Red Cocaine by Joseph Douglass part 13

CHAPTER 4: Khrushchev Instructs the Satellites        45

demonstrating broadly, through psychopolitical indoctrination, that the soul is nonexistent, and that Man is an animal'. Reprinted in Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Communist Textbook on Psychopolitics (MeIbourne, Victoria, Australia: New Times Ltd., 1956), page 35. (See also Introduction to the Second Edi-tiof the present work, pages IX to XI - Ed.].

12. These figures are supported by Western surveys. For example, by the early 1970s, 78 percent of all Catholic priests in Chile identified themselves as being on the left politically. James R. Whelan, Out of the Ashes, op. cit., page 712.

13. Sejna had first heard the term 'lumpen proletariat' in the early 1950s. At that time, it was the label attached to that portion of the proletariat who were not rising up to oppose the bourgeoisie; that is to say those who were not easily recruited to the Communist movement.

In 1963, the term took on new meaning. It was now used to describe the unemployed and people who did not want to work or contribute. The Soviets believed that such people often turned to crime to support themselves and, indeed, in their view, being unemployed was almost synonymous with being a criminal. Communist studies also concluded that this group of people, in addition to crime, often turned to drugs - both the sale of drugs and their use. As a result of this linkage to crime, drugs, and other immoral activities, Soviet and East European analysts concluded that the lumpen proletariat could be profitably used to accelerate the destabilisation of the United States.

This conclusion was further strengthened because the big cities were considered to be the principal

revolutionary centres within the United States, and life in these cities was becoming more and more dominated by the lumpen proletariat. Additionally, military service draftees were believed to be extensively recruited from the so-called lumpen proletariat, which was thus a high priority target for corruption because of their potentially adverse effect on the military. This was not a recruitment exercise. Members of the lumpen proletariat were still not considered suitable for the revolutionary movement. But they were a key target because of the damage they could do to capitalist society through destabilisation and demoralisation, and therefore were an asset to be used to help in the revolutionary process - before being destroyed following the revolution.

Within  the  lumpen  proletariat,  the  minorities  were  identified  as  especially important  because  they

constituted over 70 percent of it, according to the relevant Soviet studies. Accordingly, race became an integral dimension of the targeted class, with Black people and Hispanics being the two most important minorities. The Soviets believed that there were growing divisions between the Whites and the non-White minorities, and that the US Government could not solve the problem. As Moscow analysed the situation, capitalism was dying, and as the economic and social situation deteriorated, more and more members of the lumpen proletariat would be generated. The effect of this conclusion was to highlight the importance of the lumpen proletariat even further.

By 1967, the concept of lumpen proletariat was dominated by the image of the inner-city poor, especially the minorities. Most of the Third World was also regarded as lumpen proletariat. Even so, whereas, in 1963, this group was viewed as the main consumer of drugs, still, the main target to whom the drugs were to be marketed was not this group, but rather the elite. By 1967, this had also changed, with respect to discussions of Soviet narcotics strategy directed against the United States, and the lumpen proletariat, which by this time and in this context meant the inner-city poor and mainly Black people and Hispanics, became a key target for drug- trafficking and the main group to be recruited to do the marketing. Also, by 1967, Soviet strategy included the promotion of race warfare within the West, and this strategy was reflected in Soviet propaganda, disinformation and even industrial contracting policies.

CHAPTER FIVE                                                        47

ORGANISING FOR

'DRUZHBA NARODOV'

In the West, when people speak of intelligence operations, what they normally have in mind are covert operations run out of a nation's intelligence service, such as the CIA, KGB or GRU. This concept does a great disservice to Communist intelligence operations, which involve many agencies, not just the KGB or GRU, and which are generally not directed by the intelligence services, but rather by the Defence Council, Administrative Organs Department, or another appropriate Party organisation. That is, intelligence operations are Communist Party operations designed to serve State interests, which only the Party can establish'. The intelligence service is strictly an instrument of Party strategy, again in contrast to the United States which has no counterpart strategy. The operation known as

'Druzhba Narodov' - Khrushchev's clever 'Friendship of Nations' plan - is especially inter- esting because of the insight it provides into the nature of Soviet intelligence operations.

Even in the beginning, in the mid-to late-1950s, the drug and narcotics operation involved more than intelligence officers. Medical science personnel were heavily involved in analysis, research and testing. The principal motivating force was Nikita Khrushchev, the First (later, General) Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Initial

planning was conducted by the special joint civilian/military Czechoslovak/Soviet team

mentioned previously. The incorporation of drug-trafficking strategy into national security planning was handled by a special committee under the direction of Leonid Brezhnev. This committee, which met between the fall of 1956 and the spring of 1957, was responsible for a comprehensive upgrading of Soviet strategy to bring it into the nuclear age. Brezhnev's deputy was Mikhail Suslov, the head Soviet ideologist. Subcommittee leaders were Marshal V. D. Sokolovskiy (military), Dimitry Ustinov (military industry), Boris Ponomarev (foreign affairs) and General Nikolai Mironov (intelligence).

