The Beginning of the Beginning
Ledeen, Michael
THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR VOL. 23, NO. 2 / FEBRUARY 1990 Michael Ledeen THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING For all we know, Gorbachev is the Pope's agent busily dismantling the Soviet Empire. The trick...
...All because of paper clutter...
...N of only has there been relatively little weakening of the individual security services, but their activities against the West have actually increased under Gorbachev's rule...
...And it is clearly in our interest that he remain and continue to destabilize Communism throughout the empire...
...Lest it be believed that glasnost has totally transformed political life in the Soviet Union, attention should be paid to the case of-Sergei Kuznetsov, a journalist for Glasnost magazine, one of the most outspoken critics of Soviet Communism (and of Gorbachev's largely ineffective policies to transform the Soviet economic system...
...Mary's Court, Brookline, MA 02146 Telephone 617-277-9222 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990 15 of the Spanish working force into modern Europe...
...Locate any document, clipping, phone number...
...He is writing a book on the transition to democracy in Spain...
...Don't assume that lady fortune has taken up permanent residence on your shoulder...
...Our ability to influence the outcome of the Soviet crisis is limited, primarily because there is no cure for the Soviets' disease...
...There are two additional areas where Western assistance seems appropriate: food (in the event of severe shortages) and the tools with which to create new wealth...
...T he congressional frenzy to ship 1. American credits eastward to Hungary and Poland reminds me of a fascinating conversation with Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez of Spain in the autumn of 1977, at a time when Basque terrorism was very active, when the Spanish economy was struggling to free itself from the constraints and dead weight of nearly forty years of Franco's heavy-handed protectionism, and when the future of democracy in Spain was being challenged by extremists on both left and right...
...Let him turn off the Caribbean spigot...
...Gorby is broke, the international equivalent of homeless, looking for work, for handouts, for a job, anything that will keep body and soul together...
...But if we misstep now, it will prolong the agony, encourage the forces of evil, and increase the cost to ourselves and to the brave people who are beginning to sense that history is at last moving in their favor...
...If we keep our heads, maintain the pressure that cracked the totalitarian edifice, and support the democrats, we have every reason to expect a happy final chapter...
...Why not help the forces of democracy...
...But here again, it probably doesn't matter what we do—the process over there is quite out of control (and has been for some time...
...So for those who want to "help Gorbachev" (meaning help him to shore up the doomed system), the answer must be: forget it...
...16 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990...
...The purge of Kuznetsov was so blatant and so disgusting that even his court-appointed defense lawyer refused to participate in the charade...
...When the Nazis and the Fascists fell, their successors dismantled the instruments of totalitarian terror in short order...
...But somehow this man, who has presided over the destruction of the empire, and the ruination of what little was left of his country's economy, is treated like a master statesman...
...It was discouraging to see our government announce its intention to undertake substantial defense cuts before Bush's conversation with Gorbachev...
...The East German security service, responding in part to criticism from its former leader Markus Wolf, has promised to be nice...
...All of this happened when the Spaniards, deprived of a safety net from the wealthier countries, set out to create new wealth...
...The Marshall Plan provided wheat and other foods to starving Europeans, as well as printing presses, mimeograph machines, and other basic machinery needed to get the old continent working again...
...It required investment from Spain's Common Market neighbors, and it has not been totally without pain (the continued high unemployment rate testifies to the extraordinary number of outmoded industries that had been protected by Franco, and the difficult entry Writers, Researchers...
...The previous totalitarian states—Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy—were destroyed by military power, and were replaced by democratic governments that were in large part the creation of the victorious Allied Armies at the end of the Second World War...
...That must be our objective as well...
...In Czechoslovakia, where the new interim government has—for the first time in the Soviet bloc—a non-Communist interiMichael Ledeen is resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute...
...Gorbachev's remedy is designed to "reform" Communism, but Communism cannot be reformed...
...Thatcher, and even Herr Kohl that the crisis of the Soviet system is very profound indeed, and that one should not race to pour money into its ratholes...
...He spoke of his requests for American assistance in two areas: the economy, and the struggle against terrorism (which he correctly identified as the gravest threat to democracy in Spain...
...But we should be skeptical of the alleged requirement that we engineer the transition, as if the victims of the empire didn't know how to do it...
...It will have to run its course...
...You don't get dealt pat hands very often...
