Last week I wrote about Boris Berezovsky, the Russian billionaire whose death was being investigated by British authorities. In order to understand Berezovsky’s career as the godfather of Russian capitalism, I asked former KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy about Berezovsky’s background. Without the slightest hesitation, he said that Berezovsky was a KGB agent who got his wealth from the Communist Party Soviet Union. He added that all the Russian oligarchs had been created in the same manner. To fully grasp the significance of this revelation, readers should imagine what it would signify if every single American billionaire had been set up in business by the FBI, using money taken from the Democratic Party. What kind of capitalism would be established on this basis? And a further question: what kind of trade system is so established?
Continuing my interview of last week, I put these and other questions to Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, who once worked as a top advisor to the Soviet KGB’s Directorate “T”. According to Preobrazhenskiy, “Russia is not a country of trade. Imperial Russia before 1917 was such a country. The current Russia and USSR, to which she is an inheritor, is a country of espionage.”
I asked Preobrazhenskiy whether he has shared these insights with U.S. policy-makers. “Oh no,” he said with a laugh. “They run from my opinions.” And why does a former KGB officer (who knows the truth of these things firsthand) get the cold shoulder from those he is trying to warn? The West, says Preobrazhenskiy, is the prisoner of its own wishful thinking. “The Myth that the Cold War has ended is the greatest delusion of the West,” he explained. “Let us ask a simple question: When did the Cold War finish – what date? When the armistice agreement was signed? And who admitted defeat?” he asked with a hint of sarcasm.
“Many believe that the Soviet Union was defeated,” the former KGB officer continued. “But maybe it has only gotten smaller. In fact, I do not see a large difference between the current Russia and the Soviet Union. Especially because some of its former republics – independent on paper – are still governed by the Kremlin; and if you try to approach any passerby on the Russian street and ask him if the Cold War is finished, he will tell you that it is not so, and that the U.S. is running the Cold War against Russia. He knows it from Russian state propaganda.”
Considering researcher Kevin E. Freeman’s theory that America’s economy has been intentionally sabotaged by “rogue elements in Communist China and Russia,” I asked about Russian and Chinese efforts to undermine the U.S. economy through trade. “It is impossible to undermine such a great country as the USA through trade,” said Preobrazhenskiy. “But it is possible to be done through espionage, sabotage and other kinds of secret activities. Both Russia and China know America’s vulnerabilities, and they are exploiting them as much as they can.”
But why would Russia and China do this?
“The same question is asked by the counterintelligence heads of Britain and Germany,” replied the former KGB officer. “In their interviews I feel a sincere misunderstanding: ‘Why are Russian spies distracting us from more important work against Chinese spies and Muslim terrorists? Don’t the Russians know that the Cold War has ended?’ I only grin hearing all this because Russia has very good relations both with the Muslims and the Chinese. There is no wonder that the new President of China, Xi Jinping, made his first visit not to the United States, but to Russia; and Putin has rejected the invitation to come to the United States and made his first visit to Belarus, thus demonstrating the idea of reconstructing the USSR. You are also wondering on what ideological basis Russia is spying against American now. It is done on the basis of anti-Americanism. They now see their goal as depriving the U.S. of its global power status. The basis of this anti-Americanism is the ideology of Eurasianism, invented by the NKVD in the 1920s. Now it has become the official ideology of Russia. It proclaims opposition against America on the basis of friendship with Iran and China.”
I asked the former KGB officer about Russia’s commitment to communism. Is communism really dead? And has capitalism really triumphed?
“Russia has never renounced communism!” Preobrazhenskiy exclaimed. “There is no official document where the Russian authorities would have said, ‘We renounce communism and condemn it.’ There was, of course, an attempt to force the renunciation of communism in 1992, when the court case against the Soviet Communist Party began. But very soon a powerful communist lobby crushed it. And this is not all, as I have learned from Vladimir Bukovsky. The trial of communism was terminated at the request of the West, since the West was so deeply involved in flirting with Soviet communism that if it became publicly known it would have caused a scandal. “
I asked if the continuance of communist power in Russia explained Moscow’s willingness to bury the last Tsar while refusing to bury Lenin.
“Russia’s seeming turn away from communism was nothing but a cosmetic operation,” noted Preobrazhenskiy. “The communists have now repainted themselves as democrats; and besides, now many tourists from communist China are arriving at Moscow – and first of all they rush to see Lenin’s body. Some of them say it is the main point of their coming to Moscow. I have seen huge crowds near Lenin’s tomb. How is it possible to bury Lenin after all this? Oh, how naïve the West is!”
Since Preobrazhenskiy worked for the KGB in the Far East recruiting Chinese and Japanese agents, I couldn’t help asking about a possible military alliance between Russia and China. To this he immediately replied, “This alliance already exists.” I asked on what basis this alliance was formed, given the idea that Russia and China were natural rivals.
“China is an ideological enemy of America,” he said. “It can’t be anything except an adversary. On the other hand, both Russia and China enjoy ideological integrity: devotion to communism and hatred of America. Chinese communists understand that the Russians have to put on a mask of democracy before the naïve West; but before China they don’t need this mask and unmask themselves. Both countries do not publicly declare their anti-American alliance. It is a part of their joint activity of deceiving America. You see, ideological integrity is a sufficient frame for such an alliance. As it is not public, it mostly concerns cooperation in some secret spheres. It is intelligence, first of all, in which they cooperate. I am sure there is some agreement between the intelligence services of both Russia and China for undermining America, but it is kept secret.”
There are some readers who will become angry at reading Preobrazhenskiy’s testimony. But Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy is not alone in making these statements. Others from his world have defected and risked their lives to warn Americans. Yet the story is always the same. Americans don’t want to listen to warning messages. It is our determination, as a people, to believe what is convenient and to accept enemy-generated propaganda about ourselves. We want to invest in Russia and China. We want to believe that capitalism has triumphed. But capitalism is dying right here, right now, on American soil. How do we explain this? Have we properly accounted for what is happening? Our long prosperity has spoiled us. Our wealth has inoculated us from the truth. We have now become a people who prefer pleasant lies to unpleasant truths. We had better wake up. There isn’t much time left.
