chinese Communist Party and Mao’s government was small compared with Eastern European countries. The most disagreement arose over the Korean War. Golitsyn commented that Stalin decided to embark on that conflict without fully taking Mao into his confidence. Then, when the war started to go wrong for the Communists, Mao was at first reluctant to come to Stalin’s aid. Golitsyn argued Mao agreed to send “volunteers” to fight in Korea only after “severe Soviet pressure had been brought to bear.”13
With Stalin dead, Soviet relations with China steadily improved. But by 1959, Shelepin and Khrushchev realized the utility of creating the appearance of a Sino-Soviet split, much as Stalin’s misrepresentation of Mao’s movement as “a relatively harmless agrarian reform movement” had concealed the extent of Soviet aid to the Chinese Communists in the final years of the civil war.14 Golitsyn stressed that the Sino-Soviet duality strategy produced the effect on the West that Communist strategists intended, and it brought Russia substantial dividends. “For example, had it not been for General [Charles] de Gaulle’s belief in the sincerity of Soviet interest in détente 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.”15
Golitsyn described the fake Sino-Soviet split as an example of what he called a “scissors strategy.” At the final stroke, the scissor blades close, apparent duality in Russian and Chinese policies will disappear, and the Communist strategy “will develop logically into the ‘strategy of one clenched fist’” to provide the driving force for a world federation of Communist states to form.16 In a passage of New Lies for Old, written some four decades ago, Golitsyn described Shelepin’s disinformation strategy's anticipated outcome in terms eerily sounding like what is happening today in the United States under the presidency of Joe Biden. Here’s how Golitsyn described the Communist end game when the clenched-fist strategy takes over and becomes operative:
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 [Andrei] Sakharov’s treatise. Traditional conservatives would be isolated and driven toward extremism. They might become 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 potential supporters would be confronted with a choice of forsaking their idols or acknowledging the legitimacy of the new Soviet regime.17
In New Lies for Old, Golitsyn portrayed Soviet nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov as a willing participant in the Soviet disinformation campaign. Golitsyn singled out the argument Sakharov made in his writings to promote the concept of “convergence” between Communist and non-Communist systems. Golitsyn commented that Western convergence theorists “unwittingly and naively” accept the disinformation message, “namely that the influence of communist ideology is in decline, that communist regimes 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.”18 He stressed that it is “inconceivable that, if he [Sakharov] 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.”19 Golitsyn pointed out that even when Sakharov was in exile in Gorky, Sakharov continued to convey his views 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,” Golitsyn insisted.20
Golitsyn’s description of the new world order under a unified Russian federation of Communist states is a grim reminder of the totalitarianism at the heart of Marxist-Leninist theory. He explained the following:
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. Concessions made in the name of economic and political reform would be withdrawn. Religious and intellectual dissent would be suppressed. Nationalism and other forms of genuine opposition would be crushed. Those who had taken advantage of détente 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 the 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.21
Christopher Story, a highly credible British author who advised the government on intelligence and economic matters, assisted Golitsyn in publishing his second book, The Perestroika Deception: The World’s Slide Towards the “Second October Revolution,” in 1995.22 Like Angleton, Story championed Golitsyn. “Golitsyn is probably the most important Soviet defector ever to have reached the West,” Story said in a 1995 interview. “The reason for this is that he revealed the details of a long-range deception strategy of which the West previously had no knowledge.”23 The Perestroika Deception is a compilation of memoranda Golitsyn wrote for the CIA. Leonid Brezhnev first proposed the policy of perestroika, or “restructuring” in English. During the administration of President George H. W. Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev implemented the policy represented to the West as the “liberalization” of Communism in Russia. Golitsyn consistently warned the CIA that the perestroika was a central strategy in the deception campaign Shelepin designed in his dozens of memoranda to the CIA.
