FROM THE SAME OLD MOLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201520014-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: September 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201520014-0
ARTICLE APPEAREB
I RALJPH DE
TOLEDANO
From
the same
old mold
General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev, we hear at
every hand, is something
new in the Kremlin.
Time magazine, that fount of jour-
nalistic confusion, gilds his image.
The Washington Post, quoting a
"Western diplomat" in Moscow, hails
his "vintage charisma" and is over-
come by his "knowledge" of the
United States. Most of the national
media are dazzled by his "public
relations" sense.
But Mikhail Tsypkin, in a recent
masterly report for the Heritage
Foundation, bursts this balloon of
adulation by describing Mr. Gorba-
chev as "a new leader in the old
mold" and takes the new vozhd at his
word when he boasts that "Lenin
invented this style." Invented, yes,
but honed to murderous sharpness
by Josef Stalin.
What has General Secretary Gor-
bachev done to achieve these almost
unanimous accolades? He is rapidly
doing away with the Kremlin's mori-
bund leadership, but he has been
replacing it with a new and seem-
ingly more efficient gang of dedi-
cated cutthroats.
Marshal Ogarkov, apostle of a
Soviet nuclear first strike, is now the
military boss. The key post of for-
eign minister is held today by a Sta-
linist in modern dress with a record
of bloody domestic repression. Mr.
Gorbachev himself has been most
skillful in convincing an easily.
seduced West that he is a pragmatist
and a technocrat, out to reform the
Soviet system - but in everything
except conversation he has hewed
slavishly to old party lines.
His past tells it all. Tb the late
KGB chief and general secretary,
Yuri Andropov, he was a ruthless
enforcer. Tb Leonid Brezhnev, he
was a reliable member of the Krem-
lin's corrupt "mafia." He became a
WASHINGTON TIMES
6 September 1985
lawyer at a time when Soviet law was
little more than a firing squad. As a
Communist functionary at Moscow
University, he pushed hard for
Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns. He
received his mail-order agricultural
degrees from the Stavropol Agricul-
tural Institute, over which he
reigned as first secretary of the
.city's Communist Party.
What's more, he has made it abunr
dantly clear that his aim is to fine-
tune Stalinism rather than to end it.
Under the new vozhd, the tiny steps
toward loosening the political and
economic hold on Warsaw Pact coun-
tries have been reversed. He has
called for even greater Soviet par-
ticipation in the terrorist and guer-
rilla movements bedeviling Latin
America and the Third World. And
he has proclaimed a "Leninist
course" of political intervention and
military threat against the non-
Communist world.
Much has been made of Mr. Gor-
bachev's advocacy of industrial
centralization, but he also has called
for an increase in control and central
planning of the economy by the
Communist Party bureaucracy. The
secret police's increasingly repres-
sive acts have received a stamp of
approval by the promotion of the
KGB boss to the Politburo. And Mr.
Gorbachev has continued to focus
economic policy on the needs of the
military, not the needs of the people.
Stalin blew his propaganda horn
for a "collective security" against
Nazi Germany, even as he was cud-
dling up to Hitler. Mr. Gorbachev
says he wants an "international
security" system and a reduction in
armaments - while enunciating a
military policy of creating such a
vast and menacing nuclear and con-
ventional force that it will force the
United States to bow to Soviet
encroachments. The Soviets even
have a name for this - the "factor of
fear" - which they believe will com-
pel President Reagan to give the
Kremlin military hegemony by
abandoning the Strategic Defensive
Initiative.
And while this goes on, a cam-
paign in the press, TV, and cinema
glorifies the KGB for its
"achievements" in terrorizing the
Russian people.
KGB terror under Mr. Gorbachev
has, in fact, been exported in grow-
ing quantities and Gestapo-like pro-
portions to Eastern Europe - and
stringent policies subverting the
economies of Warsaw Pact countries
to Soviet needs have been promul-
gated.
What will the media apologists for
Mr. Gorbachev say when the reha-
bilitation of Stalin, now in the works,
reaches full shout? Probably that it
reflects the love of country of the
new vozhd!
Ralph de Tbledano is a nationally
syndicated columnist.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201520014-0