...That means that we must hold firm on the wise policies that so damaged the empire in the first place: do not sell them the advanced technology they are unable to develop on their own, and which would strengthen their military establishment and shore up their weakening industrial base...
...It is also why the leaders of Western Europe are so suddenly pessimistic...
...KGB subversion and espionage against the United States have grown considerably, as we have learned from sources ranging from CIA director William Webster to Senator David Boren, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence...
...Until the democratic forces within the crumbling empire gain control over the "organs of state security," no one can be confident that the totalitarian beast has been struck a mortal blow...
...government assisted Mario Soares and Felipe Gonzales in the 1970s, and as Irving Brown and Jay Lovestone and David Dubin-sky did for the trade union leaders of France, Germany, and Italy after the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini...
...First, at least some of the international objectives of the Kremlin remain unchanged, and these objectives are hostile to us and other democratic countries around the world...
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...Is Spain supposed to be the only country in this century to bear this enormous burden by herself...
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...That instrument is the KGB and its counterparts in the other Soviet bloc countries...
...The Poles have disbanded the hated ZOMOs, the special security police that did the dirty work in the winter of 1981-82...
...Even more disturbing is the fact that cooperation between the bloc intelligence services seems to continue as before...
...Give them the tools to create new wealth...
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...Moreover, the threat of Communism was far graver in Lisbon than in Madrid, and the chaos following the fall of the dictatorship was far greater...
...These are not easy questions, because this is the first time that a totalitarian state has begun to disintegrate from within...
...or minister, his two deputies are Communists...
...Twelve years have now passed, and Spain, with no Marshall Plan, and with only token American assistance against the ETA terrorists, has become the boomipgest country in the Common Market...
...The trick now is to make sure he completes the job...
...Only a protege of Andropov could have done that...
...There is, however, one obvious measuring stick, and it has not been stressed in most of the commentaries on the events of the past few years: it is the instrument of terror that was used so successfully to enforce the rules of the totalitarian state...
...talistic elements into the system), but he more often sounds as if he doesn't (as when he warns us about "exporting capitalism" into Eastern Europe...
...At this writing, angry East Germans are trying to make sure that incriminating documents are not shredded...
...In the Soviet Union, the KGB has been strengthened during glasnost and perestroika...
...Try it...
...It was this amazing destructive energy of Gorbachev's that led me to write in these pages, three years ago, that he must be a CIA agent...
...Government-to-government aid will only squander our money, without helping the East European or Soviet democratic forces, or even their economic prospects...
...ur strategy toward the Soviet Empire must now rest upon our understanding of its collapse, and our assessment of our ability to play a role in ensuring that it does not return...
...Second, the chances for real democracy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are greatly threatened by the instruments of the terror that has crushed freedom for so long...
...While under attack from the democratic forces, these "organs of state security" remain largely intact, and thus far they're still under a considerable degree of Communist control...
...It is sometimes as difficult to play a pat hand effectively as it is to cope with poor cards, and we are all familiar with the "fear of victory" in competition...
...We must do what we can to ensure that they lose it all...
...One might even explain the increase in bloc espionage against the West by the same structural crisis that has been the motor of so many of the gratifying blows to the Communist system: unable to produce wealth or modern technology on their own, the Soviet-led nations have been compelled to steal it from us...
...In Poland, the Solidarity-led government had to concede the interior ministry to the Communist party, apparently in response to Gorbachev's demands...
...Every other country, from Germany to Japan, that emerged from the darkness of fascism has receivedenormous American financial assistance...
...Surely we could have benefited from leaving a bit of doubt about the subject...
...The merits of democracy are widely appreciated...
...To say this is not to suggest that the tremendous political changes throughout the Soviet Empire are not real, or are not significant...
...The reformers despise him for his cowardliness, and the anti-reformers hate him for having unleashed the demons of reform...
...Preserve those precious ideas...
...These people want a second Nuremberg, but they know that the security services will have to be tamed before that can happen...
...What Squarenote does for you is to collect all your information into one accessible, printable, sortable index card file...
...One might have expected some weakening of these ties at a moment when the sovereignty of the Communist parties in those countries has come under such vigorous attack...
...We must constantly remind ourselves, in these heady days of the Second Democratic Revolution, that our aim is victory, for our ideals and for those who have fought against (or simply survived) the empire...
...It has not been easy...
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...Those who feared that Spain might slide back into Francoism, or leap into the arms of the Eurocommunists, have all been proved wrong...
