<\/p>\n
Response to Micha\u0142 B\u0105kowski<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In answer to Micha\u0142 B\u0105kowski\u2019s criticism, I offer the following apology. Yes, I am guilty of referring to the Soviet Union as Russia and Russia as Soviet. Up until 1991 common usage permitted this. It is not entirely correct, of course, and if I were compelled to use only immaculate and scientific language, I would use no language at all; for precise and scientific language on this topic does not exist. Political subjects always involve the use of general terms and short-cut expressions, like \u201cdemocracy\u201d or \u201cfreedom.\u201d It is generally assumed that we know what we mean by these words. But general assumptions are often wrong. Let us inquire. What is democracy? What is freedom? There is no precise answer, and men fall into disagreement. One might also ask: What is totalitarianism? And what is Russia, for that matter \u2013 and how do we normally designate a country, a power, a government? Do we refer to the Russian government as \u201cthe Kremlin\u201d? But the Kremlin is only a citadel. Do we say, with Vladimir Bukovsky, that Russia is ruled by a KGB power? What about the Russian Army, the General Staff, the GRU, the MVD, the red mafia, and those all-pervasive secret structures that form the \u201cunderground\u201d of the Communist Party Soviet Union today? Here we find an orchestra, yet Bukovsky fixes his attention on the First Violinist. KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn told us, 25 years ago, what music this orchestra was going to play. He told us who the conductor was going to be. He told us that the conductor\u2019s agenda was Communist.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n With regard to genus<\/em>, the sections of this orchestra share three things: first, they all speak Russian and are identified under a Russian banner; second, they were formed under the Soviet Union; third, their weapons and bunkers are in Russia. Yet Mr. B\u0105kowski denies that the orchestra is Russian; he prefers the term \u201cSoviet,\u201d though general readers will hesitate to accept this because the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991; and our linguistic difficulties are not ameliorated if we employ the term \u201cCommunist,\u201d even though this is the correct term. With regard to differentia<\/em>, it is true that the First Violinist plays a leading role while the drummers and bass players in the back of the orchestra follow the musical score with new missiles, nuclear warheads and submarines; the General Staff continues to coordinate with the \u201cfraternal socialist countries\u201d and \u201cnational liberation movements,\u201d preparing to train the Cuban Army, sending weapons to Venezuela and China, laying out the plan of war<\/em>; the GRU observes the decline of America’s strategic arsenal, offering insights on a target of opportunity; the MVD keeps order at home; the Foreign Ministry provides diplomatic cover, organizing arms reduction talks, integrating Communist structures into Western structures, and so on. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The orchestra is a red orchestra, a Communist formation. Its goal is world domination, and its chief obstacle is the United States. But not for long, because America is disarming. <\/em> If anyone thinks that America will not disarm, they are sadly mistaken. Already the strategic posture of the United States is one that invites a nuclear first strike. I learned this firsthand from one of America’s leading nuclear strategists last June. He was in despair, pouring out his story like a man unburdening his soul. It is perfectly clear, of course, that the strategic posture of America is no accident. And we should not be surprised that the United States Congress, under the Democratic Party, will not approve the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. President Obama has also refused to support this program, even though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that America\u2019s nuclear arsenal is approaching the end of its shelf-life. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If you understand the nature of Communism, and the nature of the power bloc that coincides with Communism, then you will understand the magnitude of the crisis that is approaching. Having explained all this in response to Mr. B\u0105kowski’s criticism, I wish to make the following point: Mr. B\u0105kowski sees and judges the world as it appears today. Perhaps, instead, he should judge on the basis of what is coming, what can no longer be avoided. When I say Poland is a front line state, I am talking about the day when Europe will no longer walk on crutches; for America has been Europe’s crutch. The Russian Communists think that Europe will belong to them, that the European Union will perform the function of a European Soviet. But I foresee that they have misjudged Europe, because there are unintended consequences associated with their strategy. First and foremost, the collapse of the world economy will bring about a revolution unlike the revolution predicted by Karl Marx. Not only this: the Soviet strategists have sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind. The deception of 1989 sets up a psychological sequence, and no policy will be effective once a shift in mass psychology begins. I do not know what this shift will entail, exactly. I believe there will be a new political insight, born of the tragic events that will unfold in America, and these will spread like an infection into Europe. I have thought about this for many years, and have glimpsed various aspects while meditating on the fate of my country. Try to imagine a reversal in which the world’s most powerful nation, arguably the wealthiest, most advanced, most humane nation on earth, is suddenly cast down and destroyed. In the psyche of mankind, such an event necessarily results in a new complex of ideas, and a standpoint that supersedes all petty interests, including personal survival. What I foresee is a spiritual shift, an epiphany: a point at which the soul becomes amenable to a religious conversion (or something akin to it). <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A wise man once said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” So what I have told you, and what I am about to relate, should be taken as food for thought. It should not be taken as a prophecy.