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[Rurik]

Rurik’s Radical Bibliography, A Trilogy, Part 1

The more we consider the Kerry phenomenon, the more we seem to keep meeting those two brothers of the hard left, Communism and Nihilism, which have defined modern American radicalism and the international New Left. Together they combine to create the inchoate ideology, indefinable yet clearly identifiable, which enlivened what, in 1960s-70s, was called the Movement, and still does so today. Understand the past of the new left radicals and you also understand their present and have the key to their future. The first step in curing a disease is to understand it. This has been a major focus of my life for the past quarter century. Instead of lecturing you of all I know, it is better to provide you with the best of my teachers, and allow you to learn for yourselves. This is the purpose of my bibliography.

Many of these books are out of print and hard to find. If your public library does not have what you want, try the local college or university. If necessary, you can ask your librarian to get them on inter-library loan.

To understand radicalism, go to its root, and that means the Russian experience. This is one reason I turned to Russian History when I returned to graduate school 25 years ago. Our own domestic radical movements for the last 85 years have been heavily influenced by the experience of Russia, and even have modeled themselves on the Soviet Union and the Leninist political party. This is not idle speculation. Sidney Hook, America’s leading Marxist thinker until he opened his eyes during the 1940s, and after that America’s leading anti-Marxist has recalled that he and everyone in his circles knew far more of Russian history than American, for that is what they had immersed themselves seeking the key to the communist success. Likewise, Norman Podhoretz, reports the same thing about his own experiences as a radical university student during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and so have other ex-radicals. For our purposes, you need not study the whole of Russian history from the Varangians on the 19th century, to Novgorod and the Mongols, fascinating though it be. (In the 12th century the greatest progress toward modern democracy existed not in England but in Russia!) We do not even need to give detailed study to the Russian Revolution & Coup of 1917, save to observe Lenin’s principle of “revolutionary defeatism”, which justified supporting the enemy of his own country in order to weaken and bring down the government he hoped to supplant.

For our purposes you need attend in detail only to the growth and development of the Russian radical tradition in the second half of the 19th century. This was the period and the birthplace of both modern revolutionary socialism and of terrorism in the modern sense. This was the period when half-educated young intellectuals swarmed to radical organizations and began the path that climaxed in November 1917. And in many ways that period bears an uncanny resemblance to our own, even unto the styles and poses of our own radicals. Even the terms “populist”, progressive” and “man of he people” date from that era. Entire libraries have been written on this subject. Most of the books are pernicious hagiography, written either by Soviets adoring their revolutionary icons, or by Western wannabe intellectuals doing the same thing with less excuse.

There are several exceptions which deserve widespread attention. The perhaps the most useful is Adam Ulam “In the Name of the People” Viking Press, 1977, which gives a fine overview synthesis. Also by Adam Ulam is “Russia’s Failed Revolutions, From the Decembrists to the Dissidents”, Basic Books, 1981. A fine compliment is Abbot Gleason, “Young Russia, the Genesis of Russian Radicalism in the 1860s”, Viking, 1980, and another is Albert L. Weeks, “The First Bolshevik, A Political Biography of Peter Tkachev”, New York University Press, 1968. As one example of the contemporary importance of this topic is the fact that “The Revolutionary”s Catechism” by Bakunin and Nechaev, central characters in Ulam’s work was still being used as a manual by some American Movement groups in the 1960s. There are other worthy monographs, but they tend to be either too narrowly focused, or far too long and detailed for generalist purposes. Studies of Lenin and the revolution tend to apply more to the seizure of power and developments of the Soviet governing party. However, Alain Besancon, “The Rise of the Gulag, Intellectual Origins of Leninism”, Continuum, 1981, is a truly masterful intellectual history showing the evolution of early Russian ideologies into the final development of Leninism, and then how that ideology manifested itself in power. There are also a couple of novelists who should not be neglected. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “August 1914” gives a masterful portrait of the fermenting mood in Russia leading up to the Great War and the revolution, and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”,and “The Possessed” are two of the finest portraits ever of the nihilist mindset.

