The Soviet Stratagem

Russian Premier Nikolai Bulganin on the cover of TIME, 1955.

VISIT OUR IG FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER

London Times, 12th May, 1955.

"A Russian, who described himself as Captain Khokhlov, a terrorist agent, was introduced to journalists at the offices of the United States High Commission near Bonn yesterday. It was stated that he and two Germans had been given orders to assassinate Mr. Okolovich, a leading anti-Communist Russian, in Frankfurt.

✦ London Times, 19th July, 1955.

Second Chapter A Classic in espionage: The 'Red orchestra' coming soon

End of Chapter 1

CREATED IN

⌑ The cold war yield has lately become so small from the Soviet viewpoint that straight diplomacy has taken its place and succeeded where cold war tactics have failed. In Austria the Communists were powerless, but diplomacy has now succeeded in neutralizing the country. The cold war against Yugoslavia was pitifully ineffective; diplomacy has just secured its first result: "Marshal Tito," writes the Sunday Times of 31st July, 1955, "used the results of Geneva to put the Balkan pact on ice. In his recent broadcast he stated that "the military aspect of it is now of a secondary character,' therefore it would be against Yugoslav policy 'to strengthen this military pact’. This would seem to be handing to Moscow the first tangible result in softening the military vigilance of the West." Will in West Germany diplomacy succeed where the cold war failed?

V.I. Lenin, 'Left Wing' Communism, An Infantile Disorder, in Selected Works, London, 1947, vol II. p. 629.

✦ London Times, 23 July, 1955.

The Essentials of Leninism, London, 1947, vol. ii, p. 822. The occasion was the Hague International Peace Congress in December 1922.

It was not possible at Geneva to exchange any views on these topics or to include them in the terms of reference of the coming Foreign Secretaries Conference. While "the American delegation (at Geneva) has made crystal clear American concern about the activities of international Communism,✢ "Marshal Bulganin made it quite clear that the Soviet delegation was not prepared to discuss the activities of international Communism"✦

Most people expect international Communism to cease its activities⌑ but until we receive proof to the contrary, it would be prudent to assume that its organization for peace and war will remain in existence, particularly the latter. Its activities are not prohibited by International Law, as we shall show in Chapter XI, and there is no reason whatsoever why the Soviets should dispense with this highly efficient and well-tried weapon. But there is a very cogent reason why we in the West should take a close look at this weapon. Lenin himself has stated it:

"Soviet foreign policy was motivated in its main principles by the Leninist idea of co-existence and co-operation of countries with different political systems."

Two conclusions are inevitable: The period of co-existence can be indefinitely extended if, and only if, the united West indefinitely maintains the ratio of forces between the two blocs. This aspect was rightly stressed by the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Harold Macmillan, in the House of Commons on 27th July, 1955. There would be a temptation, he said, to relax efforts in all directions in an atmosphere of premature optimism; "if we do that, all is lost."

The second point which we must recognize is that even under the concept of co-existence international Communism may continue its activities.

In Lenin's view, in fact, war can only be avoided by carrying out subversion in the opposite camp. In his "Notes on the Task of our Delegation at the Hague" he stressed that

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan with Vice President Richard Nixon

"Everyone will agree that an army which does not train itself to wield all the arms, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses or may possess, behaves in an unwise or even in a criminal manner ... . Unless we master all means of warfare, we may suffer grave and even decisive defeat … .”

London Times, 5th August, 1955.

Peaceful co-existence is therefore a cease-fire, an arrangement of a temporary character made necessary by the ratio of forces in both camps. This, then, is the principle that was endorsed by Marshal Bulganin, and it would be rash to assume that what he regarded as invariable and unshakable in May 1955, had been abandoned by him a month later at Geneva. Indeed, when he addressed the Supreme Soviet after his return from Geneva on 4th August, 1955, he declared that

✢ So President Eisenhower in his Broadcast Report to the Nation on 25th July, 1955.

Cf. also the President's Opening Statement at Geneva: International Communism

"seeks throughout the world to subvert lawful Governments and to subject nations to an alien domination. We cannot ignore the distrust created by the support of such activities. In my nation and elsewhere it adds to distrust and therefore to international tension."

"until proletarian revolution ripens in Europe or until colonial revolutions come fully to a head, or finally, until the capitalists fight among themselves."

Out of this conception was developed the Leninist-Stalinist thesis on the possibility of temporary co-existence which is to last

Stalin’s Speech to the 15th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of 2nd December, 1927, quoted from Soviet World Outlook, A Handbook of Communist Statements, Washington, 1954, p 226.