<\/em> In March 1987 I was reading the autobiography of Jan Sejna, a high-level Communist defector, where he writes about Moscow’s plan to organize the fake collapse of the Warsaw Pact. I immediately realized this was the same long-range strategy discussed by Golitsyn in New Lies for Old<\/em>. Several insights flashed through my mind. As it happens, I had previously read and dismissed Golitsyn’s book as a species of strategic fiction. Suddenly I realized that Golitsyn and Sejna were describing the same object, and therefore the object was real<\/em>; furthermore, I realized that American policymakers were ignorant. In fact, with one or two exceptions, the study of the Soviet Union, and Soviet strategy, was a complete farce. There could be no doubt: the collapse of the Soviet Union was coming, the experts and pundits would fall for it, and the United States would subsequently eliminate thousands of nuclear weapons from its arsenal and drop its guard.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In August 1987 I began a course of reading and note-taking that would last four years and resulted in a book, which I later published under the title Origins of the Fourth World War<\/em>. The book has many flaws, but it must be understood as a book of equations and formulations, an attempt to work out the future from the limited information and understanding I had at the time. The value of the exercise may be found in the strict elimination of all wishful thinking. Through this exercise I was persuaded that it would be indecent to offer a solution to the problem set forth. An obligatory happy ending would be dishonest. The sorry American habit of assuming that every problem has a solution, and authors should never raise a problem without providing a solution, is merely another proof that the business of reading and writing has become, in our time, a shallow exercise indeed. One truth emerged for me: that the solution will be found in agony, through a constant companionship with death, in a river of tears and an ocean of blood. If you think this is incorrect, you can always read Francis Fukuyama. In his book, The End of History and the Last Man<\/em>, we find a degrading spectacle. In short, we get everything we want, though we haven’t earned it. Fukuyama suggests that liberal democracy is the end-all and be-all. History is done, and permanent peace has arrived. He then awkwardly denies Nietzsche’s assertion that this whole idea is sinister, if not corrupt. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n What I write is a warning to all those who think that the present dispensation is permanent. Heraclitus said, you cannot walk into the same river twice. From day to day, a thing is not itself. America is no longer what it once was. The Soviet Union is no longer the Soviet Union. Poland is no longer Poland. Do you understand what this means? There is no final political form. And there is no final victory, and no final defeat. What nation, above all others, is better able to receive this truth than Poland? And what European nation has officially published Golitsyn’s New Lies for Old<\/em> as a counterintelligence guidebook? Do not despair of your country, Mr. B\u0105kowski. Something is taking shape in Poland, in Ukraine, in Georgia, in the Baltic States. Defeats are beside the point. Do not despise humble beginnings. Did you know? The president of Ukraine will not go to Moscow. And Russian tanks turned back after invading Georgia. A small miracle is yet a miracle, oh ye of little faith!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We should not, in all this, get stuck on words. I mentioned, previously, the word democracy. It is a stupid word, ripe with misunderstanding. Have we learned nothing from the Communists? Public opinion is fickle, and constantly changes. It is far more important to win the respect of a few prudent men than the applause of a foolish majority. I’m afraid we’ve been losing the war because of our own egalitarianism. Has this been understood? From first to last, the anti-Communists allowed the Communists to invent and define most of the words used during the Cold War. When the Communists publicly did away with those words, people began to talk of \u201cthe end of the Cold War.\u201d Anti-Communists understood this as a victory. In reality, the anti-Communists were semantically eliminated from the game. The thoughtless multitude is so attached to words that eliminating the use of a word effectively neutralizes or eliminates those who stand against it. I call this method \u201cthe semantic liquidation\u201d of the opposition. It is not coincidental that towards the end of his life, Stalin became interested in semantics. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Clausewitz once wrote that in a war<\/em> the simplest action is very difficult. In the present war, our prospects do not hold much promise. Our gains are lost, our heroes killed, our soldiers demoralized. But our defeats are not permanent. What is more, our defeats lead to victory, to a change in human consciousness, to redemption. Another turn will come, another day will dawn. Our enemies are attached to a misbegotten, superannuated idea. They believe that their cause is the final cause<\/em>. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n We are not so shallow. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Response to Micha\u0142 B\u0105kowski In answer to Micha\u0142 B\u0105kowski\u2019s criticism, I offer the following apology. Yes, I am guilty of referring to the Soviet Union as Russia and Russia as Soviet. Up until 1991 common usage permitted this. It is not entirely correct, of course, and if I were compelled to use only immaculate and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jeff-nyquist","category-trojkatna-konstelacja"],"yoast_head":"\n