MIM Notes 210 May 15, 2000 KGB book sheds light on Andropov and Kryuchkov In a new and comprehensive book on the KGB called ITAL The Sword and the Shield, END (reviewed in MIM Notes #205 and #206) the picture emerges of Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov being the true "hard-liner" of the Soviet Brezhnev and post-Brezhnev era. Another important figure is Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov, the KGB chair from 1988 until 1991 when he led a failed coup against Gorbachev. From Andrew's book it becomes clear that ex-KGB members are a likely basis or influence for future Soviet Maoism, because they came to realize in practice that there is a bourgeoisie in the party. At the end of his career, Kryuchkov finally realized that the main enemy was within the party. He and Andropov should have fought for the Maoist line all along. It was the realization too late of the fact of a bourgeoisie in the party that caused the coup plotters of August 1991 to lack resolve and backing. There had not been the theoretical and ideological preparation necessary to come to such a conclusion arrived at "in practice" decades too late. Instead, the plotters insisted they would not harm Gorbachev and they treated the opposition with kid-gloves. We must concede that in various contexts Andropov and Kryuchkov understood matters politically. That is to say in various tactical contexts, they knew what was required. Unfortunately, ever since Khruschev took power, we have had to say that Soviet government leaders may have been "hard-line," but we have to ask "hard-line for what?" Neither Andropov nor Kryuchkov had the overall direction that Stalin had. Andropov took the hard-line on Czechoslovakia in 1968(pp. 251, 256) going so far as to make paving stones available to Czech demonstrators, to catch them in violence more easily.(p. 262) We would caution our readers that a favorite imperialist tactic is to make easy gains appear out of nowhere, an offer of arms and expertise for example from someone or somewhere with no real previous political record of struggle. Such too-good-to-be-true situations turn out to be government provocations. Andropov also opposed Euro-communism at first, going so far as to employ "active measures" to discredit the social-democrats calling themselves communists.(p. 298) To control their French lackey and popular politician Marchais, the KGB used the fact of his being a German lackey during World War II. Marchais volunteered for work in a German weapons factory during the war and then became the leader of the French CP.(p. 305) MIM is of two minds on this question. On the one hand, the line of Marchais is more important than his biography. On the other hand, at least during World War II, he had a very bad line. On the whole though, we oppose Marchais mostly for his long career of pro-Soviet revisionism, not mostly because of his failings during World War II. When it came to Solzhenitsyn, again it was Andropov at the front.(p. 311) Khruschev had persynally contributed to Solzhenitsyn's fame by publishing the book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" in 1962. Andropov had to struggle to get the party to oppose his work subsequently! Even supposed hard-liner Brezhnev thought Solzhenitsyn should be tolerated.(p. 312) In 1972, the Brezhnev Politburo blocked the idea of deporting Solzhenitsyn. If Solzhenitsyn had not discredited himself in the West, the KGB would have continued to seethe against him, according to Andrew. As it turns out, the attacks were no longer necessary for that particular dissident. When it came to Sakharov, the KGB attacked through his wife, after attempting to link him to the gay liberation movement.(p. 325) The KGB painted a picture of a romance-and-jealously-obsessed murderer.(p. 326) Thus it was possible to turn sexual politics against heterosexual wives by questioning how a particular womyn managed to ensnare a particular man. Andropov and Kryuchkov were two people who might have been useful under the leadership of a Stalin, or even better, a Mao with hindsight on Stalin and Khruschev. However, since Andropov became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1982 until his death in 1984, it is not enough that they involved themselves in some political struggles, because they themselves were responsible for the overall direction. The two dissidents were not the main problem in the USSR: it was the party. Andropov and Kryuchkov remind us of what Molotov said about the situation of the leadership when Stalin died. Just before Stalin died, he wrote a book about Soviet political economy. He gathered the leaders to talk about it and here is Molotov's accounting: "'The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR' was discussed at Stalin's dacha. 'Any questions, comrades? Have you read it?' He gathered together the members of the Politburo, some seven or eight people. 'What do you think about it? Any comments?' We said something or other. . . . I mentioned something not terribly important. Now I confess, we underestimated the work. We should have gone into it more thoroughly. But no one as yet understood this. Unfortunately, people were bad at theory."(1) With regard to Khruschev, Molotov said in response to a question about Khruschev as a theorist, "No. He was extremely weak in that regard. We were all 'practicals,' all practitioners. Before the Revolution we read all the books and newspapers, now we read nothing. Had I not spent so long in prison and exile, I wouldn't know many things either! I read publications written by our opponents took, and we had to participate in heated discussions."(2) Andropov did not reverse the incorrect verdicts on Stalin. Nor did he change the economic organization of the state-capitalist Soviet Union in its profit-run nature. Perhaps many "practicals" as Molotov called them were too busy with their more easily understood political struggles to notice that the Soviet Union's economic organization had become capitalist. Yeltsin released Kryuchkov in 1993, but he retired from public life.(3) It was an example of how his life of struggle was too little too late. Kryuchkov: "'Despite the fact that the external pressures were strong, the decisive factors were domestic,' he said.... The main role was played by subjective factors connected to very specific people: Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Shevardnadze, and their supporters."(3) Kryuchkov also admitted that "we were hostages of our own illusions. . . . We obeyed the law and the president, and Gorbachev had one quality: his hypocrisy was so great that it was not easy to tell the difference between truth and lies."(3) He admitted that he was not willing to initiate bloodshed during the coup. Then he condemned Stalin for repression while still saying "in twenty or thirty years, no matter what we think, Stalin will be referred to as a kind of genius."(3) Notes: Except for three noted below, all references from Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ITAL The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB END , by (NY: Basic Books, 1999). 1. Felix Chuev & Albert Resis, ITAL Molotov Remembers END .(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1993), pp. 205-6. 2. Ibid., pp. 348-9. 3. David Remnick, ITAL Resurrection: The Struggle for a New Russia END. (NY: Random House, 1997), pp. 319-23.