...Two lines of attack in particular are available to us, one to increase the strength of the democratic movements within the empire, and to carve out at least a small sector of free enterprise to serve as a launching-pad for the future...
...And the businessmen should be 'Lane Kirkland and other AFL-CIO leaders were denied visas last summer when they tried to go to the Ukraine to support the coal miners' union...
...To us, you give nothing...
...We are still at the beginning of the beginning...
...Thus far, only one full and several half steps in this direction have been paced off...
...If he will not do this (and particularly if he persists in telling us fables like "the Nicaraguans have been lying to me"), then tell him to think it over during the long Russian winter, and we can talk about it again in the spring...
...They need word processors, xerox machines, desktop publishing kits, and faxes...
...the CIA isn't capable of designing such a brilliant strategy...
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...It can only be replaced with something that works...
...They want and deserve no Communism...
...They undoubtedly cherish it far more than we do...
...Kuznetsov has been subjected to the full range of Stalinist horrors: accused of "slandering the Soviet state," deposited in a psychiatric institution, condemned to three years of hard labor in the Gulag, he is at this writing on the verge of death after forty-five days of hunger strike...
...given a stern lecture on their potential East European partners: by all means do joint ventures with Solidarity, and with the opponents of the Communist regimes...
...Does he want American investment...
...One would like to think that George Bush and his advisers have figured this out, and are being nice to Gorbachev through Machiavellian cunning...
...After years of Gorbymania, we are now hearing from the likes of Monsieur Mitterrand, Mrs...
...How can we measure the real changes that have taken place in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe...
...On the other hand, it is hard to imagine any other Soviet ruler doing so much, so efficiently, and so rapidly to dismantle the empire...
...What happened...
...No significant financial aid was forthcoming, and the Carter Administration, in a seizure of moralistic legalism, refused to help in the fight against the Basques because they were held to be "local" rather than "international" terrorists, even though they lived in France, trained in Algeria, and killed in Spain...
...Call now...
...He sometimes sounds as if he knows this (when he speaks of the need to introduce capi...
...M eanwhile, what are we to do...
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...Indeed, thusfar most of the investments in Eastern Europe—greatly encouraged and assisted by the West German and other West European governments—have not been productive, either for Hungary and Poland,or for the Western investors...
...Suarez pounded his desk as he asked questions that are today being asked by East European leaders...
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...Today the tools will be different, but the concept should be the same...
...And I doubt that the governments involved—ours and theirs —are particularly well equipped to identify the most productive investments...
...This requires the skills of businessmen, not politicians...
...Participation in GATT...
...On the other hand, we could make some modest investments in the democratic movements within the empire that could bear enormous politicaldividends...
...Iisuseful to keep these events in mind as we listen to the Poles' and the Hungarians' demands that we "support democracy" in their countries by sending money...
...We want to do everything possible to dismantle the empire, and that means we want democratic governments in the former satellites...
...Now is surely the time for us to help the striking coal miners, for example,' and to help provide the political tools for the democratic movements in the empire...
...he demanded...
...He was greatly agitated...
...As any investor in Europe will tell you, Spain has recorded a decade of spectacular economic growth in virtually every area of enterprise, her intelligentsia is on a par with any in the Western World, her fashions are world class, her cuisine now reaches the streets of Paris, New York, and Washington, and we shall all behold the glories of democratic Spain in the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992...
...There is an alarming tendency in some sectors of Washington to proclaim the Cold War ended, and turn over East-West relations to the businessmen, always eager to sell the Soviets the rope with which to haul themselves out of the pit...
...But the Spanish and Portuguese examples suggest that one central requirement in the economic transition from dictatorship to democracy is the creation of new wealth, and this is best achieved—indeed, one is tempted to say it can only be achieved—by productive investment...
...Surely the National Endowment for Democracy was created for such projects, and its excellent director, Carl‘Gerslunan, can be counted upon to spend its money wisely if Congress will support him...
...Squarenote gathered all the research, organized it, and even printed outmy lecture notes...
...On the political side of the transition, we can, should, and are sharing with the Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians our understanding of parliamentary democracy, just as leaders of the Socialist International and the U.S...
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...don't try to transfer wealth in the expectation that we can thereby transform their societies...
...You'll actually see the tops of your filing cabinets and desks, slim down your briefcase, and clean out your pockets...