Two revisions of Soviet strategy with respect to drugs and narcotics emerged during the course of this review. The first involved an official recognition that drugs could be important weapons for use in weakening opposing military forces2. Secondly, it was realised that drugs could be used to influence bourgeois leaderships in the Third World and among Social Democratic parties in particular, although none were to be excluded.

Responsibility for market analysis and targeting was assigned to the International Department of the CPSU. The International Department was also involved in the collec- tion of corruption information on foreign leaders and its use in either blackmail, intimida- tion or exposure operations. This department was also heavily involved in propaganda

planning and would probably have made the critical decision to release information on

Chinese drug-trafficking to the propaganda operation.

The Main Political Administration of the Army and Navy, the department that keeps ideological watch over the military, was also involved in the drug-trafficking operation from the beginning. As early as 1956, the Czechoslovak leadership was advised by Soviet General Kalashnik, the ideologist at the Main Political Administration, about a new view on drugs and other chemicals capable of affecting the mind and behaviour of millions of people. This was one of five new weapons which could 'destroy the enemy before he can destroy us'. The other weapons included the ideological offensive, which meant propaganda and deception, good foreign policy designed to split the West, isolation of the United States, and economic and social chaos. It was essential, General Kalashnik explained, that the military should hasten to understand that there were weapons of great effectiveness, other than conventional and nuclear weapons.

A similar explanation was provided by Khrushchev in the early summer of 1963 in Moscow. During an informal discussion, Khrushchev had just criticised Marshal Rodion Ya. Malinovsky for being in far too much of a rush to push his tanks into the West. Then Khrushchev explained that the Soviets were operating at two strategic levels simultaneously, to engage the West in war. The first echelon was deception, disinformation and propaganda. The second echelon was the destruction of capitalism by their own money through drugs. Once these two echelons have been successful, Khrushchev emphasised, then you can use the third strategic echelon, Comrade Malinovsky - our tanks.

As the Soviet Bloc drug offensive grew and matured, the organisation became more complex - but with control and secrecy remaining extremely tight. This is another char- acteristic of Soviet operations: just because an operation expands, it does not follow that control over information becomes loose. The Defence Council itself is a case in point. The Defence Council remains small precisely in order to maintain tight control and good security. In the drug business, while many people were involved, few really knew the true purpose of the operation, or even of the massive Soviet involvement.

The principal Czechoslovak organisations that participated in the drug business are identified in Figure 1 on page 49. The organisational structure applied in Czechoslovakia paralleled the organisational structure in the Soviet Union. Certain organisational names are different: for example, the Czechoslovak counterpart of the Soviet International Department was the Foreign Department; the First Secretary was the General Secretary in the Soviet Union; and the Czechoslovak Second Administration under the Ministry of Interior was the counterpart to the Soviet KGB. There are different research centres in the Soviet Union, and Soviet organisations are larger and more varied; but the essence of the two organisational structures is the same.

The principal differences are that the Soviet organisations make strategic decisions of global scope, and are larger, and that there are organisations in the Soviet Union which are responsible for foreign Communist Parties and which have no counterpart in Czechoslovakia. This particular distinction could be regarded as especially important.

For example, important inputs to the development of drug-trafficking strategy in Latin America were provided by the local Communist Parties, which would meet each year in Moscow and present their assessments of the progress of their drug operations, making recommendations for new techniques, markets and tactics.

As in all important Soviet operations, the General Secretary was not only informed,

CHAPTER 5: Organising for 'Druzhba Narodov'                 49

First Secretary Czechoslovak Defence Council Joint Committee
GOVERNMENT	PARTY [Central Committee]
Ministry of Interior	Administrative        Organs Department
Second     Administration     Strategic Intelligence Agent networks Counter-intelligence	Main                      Political Administration
Finance Administration	Foreign Department
Ministry of Defence	Health Department
Intelligence       Administration       [Zs] Strategic Intelligence  Agent Networks Special Propaganda Finance	Propaganda and Agitation Department Finance Department
Rear Services Health Administration
Department  of  Technical  Support  for Foreign Countries	Science Department
Main Finance Administration	Highest Party School
Ministry of Finance Military Section
Academy of Sciences
Ministry of Foreign Trade Main Technical Administration
Foreign Ministry
State    Plan    Commission    Military Administration

Figure 1: Czechoslovak organisations involved in international offensive drug operations during overt

Communism.