Lenin, Selected Works, London, 1937, vol 8, p. 279 f.

"We are living not merely in a state, but in a system of states, and the existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states for a long time is unthinkable. One or the other must triumph in the end. And before that end supervenes, a series of frightful collisions between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois states will be inevitable. That means that if the ruling class, the proletariat, wants to hold sway, it must prove its capacity to do so by its military organization."

"we must explain that the only possible method of combating war is to preserve existing, and to form new, illegal organizations (abroad) in which all revolutionaries in the armed forces shall carry on prolonged anti-war activities. "

And again, in November 1920, Lenin addressed the Moscow Party Nuclei Secretaries as follows:

Nikolai Bulganin, Dwight Eisenhower, Edgar Faure, and Anthony Eden at Geneva on July 1955

What is this invariable, unshakable Leninist principle of co-existence?

It was laid down by Lenin in the Report of the Central Committee at the 8th Party Congress in 1919, and it has been regarded as a classic ever since:

"was inspired by the unshakable Leninist principle of peaceful co-existence of States with different social orders."

Three days later Russia agreed to attend the Geneva Conference, the 'Eastern NATO' treaty was signed, and Marshal Bulganin stated that this treaty...

London Times, 16th May, 1955.

Soviet poster "Comrade Lenin cleans the Earth from scum" Nov. 1920

"The fundamental thing in the matter of concessions, from the standpoint of political considerations … is the rule which we have not only mastered theoretically, but have also applied practically, and which will, until socialism finally triumphs all over the world, remain a fundamental rule with us, namely, that we must take advantage of the antagonisms and contradictions between two capitalisms, between two systems of capitalist state, inciting one against the other. As long as we have not conquered the whole world, as long as, from the economic and military standpoint, we are weaker than the capitalist world, we must adhere to the rule that we must know how to take advantage of the antagonisms and contradictions among the imperialists.»

Or, to express the same thought in words more appropriate to the Western mood: At Geneva, as hitherto, the West has steadily maintained that "stability and security depend on the absence of fear which in turn depends on an equilibrium of power”✦ which in turn depends on a parity in all weapons of war.

The weapons of the war without battlefield, wielded by international Communism in wartime, are among the most powerful and destructive ones. Nobody in his senses wants another war.

Only by being fully prepared can we hope to avoid its outbreak.

The purpose of this book is to contribute to the achievement of this aim by exploring the new warfare technique. What has been won by the statesmen at Geneva, can only be preserved by the vigilance of the soldier and the effort of the nation.

Nikita S. Khrushchev driving in car with Nikolai Bulganin, during Geneva Conference. Photo: Hank Walker

✢ Dixon and Heilbrunn, Communist Guerilla Warfare.

And finally, irrespective of whether or not we shall in the immediate future be threatened by a hot war, this new concept of war without battlefield is revolutionary. We too must be able to wage such a war.

These words are written immediately after the Geneva Meeting of the Four Heads of Government in July 1955. This is a time when we ought to take stock. The need for vigilance and effort remains as strong as ever.

The Geneva Conference has reduced tension. It has reduced the danger of hot war. It has reduced the dangers of the cold war.

But the dangers have not yet been eliminated.

We in the West sincerely believe in democracy. We ought to credit the Russian leaders with a no less sincere belief in Communism. The West strives for peace, the East sponsors peaceful co-existence. We must recognize that a wide and deep gulf separates these two concepts and it is imperative that we are clear in our minds about the meaning of co-existence.

At NATO Headquarters in Paris, Allies sign a document inviting West Germany to join the Alliance. The Eiffel Tower is visible in the background.

"The invariable principle of Soviet foreign policy is the Leninist principle of the co-existence of the different social systems.”

It is not suggested that a re-appraisal of NATO's basic assumptions is necessary, but the 'capabilities studies' should assess the impact of the new technique on conventional and nuclear warfare.

Indeed, we must not draw our conclusions on Soviet intentions by fixing our gaze solely on the opposite front line and points east; we must form our appreciation by watching just as closely developments in our rear. In particular, a frontal surprise attack on us would have all the more far-reaching effects if it were accompanied by clandestine warfare in our rear. Conversely, by watching developments of this kind in our rear, we could be forewarned and thus be able to eliminate the element of surprise; if an enemy realized this he might even call off the planned attack.

This necessitates on our side a NATO intelligence apparatus widespread enough to cover any such developments in our rear.

But quite apart from any specific functions these weapons of the new warfare may possess, they play a vital part in the Soviet plan of campaign and a detailed weapon study based on their past performance seems therefore overdue.

