Hitler England & USA. His puppet master, then Who killed the jew?

Doesn't this look like it was done by the same designer studio ?!
A higher echelon doing the propaganda for both, German and Russian "socialists" ?
Some things flash to one's mind when "unrelated" objects are juxtaposed.....

 

No. First time I hear his name Will look out for his book.

I have read a book about Yakov Sverdlov (not his real last name).
About Trotsky only what Viktor Suvorov wrote about him in his books where he writes about the reasons Stalin let Trotsky go instead of doing what he always did with old revolutionaries, and later needed to silence him. I'm not an expert on this topic

 

"...invented by later anti-Communists." Really !?
Since Communists never understood economics (and will never understand), they killed millions of peasants.
Was it deliberate ? Not necesarily. Was it arrogance by economically uneducated ? Yes, definitely. We can reasonably call the starvation of millions to death deliberate.

Yes, Stalin's self-sabotage looks crazy. But only if we consider him an independent player.
If he is just a subordinate, then this becomes the only logical conclusion, in my opinion.

We were talking about the brain of the U.S.-Israel dog and those who are the real brain. Those who are the directors of this theater play we call history.

Now let's say the controllers control not only London, New York, Paris, but also Moscow. Stalin has to produce a machine that will "conquer the world" - so he is told. He is the right man for this - actual history is proof ! He is up to the task.

But the war in Europe does not go as planned by the "brain" !
Yes, Hitler did bite into that Poland trap. But the German Wehrmacht is crashing Poland too fast. They are crushing France too fast ! They are not able and not willing to expand that war. Britain has to do it instead !

There are no millions of dead soldiers in Europe !
There are no millions of dead civilians !
There is just not enough HORROR produced for the people to accept the merger of their countries to a superstate. And they will never accept it, if that new war does not produce that much needed HORROR !

This war MUST go global !
This war has to produce MILLIONS of victims. Almost everyone of import must be affected by the horror (except the U.S. - the later victor and "savior").

Sorry, dear Stalin !
But now you are the only one who can save the day !
You must be the pawn that will be sacrificed on the chessboard to produce the needed win.
It is true, we told you that, eventually, you will emerge as the new Queen on the newly aranged chessboard (they lied, of course). But we miscalculated the situation with this miserable Germany (that must be true) ! Sorry for that.
Now we need you to lay down and let them crush you, for a while. Don't worry, we will help you to survive (true). Those impertinent Germans don't stand a chance anyway (true).
We really need millions of victims in Europe and the only way is to prolong that war for several years so we will have time to do our work.

Stalin : I hate that, but if this is the only way..... I have to agree to follow up on your suggestion, my masters.

The rest is "history" !

 

Molotov and Nikolai Yezhov walking with Stalin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stali...lov,_Molotov,_Stalin,_with_Nikolai_Yezhov.jpg

Hmmm, 8 hidden hands, but only one real one.

It seems that Stalinism was much different from other gradations of Marxist thought, particularly in Stalinism's demand for a pyramidal totalitarian state, subordinating not only USSR workers' soviets to him but foreign communists to him as well. His 1924 development of "Socialism in One Country" seems belied by his demand for such foreign subordination and militarily in what Suvorov detailed in Icebreaker -- with the latter in quoting from numerous Soviet sources and high level personal accounts.

From one particular POV, perhaps Trotsky et al. can indeed be considered a traitor, but to what or whom? It would seem that the possible treason would be against Stalin and Stalinism, and not to the wider principles of the 'revolution', based upon their lifetime of efforts, especially like Trotsky.

And, curiously, as Hitler built Nazi Germany and its war machine, Stalin did so with Western Capitalism's aid, via the likes of Henry Ford (very odd considering his raging anti-Semitism) and Armand Hammer (Occidental Petroleum, etc..).

While some historians view Stalinism as a reflection of the ideologies of Leninism and Marxism, some argue that it stands separate from the socialist ideals it stemmed from. After a political struggle that culminated in the defeat of the Bukharinists, Stalinism was free to shape policy without opposition, ushering forth an era of harsh authoritarianism that soldiered toward rapid industrialization regardless of the cost.[13]

From 1917 to 1924, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Stalin often appeared united, but they had discernible ideological differences. In his dispute with Trotsky, Stalin de-emphasized the role of workers in advanced capitalist countries (for example, he considered the American working class "bourgeoisified" labour aristocracy). Stalin also polemicized against Trotsky on the role of peasants as in China whereas Trotsky's position was in favor of urban insurrection over peasant-based guerrilla warfare.