Again, for our purposes detailed histories of the Soviet Union are not necessary. But for those who want to flesh out their education, I recommend histories by Adam Ulam, Robert Conquest, and Richard Pipes, and also their biographies of Lenin and Stalin. Each man has a slightly different take, but all are in agreement on the essential overview. Dmitrii Volkogonov, was a Soviet political general until virtually the end of the USSR. After that, a disillusioned old man turned to the archives and wrote a series of scathing books based on secret archives. His biography of Lenin, Free Press, 1994, was devastating. Another Russian Mikhail Heller wrote “Cogs in the Wheel, The Formation of Soviet Man”, Knopf,1988, which is very useful for describing the social effects of communism in practice. Read it and you may recognize a number of “new” ideas you hear on the American left. When you study enough of Soviet cultural history you will fid that even such curiosities and America’s current obsessions with “eating healthy” and various nutritional fads, and other examples of what might be called “scientific or rationalized living” have their Soviet antecedents.

Likewise, Soviet military history and the history of the government, the purges, and of international relations can be skipped over. I presume the outlines are well known to you. Instead concentrate on the USSR’s unofficial, second foreign policy, carried out by the Comintern and its descendants the Cominform and International Department of the Central Committee, and by the external branch of the KGB. Anthony Cave Brown & Charles B. MacDonald, “On a Field of Red, the Communist International and the Coming of World War II”, Putnam, 1981 will introduce you to Willi Munzenburg and the other geniuses who developed the arts of international subversion, and first coining terms such as “Useful Idiot”. Again, you will recognize many ploys and dodges still encountered today.

One volume that may prove very useful to some of our research is Branko Lazitch & Milorad M. Drachkovitch, “Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern, Hoover Institution Press, 1973. This could be a very useful place for checking obscure names of participants in Paris meetings and tribunals, and similar meetings; some of these individuals just might reveal a Comintern past. See Ho Chi Minh’s entry on pages 150-151. - Simple nationalist my sweet, white-guardist ass!! It is a shame that I have found no good book on the contemporary International Department and its work, as I suspect that it has done as much convert subversion as have the intelligence agencies, the KBG and GRU. It is my suspicion tht many of the Agents of Influence may have been under ID direction rather than KGB, though evidence to confirm this is unavailable.

Study of the KGB poses a special challenge, partly because of secrecy and disinformation, and partly from its misleading and unique structure. While the Committee For State Security incorporated the functions of both the American FBI and CIA, and also the numerous other agencies such as INS, Customs, the nations fire-fighters, and still more, technically the KGB was not a ministry of the government but a committee of the Communist Party, and thus superior to the mere government. We want to concentrate on the modern period, and those branches of the KGB most likely to deal with foreigners. But some other works will also be included, and also books about the KGB’s neighbors, the GRU, Soviet military intelligence.

This brings us to a second problem, reliability. Until the 1990s virtually everything in print in the West was written by defectors, or a few retired western analysts. The defectors know quite a bit, but sometimes have a tendency to exaggerate and fabricate, to enhance their own stature and future career possibilities. In a new world, “telling spy stories” may be the only marketable skills they have. And Western intelligence agencies often are not eager to tell what they know lest they reveal their own methods and sources and ease the task of KGB countermeasures. So none of these sources can be trusted completely, though reading with care and skepticism can provide an interesting perspective and some useful details.

For those historically interested, George Leggett, “The Cheka, Lenin’s Political Police”, Clarendon Press, 1981, is a solid historical study of the original incarnation of the Soviet secret police, until the early 1920s, discussing both organization and deeds.

Amy Knight, “The KGB, Police and Politics in the Soviet Union”, Unwin Hyman, 1988, is an organizational study of the KGB. Jerffrey T. Richelson. “Sword and Shield, Soviet Intelligence and Security Apparatus”, Ballinger 1986, has a similar purpose, but concentrates far more on structure.

Peter Deriabin had been an officer of Stalin’s personal bodyguard until his defection in the early 1950s. He wrote “The Secret World” in 1959, later republished in paperback by Ballentine. Later, Deriabin with T. H. Bagley wrote an updated “The KGB, Masters of the Soviet Union”, Hippocrene,1990. He has particularly worthy chapters on the handling of foreigners.

John Barron “KGB. The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents”, Ballentine, 1974, is one of the masterful tomes, with a foreword by Robert Conquest, and an endorsement by Ray Cline, a CIA Deputy Director. In 1983 he wrote a successor volume, “KGB Today, the Hidden Hand”, Berkley Press, 1983. Barron is reputed to have high level FBI contacts. His books give extensive coverage of KGB activities, including recruitment attempts, and disinformation. There is a good outline of KGB organization.

Oleg Kalugin, “the First Directorate”, St. Martin’s, 1994, is the memoir of a KGB Major General who broke with the regime at the end of the Soviet period, and later wrote his memoir.

Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, “KGB the Inside Story of its Foreign Operations From Lenin to Gorbachev”, Harper Collins, 1990, is another important history by a major defector, with extensive attention to the later cold war period.

But perhaps, most significant of all is Christopher Andrew & Vasilii Mitrokhin, “The Sword and the Shield, The Mitrokhin Archive and te Secret History of the KGB”, Basic Books, 1999. Mitrokhin worked in the archives of the foreign intelligence branch for thirty years before defecting in 1992, with vast trunks of documents smuggled out. This book will force the rewriting of the Cold War. It identifies agents and code names, gives previously unguessed information. For example he discusses in detail the strategic plan Shelepin (then KGB chief) gave to Khrushchev on July 29. 1961 detailing a strategy for aggressively creating and supporting wars of national liberation around the world, and even identified as a promising group for priority encouragement as mall group called the Sandinista Liberation Front (p.181), and gives great attention to support of terrorists in the Middle East and elsewhere.

In support of both their traditional diplomacy and their subversion, the KGB developed the technique called disinformation. This is not simple lying in the usual sense, but something far more devious and complicated. It may involve a simple, straightforward lie, but it may involve a whole range of techniques designed to lead the opponent to come to the desired wrong conclusion, perhaps a lie, or forged documents, or half-truths, or lies told by someone not recognized as a controlled source, ore event the truth, told in such a way that it will be believed to be a lie. This technique was first described by Stanislav Levchenko, who had been a KGB disinformation specialist prior to his defection. Levchenko’s account is included in John Barron’s “KGB, the Hidden Hand”, listed above. A Czech disinformation officer was Ladislav Bittman, who wrote “The KGB and Soviet Disinformation, an Insider’s View, Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1985. A western study of this subject is Richard H. Schultz & Roy Godson, “Dezinformatsia, Active Measures in Soviet Strategy”, Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1984. Another western examination is Chapman Pincher, “The Secret Offensive, St. Martin’s Press,1985.

While study of terrorism is only indirectly involved, Yonah Alexander & Dennis Pluchinsky. “Europe’s Red Terrorists, The Fighting Communist Organizations”, Frank Cass, 1992, ought to be included because of the involvement of revolutionary Europeans, who might well have had contacts with American leftists.

There is one more special ,and entertaining book on espionage techniques, useful against targets in the west, but particularly against visitors to the Soviet Union, David Lewis, “Sexpionage, The Exploitation of Sex by Soviet Intelligence”, Harcourt Brace, 1976. Such a volume should be remembered when considering the careers of western politicians who might have been easily entrapped.

Finally there are three books on propaganda to recommend. The first is Baruch Hazan, “Soviet Impregnational Propaganda”, Ardis,1982, a study in how the Soviets used cultural matters such as the Olympics, cinema, and cultural relations to impregnate a pro-Soviet attitude, leaving individuals and societies vulnerable to later, more focused propaganda efforts. This is an important topic, I have not seen addressed anywhere else. A second is Marian Leighton, “Soviet Propaganda As A Foreign Policy Tool, Freedom House, 1991. It features chapters on the foreign mouthpieces used and on the US Support network for propaganda. And for historic background there is Harold D. Lasswell & Dorothy Blumenstock, “World Revolutionary Propaganda”, a Greenwood Press reprint of the 1939 edition, which studies the operation of Soviet agitation in the USA during the 1920s-1930s.

This concludes the first part of the trilogy. The succeeding parts will consider books about American radicalism, and theoretical studies of ideology.
For Part 2, see:
http://www2.swiftvets.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17591
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Hating John Kerry continuously since 1971.

Essayons!
Fight Build and Destroy

[USAFE5]

egads Rurik - I am off to the library tomorrow....
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"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I’m here to help." Ronald Reagan

[Beatrice1000]

[I B Squidly]

Great stuff. Any mention of the monster Bakunin always makes my blood rush.

I'd add "The Making of a Counterculture" by Theodore Roszak. It's a flattering, candy coated guide to home grown 'idiots' from Alan Ginzburg and Tim Leary through Herbert Marcuse. Rurik was likely to mention it in his 2nd or 3rd installment but I happened to notice it in the used bookstore the other day and it caused a smirk.

[Digger]

Rurik,
I just wanted to say thank you. I appreciate the effort you have made to bring this to our attention This is an excellent bibliography, I'm going to save it in my files for future reference.
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Hey swifty, I'm with you, Just watch you don't get "Kerry'd away in the propwash

Sgt. Maj. Seamus D.D. MacNemi R.M.C. Ret.