Battle of Kursk, July 1943 | Wikicommons

We must not take these disclosures lightly and console ourselves with the thought that it cannot happen here, because the Russians will never be able to mobilize partisan forces in our rear to the same extent as they did in Russia in the late war. The front line in a future war, if there were one, would not be far away from countries which have not as yet given proof of their immunity from Communist infiltration; in these areas are many of the NATO airfields, oil pipelines and other installations, and near, or in, these areas NATO reserves will be mobilized or landed. There can be little doubt that Communist intelligence in our midst is currently employed in finding out those targets which are most vulnerable to partisan attacks and sabotage operations, and which yield them the greatest possible results. These targets need not necessarily be military objectives: power and transport strikes and sabotage of their installations can delay the mobilization of reserves as well as the production of war material.

Yet the new warfare makes it possible to hamper the mobilization and play havoc with the time-tables.

The build-up period will allow NATO to mobilize and move the reserves to their assigned positions.

Yet we may have to revise our estimates of the build-up required at the opposite front if and when there are signs of preparations for a partisan build-up in our rear.

The Soviets, before starting a war, will have to build up their forces considerably.

The opposing forces will offer a targeT for nuclear weapons.

Yet in the new warfare the opposing forces will try as far as possible to form the concentrations required for attack, not in their vulnerable front line, but in the immune rear of our forces.

The NATO appraisals are based on

three assumptions:

"Captain Khokhlov said that his conscience prevented his carrying out the murder ... .

"Captain Khokhlov ... has given a full account of the history of the Soviet agency to which he belonged ... which during the war was responsible for partisan activities in the rear of the German armies. It appears that when the war ended its then chief persuaded his superiors to keep its senior officers and key agents in service for the preparation of future 'partisan' work in the event of war.

"It was planned to send agents to foreign countries to hold themselves ready for use ... .

This statement was fully corroborated by Mrs. Petrova who, as reported in the London Times of 8th July, 1954, told the Royal Commission on Russian espionage, that:

Melbourne 7th July 1954

"in respect to protection against atomic warfare the Soviet authorities have been almost completely silent. There has been no indication from Soviet sources of what kind of defense, if any, they are preparing or of the development of defensive weapons of any special type."

In reality it appears that we have to look for another solution to this riddle. As a rule the Russians rely on the guidance of their Marxist scripture and are slow to find the answers to problems which have not been solved for them there for fear of treading the path of deviation. In the political sphere they are therefore masters in the art of cold warfare by infiltration and subversion, so conveniently summarized in one of the Marxist Commandments—never repudiated and frequently practiced—that Communists "must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing of truth, etc." But the method of persuasion is alien to them. Had they known how to apply it and treated their German prisoners of war and the East-German population decently, the whole of Germany might have been converted to Communism. As it was, unable to give psychological treatment not prescribed in the works of the master, the Soviets probably lost the greatest political prize ever within their reach.

Not only their political outlook, but their military strategy, too, suffers from similar limitations and for the same reason. The Russians, before the start of the German campaign, were unfamiliar with the requirements of defense; their military leaders, schooled in the tenets of penetration, tried to meet the coming onslaught with forces poised for attack. Their inability to think and act defensively brought them to the brink of disaster. They learned only by costly experience on the battlefield, and the fact stands out that their initial mistakes were apparently due to their doctrinaire limitations, Marx, after all, had never envisaged Communism in a defensive role. Now, once again, it may well be that the Russians are not preparing any kind of defense, this time against atomic warfare.

In the second place, the Red Army is more vulnerable to atomic counter-attack than almost any other army in the world.

At a Press conference in the middle of 1954, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff characterized as the main problem of nuclear warfare: how to force the enemy into concentrations presenting good targets for nuclear weapons without presenting good targets ourselves. Obviously nuclear warfare does not mean that large-scale battles are outmoded, but it does mean that the build-up for battle will be fundamentally different. This being so, the Russians will have to revise their battle technique even more radically than the West. In the last war the Russians owed much of their success to the superiority in manpower and equipment which they brought to bear on the Germans; prior to the battle the Russians concentrated their infantry, tanks and artillery to a hitherto unknown extent at the points of attack, and broke through the German lines by sheer weight of numbers. If the first attempt failed, a second, third and fourth followed and, significantly, the concentrations were maintained all the time. If atomic weapons were used in a future World War Russian strategists would have to rid themselves completely of their outdated method of building up that has become known as “Schwerpunktbildung”.

The problem facing the Red Army in this respect is enormous, because they thus have to abandon their one and only war-winning plan of campaign.

