17 November and the Strategy of Deception: Was Golitsyn Right?

In his 1984 book entitled, New Lies for Old, Committee for State Security (KGB) defector Anatoliy Golitsyn predicted a forthcoming fake democratization of communist bloc countries for the ultimate goal of deceiving and defeating the West. According to Golitsyn, Czechoslovakia played a significant role in the deception. The Prague Spring of 1968 was a communist provoked uprising that was to be replicated on a larger scale in the future. On 17 November 1989, Czechoslovak secret police provocateurs led an official communist student demonstration away from its approved course of march in Prague. When the police surrounded and viciously attacked the crowd of protestors, one of the secret police agents posed as a dead student. In only a few days the news of the alleged student killing led to a general uprising. It appears that some members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and the Czechoslovak secret services, in cooperation with the Soviet secret service, planned, organized, and initiated the events of 17 November 1989, which marked the start of the Velvet Revolution. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was not a genuine revolt of the Czech and Slovak people against the communist regime. Rather, it is the hypothesis of this paper that, as foreseen by Golitsyn, the revolution was a communist planned handing of power to new cadres as part of a long-term deception strategy designed to transform and unify Europe into a neutral socialist continent.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Defense and Strategic Studies

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Defense and Strategic Studies

Year

2005

Author dc:creator

• Hlouskova, Romana

Contributors dc:contributor

• William Van Cleave

• Golitsyn
• Angleton
• Dubcek
• Gorbachev
• Mlynar
• Havel
• dissidents
• Velvet Revolution
• Communist
• deception
• strategy
• Czechoslovakia
• Charter 77
• Prague Spring
• provocation
• KGB
• secret police
• trust
• disarmament
• New Economic Policy
• perestroika
• Defense and Security Studies

Statement dc:rights

• © Romana Hlouskova

Repository record dc:identifier

https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/1386

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:bearworks.missouristate.edu:theses-2387