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World News See other World News Articles Title: What Capitalism Can Do When Allowed, And Communism Never Will What Capitalism Can Do When Allowed, And Communism Never Will Mark Hale July 23, 2020 Authored by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investments, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.” Maybe, but it sure didn’t start out that way. By that, I don’t mean to suggest Gorbachev was some warmonger cloaking himself in the language of peace. On the contrary, the man was sincere. He was also sincere in his commitment to Communism and the Soviet way. What ultimately led him to such international acclaim was first his honesty in looking inward at that system itself. The rest was mere expedience. History has made the words perestroika (restructure) and glasnost (literally: listen) synonymous with the man. And while these were crucial in how the old Soviet way would end up being dismantled, it was very far from their original purpose. On December 15, 1984, at the Soviet embassy in London, Gorbachev met with KGB agents and representatives from officers in its Line X. The latter were there to bring him up to speed on its tactical successes. Line X had been established for the purposes of stealing particularly American technology. Not military secrets, mind you, corporate knowledge, new products, and know-how. Gorbachev himself wasn’t yet in full control of the massive Soviet empire. Though Yuri Andropov had died that February, and had made it widely known he wished Gorbachev to succeed him as General Secretary of the Communist Party, some top government politicians were concerned he was too young (53 at the time) standing up Konstantin Chernenko (a holdover Brezhnev guy) instead. Chernenko was Gorbachev’s opposite in many ways, including age. Too old and too frail, it was left to the younger man to essentially take control regardless of who had officially followed Andropov. Most importantly, though, where Chernenko and his support base had been concerned, the Soviet state should hold fast to the course they were on. Gorbachev, like Andropov, realized this was suicide. But, they had judged Soviet Russia’s faults lay with the application of Marxist-Leninist thought, not in the doctrines themselves. Very early on in the Russian Revolution, as far back as 1918, before the Red government was really fully operational, there was already a coalescing secret police apparatus being put in place. Directorate K, for example, was charged with counter-intelligence which, back then, meant spying as much on Russians as anyone else. Service A was dedicated to developing active measures to assist each directorate and its various departments. Directorate T was the scientific and technical intelligence division. As Lenin himself allegedly said, the Communists would need to pursue Western technology “with both hands.” Communism, you see, isn’t meant to compete with capitalism, rather it is meant to replace it. The capitalists create all this marvelous technology which the Communists then expropriate as the basis from which to create their perfect human society. As I wrote last week, that’s why Karl Marx had envisioned (demanded, in some parts of his work) that the socialist revolutions would take place only where industrial capitalism had already contributed such grand innovations and knowledge. To attempt to impose communism on a pre-industrialized society was, even to Marx and his partner Friedrich Engels, madness. Doomed to failure. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) wouldn’t wait, however, even though Russia was nowhere near this prerequisite state. Instead, he’d try it his own way; the revolutionaries would take over before the country was ready economically, and then, often using capitalist practices, they would bring the country up to snuff (central planning) beginning with the first National Economic Plan in 1921. And, as much as possible, pilfer, filch, and steal every single bit of technology and innovation they could from the capitalist pigs to speed up the process and narrow the gap. It was Leon Trotsky who had taken this idea to its furthest conclusion, in the process angering Josef Stalin. Writing later to try to save himself from Uncle Joe’s angry gaze, unsuccessfully, Trotsky clarified how his thoughts were consistent with Lenin’s; including how he, like Lenin, had spoken often of the possibility Marx was wrong. Perhaps not all national systems needed to pass through the democratic, capitalist stage in order to set the proper stage for pure socialism. So long as some in the world industrialized and took the capitalism road as far as it would take them, pre-industrialized societies had the right to expropriate those gains, catch up to them, and then even lead the entire world, capitalist, too, in a global socialist revolution overthrowing the entire old order. In his Pre-Requisites of Socialism, written back in 1919, Trotsky argued how the technological gap had become so large it wasn’t realistic to expect the socialist system (of co-operatives) to have to catch up. Instead: “It is evident that if this took place, the co-operative societies would then simply have automatically to expropriate all capitalist undertakings, after which it would remain for them to reduce the working day sufficiently to provide work for all citizens and to regulate the amount of production in the various branches in order to avoid crises. In this manner, the main features of socialism would be established. Again, it is clear that no revolution and no dictatorship of the working class would be at all necessary.” That would mean to literally “expropriate all capitalist undertakings” everywhere; not just what little had been induced in Russia. Stalin, on the other hand, wanted to focus his iron grip on Russia alone, perfecting this sort of heterodox socialist experiment in that place before exporting the revolution elsewhere (Socialism In A Single Country), putting him at odds with this Trotsky-ite Permanent Revolution viewing everything globally. Gorbachev, like Andropov, fell somewhere in the middle. He wanted to get Soviet Communism right, to focus just on the Russian version, and was absolutely dedicated to doing so. But in order to have any chance, they’d have to catch up using any means they could. Still committed to the Revolution, in 1985 he said: “We must not change our policy. It is right, correct, authentically Leninist. We have to accelerate our rhythm, go ahead, be frank and overcome our faults and see clearly our luminous future.” Directorate T and Line X had implanted agents all over the West in the seventies, taking full advantage of the pre-Reagan policy of “détente” in going after the soft corporate targets of especially technology companies. In July 1981, French President Francois Mitterrand demanded a private conversation with Ronald Reagan to inform the new US President of a Line X spy’s defection to French Intelligence. Colonel Vladimir I. Vetrov, a KGB Directorate T official, had handed over purportedly thousands of documents showing the mountains of secrets Line X had robbed from Corporate America, particularly the potential from its nascent computer industry just then becoming unlocked. Vetrov, given the French codename Farewell, showed how infiltrators would insert themselves into otherwise benign foreign delegations touring private corporate facilities. In one instance, at a visit to a sensitive Boeing factory, Line X personnel applied adhesive to the bottoms of their shoes to covertly pick up samples of any stray material uncollected on the facility floor for scientists back in Russia to examine and extrapolate. Poster Comment: Don't let the cat out of the bag. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
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