Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit H-bombs and Dirty Tricks: 7 Decades of Imperialist Pressure By Pat Chin Ever since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, world imperialism has made undermining the workers' state in the USSR a priority. Fourteen countries--led by the U.S., Britain, France, Japan and Germany--militarily invaded the Soviet Union soon after it was born. That attempt failed. But the effort to crush the Soviet state continued for seven decades. This effort has included covert CIA dirty tricks, aiming of trillions of dollars in U.S. nuclear and conventional weapons against the USSR, and decades of an imperialist trade embargo meant to isolate the Soviet Union. The U.S. "Soviet experts" convently leave out this unrelenting pressure when they analize the collapse of the USSR. Despite talk of "friendship," this destabilization effort continues. Today, the CIA budget for anti-Soviet activities is rumored to be as high as $30 billion. In fact in the past ten years, while the U.S. government was was talking about ending the cold war it was intensifying its destabilization efforts. Sean Gervasi described this stepped-up campaign in his article "Western Intervention in the USSR" in the Winter 1991-92 issue of Covert Action Information Bulletin. "In the early 1980s," wrote Gervasi, "the Reagan Administration had adopted a plan to destabilize its major adversary. The strategy combined intense open and covert attacks. It utilized political pressure, economic operations, military force around the world, propaganda, and assistance to anti-communist opposition groups in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union." According to Gervasi, "the purpose was not to encourage reform, but to provoke the outright overthrow of communist rule." BUYING COUNTER-REVOLUTION Anti-communist views were disseminated through the mass media, including the CIA-run Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and many publications. Private-sector institutions were developed--especially pro-Western "trade unions." Women's and youths' organizations and cooperatives were also set up. U.S. strategy, according to Gervasi, "effectively meant building a movement composed of anti-communist parties, organizations and individuals. The end result was a `democracy' defined almost exclusively by the existence of elections." Funds to undermine the Soviet Union came in part from the National Endowment for Democracy, established by the U.S. Congress. Between 1984 and 1990, the NED spent $40.5 million in Europe--90 percent to destabilize Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The U.S. Department of Labor received NED funds, as did sub-groupings of the NED like the Free Trade Union Institute. Then there were corporate groupings; ostensible labor organizations like the AFL-CIO's Agency for International Free Labor Development; the Unification Church; and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Foundations, private groups and businesses were used as conduits. Grants also went to foreign recipients or U.S. recipients involved in foreign projects. FULL-COURT PRESS The CIA carried out relentless anti-Soviet sabotage with over 50 other organizations, including British, German, French and Israeli intelligence agencies. So important was the task of crushing the first socialist state that the operation rose to the level of what is known in secret service parlance as a "full court press." Gervasi concluded, "The CIA was probably spending $160 million per year on intervention operations in the Socialist Bloc." In September 1991 TASS reported that the heads of both the Soviet Central Bank and the Bank for Foreign Economic Affairs had been spared the purges following the failed coup attempt--due to intervention by the imperialist banks. The New York Times even pointed out on Sept. 4, 1991 that both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were being allowed to use the U.S. big-business media to push their capitalist restorationist views. Two days earlier, at a news conference, Bush had admitted to calling Gorbachev two to three times a day. Gorbachev apparently returned the favor by warning the Congress of People's Deputies on Sept. 3: "The West is watching us. If we are able to coordinate, unite within the new forms, find new structures, new people, the West will support us." Internal problems notwithstanding, imperialist intervention on behalf of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin regime proved decisive in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Failing to win mass support from the Soviet workers and peasants, this capitalist restorationist cabal had to rely heavily on the backing of the U.S., Britain, Germany, France and Japan. -30- (Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".) NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit Modem: 718-448-2358 * Internet: nytransfer@igc.apc.org