...Later on, this changed a bit, but at the time Suarez was so furious at the American refusal that he wondered out loud if Carter preferred some other regime to his own...
...There will be many spasms before this thing is over, and it is highly likely that some of these spasms will be quite violent, and on a mass scale...
...Meanwhile, we have some useful moves in the great game...
...This program saved my neck when faced with teaching two new courses and only two months to prepare...
...The same can be said about Portugal, which faced problems even more serious than Spain's...
...Indeed, in the era of glasnost and perestroika, the opportunities for hostile action in the West have increased, and the KGB is taking full advantage of the improved atmosphere...
...If we were to do that, it would encourage the Communists to believe that the wheel of history has not made a full turn, and that they might yet hold on to at least part of the evil they created...
...Clean up your desk and briefcase...
...It is a heartrending cry, and we instinctively feel we ought to help them as they undertake this monumentally difficult task...
...Call us now at 617 277 9222, or write us at the address below...
...Why are you not helping us...
...Surely the inhabitants of the vast Gulag do not believe it, and neither should we...
...How confident can we be that the changes we see are durable...
...And reactions to mass demonstrations have varied widely, ranging from the use of clubs and poison gas, to total restraint, especially in recent weeks in Czechoslovakia...
...It would be folly to believe that a fundamental and durable transformation has taken place so long as the KGBs of the bloc remain intact, and under Communist control...
...But for heaven's sake, don't go about enriching the bad guys...
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...This is silly, especially at a time when he is participating in an intensification of revolutionary bloodshed in El Salvador, via his Cuban and Nicaraguan clients...
...West European intelligence experts with whom I have recently spoken report a similar increase in hostile activity in their countries as well...
...But it has been a great success, on both the political and the economic fronts...
...Some got the Marshall Plan, others received different kinds of help...
...Thus, we have no model for the collapse of totalitarianism, and we have precious few guidelines to evaluate the degree of evolution toward democracy...
...Yet Portugal today is clearly on the same path as Spain, and is a heavy favorite to be the next European economic miracle...
...You can'tfind things when you need them...
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...You waste precious time searching for needed documents or information...
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...That it has not happened shows us that we are still at the beginning of the beginning of the end...
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...The terrible violence in Rumania is not likely to remain an isolated example...
...It was a spoof of course...
...Unlike the editors of Time, the citizens of the old empire do not want Gorbachev's palliative "reformist Communism...
...But the 14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990 continued strength of the security services, the ongoing unity of the bloc services, and the increasing tempo of their activities suggest two sobering thoughts...
...To be sure, there has been an effort to present the instruments of terror as more benign...
...Everyone agrees that this should be done, but there is great confusion about how best to do it...
...like the card files you have used for years...
...when you get one, you should sweep all the chips off the table...
...Paper clutter makes you inefficient, frustrated, and can really hurt your career...
...It would be folly to believe that a fundamental and durable transformation has taken place so long as the KGBs of the bloc remain intact, and under Communist control...
...This is not enough, nor is it enough that the Hungarians expelled Edward Lee Howard, the American CIA officer who defected to the Soviet Union with the secrets of our Moscow operations...
...The second is to ensure that we do not unwittingly save Communism from its richly deserved destiny...
...The half steps have been taken in East Germany, where several top officials of its previously untouchable security service have been arrested, and in Hungary, where the government has promised to disband some of the "workers' militias" that have been used in the repression of the Hungarian people since the end of the- Second World War...
...Worst of all, you lose some of your best ideas, just when they would do the most good for your career...
...A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money in Eastern Europe in the next couple of years...
...The Poles, Czechs, Germans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Rumanians, and Hungarians who have survived Communist totalitarianism—and, as we will see in due course, the Russians as well—do not need instruction from us in the virtues of democracy...
...The KGB itself has put on several television specials, with its chief starring in a novel Moscow press conference...
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...even the Polish and Hungarian services remain in lockstep with the KGB...
...This sort of schizophrenia does not inspire confidence, and that is why Gorbachev's popularity is so low among his own people...
...The Portuguese not only had to emerge from the protectionistic and anachronistic Salazar period, but also had to digest more than one million Portuguese colonists from Angola and Mozambique...
...T he corollary to this axiom is that 1 we must avoid the one potentially fatal mistake in the great game: do not give to the Communists the tools they need to avoid facing the consequences of their own failure...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 2