However, in World War II the Soviets employed guerrilla forces on a large scale in the German rear and moulded the bands into a highly efficient, hard-hitting movement.✢ After the war each of the satellite countries formed its own guerrilla brigades, while in the east guerrilla warfare has become a standard device. In the event of another World War it is therefore to be expected that the Soviets will try to divest the front of its supreme importance by conducting clandestine operations in our rear on the largest possible scale. In this kind of warfare their front line can be thinned out, so that it no longer represents an ideal target for nuclear weapons. Instead the Soviets will try to build up their partisan concentrations in our rear, where for obvious reasons atomic weapons cannot normally be used against them. This, it appears, is their answer to atomic attack.

The Khokhlov disclosures should be read in this light. We quote from the London Times of 23rd April, 1954:

✢ Julian Amery, Of Resistance, The Nineteenth Century and After, March 1949;

J. Burnham, The Coming Defeat of Communism, London, 1950.

"Schwerpunktbildung"

concentration (of forces)

The Red Army has once before found it impossible to adapt itself to the requirements of defense. Before the start of the German invasion of Russia in 1941, the former General Staff of the German Army had formed the opinion—probably correct— that the Red Army had taken up offensive positions all along the frontier. This curious feature misled the German General Staff into thinking that the Russians intended to invade Germany.

There is little doubt that the German General Staff thought so in all sincerity. On the other hand, it is equally clear that this military appreciation of Russian intentions was politically absurd.

Apart from the fact that the German front-line commanders, after their advance into Russia, found no evidence of any aggressive preparations, the leading members of the German Embassy in Moscow were all convinced at the time that Russia had no intention of attacking Germany, and it was quite obvious that Stalin had no desire to enter the war voluntarily on Britain's side at that time. How, in the light of this evidence, could the former Chief of Staff of the German Army still maintain in 1948 that he had in 1941 correctly assessed the enemy's intentions?

It has been hinted in German war literature that the Russians, disappointed with the outcome of Molotov's visit to Berlin in the autumn of 1940, had planned a restricted move against Rumania. But while such an assumption does not seem entirely impossible, there is no evidence whatsoever for it. Yet even if there were, why then should the Russians also have deployed their forces, poised for attack, in far-off Poland?

We have recently heard a lot of Communist infiltration into Allied Government departments, of Communist fifth columns and intelligence organizations abroad, of others abroad actively preparing future 'partisan' work in the event of war, and of Communist-led strikes in vital industries. Yet do we realize that all these activities combine to form the pattern of a new conception of warfare? The Trojan horse, partisan warfare and the fifth column, to be sure, were not invented by the Soviets.

But the Russians weave the borrowed threads into a new design, the war without battlefield. By their superiority here they could offset their vulnerability on the battlefield.

This vulnerability is due to two causes.

In the first place, as the London Times of 27th August, 1954, points out, while the Soviets have recently relaxed their strict secrecy on atomic weapons,

On two very recent occasions, it should be noted, Marshal Bulganin has invoked the policy of co-existence. When the Conference for the formation of the 'Eastern NATO' opened in Warsaw on 11th May, 1955, he said:

"the fifth column which Mr. Kislitsin was sent to Australia as an MVD man in 1952 to organize was to be active continuously

'in all kinds of preparatory work'. His work was mainly the transference of illegal agents from abroad into Australia to organize the fifth column."

French journalist and intelligence agent. Under the pseudonym "Long" he was the head of the eponymous George Blun group in Switzerland. This group formed part of the Red Three, led by Alexander Radó.

Georges Blun

Nikolai Bulganin

INDEX

Chapter 1

ONCE upon a time the code of chivalry, and hence diplomatic etiquette and the usages of war, required the attacking power formally to declare war on its opponent before the opening of hostilities. After a suitable interval the opposing forces met on the battlefield, battle was joined, and the last battle decided the war. We have by now got used to the idea that an aggressor considers civilities such as a declaration of war out of place. Yet we still cling to the notion that battles and wars are necessarily fought or decided on the battlefield. It is true that even in wars of the past strategic victories have been sought off-stage, particularly by economic blockades, strategic bombing, and psychological warfare. But the final decisions were then still obtained on the battlefield. Now, however, a new conception of warfare seems to be in the making in which campaigns are fought by civilians far away from the front line. Subversion, espionage by infiltration, sabotage and partisan warfare are the weapons they will use in a future hot war,✢ and the theaters of operations are the home front and the enemy's lines of communication. This is war without a battlefield, a war in which the outcome of a battle or campaign may be decided before battle is joined. Before it commences the opponent is softened up or eliminated.

THE SOVIET STRATAGEM