In August 1985, Golitsyn wrote a memo to the CIA entitled “The Danger for the West: An Assessment of the Rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Role of ‘Liberalization’ in Soviet Strategy, and Its Grave Implications for the West.” In that memo, he warned that the Soviet policy of liberalization had been in preparation for the past two decades under the direction of Shelepin and Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader who followed the eighteen-year rule of Brezhnev, holding power from November 1982 until his death in February 1984. Gorbachev assumed control in March 1985. “Gorbachev was selected as the ‘new generation’ representative because of his decisiveness, his demeanor and, above all, because he has been well groomed for implementing the ‘liberalization strategy,’” Golitsyn wrote in the month Gorbachev came to power. “Another factor favoring his selection was his non-involvement in Stalin’s repression.”24 In the same memo, Golitsyn warned there were no valid grounds for favorable illusions or any euphoria in the West over Gorbachev’s appointment and the coming “liberalization.” He stressed the “liberalization” would be initiated, guided, and controlled by the KGB and the Russian Communist Party apparatus.25 In a memo he wrote to the CIA in September 1988, Golitsyn cautioned the following: “By emphasizing the alleged instability of Gorbachev’s position and the fragility of ‘perestroika,’ the operations are designed to induce an American underestimate of Soviet political strength, to create a favorable climate for Gorbachev’s negotiations with American leaders and to entice them into adopting an ultimately suicidal policy of support for and engagement in ‘perestroika.’”26
Author Mark Riebling, in his 1994 book Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA, devoted considerable attention to the controversy Golitsyn’s defection and subsequent revelations caused within both the CIA and FBI. Riebling pointed out that in 1982, Golitsyn submitted a top-secret manuscript to the CIA in which he anticipated the end of Gorbachev’s rule. In the memo, Golitsyn made nearly two hundred detailed predictions specifying the nature of the disinformation campaign he knew the KGB was about to launch.27 That memo, transformed into book form, is the book Golitsyn published in 1984, New Lies for Old. Golitsyn predicted Brezhnev would be followed by “a younger man with a more liberal image,” who would initiate “changes that would have been beyond the imagination of Marx or the practical reach of Lenin and unthinkable to Stalin.”28 He explained that the coming liberalization “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.”29 He foresaw that the “KGB would be reformed. Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to take up positions in the government. Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government.”30 He envisioned that 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.”31 He even anticipated that the “demolition of the Berlin Wall might even be contemplated.”32
In total, Riebling counted 194 predictions Golitsyn made in 1982. Of these, Riebling noted 46 were not falsifiable in 1994 when his book Wedge went to press. Of Golitsyn’s falsifiable predictions, Riebling reported that 139 of 148 had been fulfilled by the end of 1993 for an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent. Among Golitsyn’s fulfilled predictions, Riebling included foreseeing correctly the reemergence of Solidarity in Poland, the creation of a newly independent government in Romania, and a Soviet repudiation of the Afghanistan invasion.33 Riebling noted that “Golitsyn’s case was deductive, based on pattern-recognition and abstract principles; he had no transcript of a secret session in which Gorbachov said he would do these things.”34
Thus, Riebling concluded that many within the CIA and the FBI, in general, refused to take Golitsyn’s predictions seriously. Riebling commented that questions about Golitsyn limited Angleton’s ability to prove his suspicions about KGB’s penetration of a mole into the CIA, false defectors, and possible KGB complicity in the JFK assassination. “The result had been an increase in FBI-CIA tensions, an interagency feud over Golitsyn, a decrease in Angleton’s popularity at both agencies, the decentralization of his CI [counterintelligence] staff, and then his outright dismissal,” Riebling wrote.35 He concluded that the CIA fell short in predicting Gorbachev’s reforms because “the American intelligence community had chosen not to listen.”36 Yet, given the accuracy of Golitsyn’s predictions, we would be ill-advised today to discount his warnings. Golitsyn insisted that perestroika was a KGB-devised disinformation campaign designed to deceive the West and destroy the United States by removing the fear of Soviet Russia as an enemy.
1 William F. Jasper, “Dispelling Disinformation,” part one of a three-part interview of Christopher Story, editor of the London-based Soviet Analysist, an intelligence commentary, and editor of The Perestroika Deception written by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn, conducted by William F. Jasper, senior editor, The New American, September 18, 1995, https://thenewamerican.com/dispelling-disinformation/. See: Anatoliy Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception: The World’s Slide Toward the “Second October Revolution” (London: Edward Harle, 1995). Italics in original.
2 Jefferson Morley, The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017), 108.
3 Michael Pillsbury, The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superstar (New York: Henry Holt, 2015), 21.
4 Ibid.
5 Morley, The Ghost, 107–109.
6 Anatoliy Golitsyn, New Lies for Old: An Ex-KGB Officer Warns How Communist Deception Threatens the Survival of the West (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1984), 38.
7 Ibid., 37.
8 Ibid., 43–44.
9 Ibid., 44.
10 Ibid., 160.
11 Ibid., 43.
12 Ibid., 45.
13 Ibid., 153–157, quotation at 157.
14 Ibid., 161–162, quotation at 162.
15 Ibid., 276.
16 The Contemplative Observer, “Anatoliy Golitsyn: The Key to Understanding Today’s World Situation,” TheContempletativeObserver.wordpress.com, February 14, 2013, https://thecontemplativeobserver.wordpress.com/tag/the-perestroika-deception/.
17 Golitsyn, New Lies for Old, 346.
18 Ibid., 232.
19 Ibid., 231.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid., 346–347.
22 Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception.
23 Jasper, “Dispelling Disinformation.”
24 Anatoliy Golitsyn, “Danger for the West: An Assessment of the Rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Role of ‘Liberalization’ in Soviet Strategy, and Its Grave Implications for the West,” Memorandum to the CIA, August 1985, in The Perestroika Deception: The World’s Slide Towards the “Second October Revolution,” 188–194, quotation at 188.
25 Ibid.
26 Anatoliy Golitsyn, “Western Counter-Strategy against ‘Perestroika,’” Memo to the CIA, September 1988, in The Perestroika Deception: The World’s Slide Towards the “Second October Revolution,” 66–70, quotation at 69.
27 Mark Riebling, Wedge: The Secret War between the FBI and CIA (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 407–408.
28 Ibid., 407. See also: Golitsyn, New Lies for Old, 327.
29 Riebling, Wedge, 407.
30 Golitsyn, New Lies for Old, 339.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid., 340.
33 Riebling, Wedge, 407–408.
34 Ibid., 408.
35 Ibid., 409.
36 Ibid., 407.