Whilst all other October Revolution 1917 Bolshevik leaders regarded their revolution more or less just as the beginning, they saw Russia as the leapboard on the road towards the World Wide Revolution, Stalin eventually introduced the idea of Socialism in One Country by the autumn of 1924. This did not just stand in sharp contrast to Trotsky's "Permanent Revolution", but in contrast also to all earlier Socialistic theses. But by time and through circumstances, the revolution did not spread outside Russia, as Lenin had assumed it soon would. Not even within the other former territories Russian Empire such as Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had the revolution been a success. On the contrary, all these countries had returned to capitalist bourgeois rule.[14] But still, by the autumn of 1924, Stalin's idea of socialism in Soviet Russia alone, initially was next to blasphemy in the ears of the other Politburo members- Zinoviev and Kamenev to the intellectual left, Rykov, Bukharin and Tomsky to the pragmatic right and the powerful Trotsky, who belonged to no side but his own. None of them had even thought of Stalin's concept as a potential addition to Communist ideology. Hence, Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" doctrine couldn't be imposed until he had become close to being the autocratic ruler of the U.S.S.R. (from around 1929, as Trotsky had been exiled, and Zinoviev and Kamenev had been thrown out of the party, Bukharin and the Right Opposition expressed their support for imposing Stalin's ideas). [15]

While traditional communist thought holds that the state will gradually "wither away" as the implementation of socialism reduces class distinction, Stalin argued that the proletarian state (as opposed to the bourgeois state) must become stronger before it can wither away. In Stalin's view, counter-revolutionary elements will try to derail the transition to full communism, and the state must be powerful enough to defeat them.[16] For this reason, Communist regimes influenced by Stalin have been widely described as totalitarian.

...​

On the purges:

In the 1930s, Stalin apparently became increasingly worried about the growing popularity of the Leningrad party boss Sergei Kirov. At the 1934 Party Congress where the vote for the new Central Committee was held, Kirov received only three negative votes (the fewest of any candidate) while Stalin received at least over a hundred negative votes.[24][25] After the assassination of Kirov, which may have been orchestrated by Stalin, Stalin invented a detailed scheme to implicate opposition leaders in the murder, including Trotsky, Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev.[26] The investigations and trials expanded.[27] Stalin passed a new law on "terrorist organizations and terrorist acts" that were to be investigated for no more than ten days, with no prosecution, defense attorneys or appeals, followed by a sentence to be executed "quickly".[28]

Thereafter, several trials known as the Moscow Trials were held, but the procedures were replicated throughout the country. Article 58 of the legal code, which listed prohibited anti-Soviet activities as counter-revolutionary crime, was applied in the broadest manner.[29] Many alleged anti-Soviet pretexts were used to brand someone an "enemy of the people", starting the cycle of public persecution, often proceeding to interrogation, torture and deportation, if not death. The Russian word troika gained a new meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three subordinated to NKVD troika—with sentencing carried out within 24 hours.[28] Stalin's hand-picked executioner Vasili Blokhin was entrusted with carrying out some of the high-profile executions in this period.[30]



Nikolai Yezhov, walking with Stalin in the top photo from the 1930s, was killed in 1940 and following his execution was edited out of the photo by Soviet censors[31] (such retouching was a common occurrence during Stalin's rule)


Many military leaders were convicted of treason and a large-scale purge of Red Army officers followed.[32] The repression of so many formerly high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Leon Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime from that of Lenin.[33] In August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since January 1937—this eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership.[34]

With the exception of Vladimir Milyutin (who died in prison in 1937) and Stalin himself, all of the members of Lenin's original cabinet who had not succumbed to death from natural causes before the purge were executed....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism​

Also of note, it seems that many Marxists, including Trotsky felt that a country such as Russia was ill suited to bring the movement to completion, because of the small size of its capitalist and bourgeois political classes. Russia was a country still deep in traditional fuedalism.

In 1905, Trotsky formulated his theory of permanent revolution that later became a defining characteristic of Trotskyism. Until 1905, some revolutionaries[10] claimed that Marx's theory of history positioned that only a revolution in a European capitalist society would lead to a socialist one. According to this position, it was impossible for a socialist revolution to occur in a backward, feudal country such as early 20th century Russia when it had such a small and almost powerless capitalist class.

The theory of permanent revolution addressed the question of how such feudal regimes were to be overthrown and how socialism could be established given the lack of economic prerequisites. Trotsky argued that in Russia only the working class could overthrow feudalism and win the support of the peasantry. Furthermore, he argued that the Russian working class would not stop there. They would win their own revolution against the weak capitalist class, establish a workers' state in Russia and appeal to the working class in the advanced capitalist countries around the world. As a result, the global working class would come to Russia's aid and socialism could develop worldwide. ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trotskyism​

Trotsky's and the others' approaches were more democratic, and thus Stalin's approach was best suited to being co-optive and surreptitiously run by a "hidden hand". Because there was only one person in authority to steer, not a herd of revolutionary cats.

 

As we can see below, Stalin was indeed a break from Leninism, similar to how Hitler redirected the NSDAP workers' party from its supposed original focus, per Otto Strasser. The same general modus operandi.

Proponents of continuity [from Lenin to Stalin - rs] cite a variety of contributory factors as it is argued that it was Lenin, rather than Stalin, whose civil war measures introduced the Red Terror with its hostage taking and internment camps, that it was Lenin who developed the infamous Article 58 and who established the autocratic system within the Communist Party.[86] They also note that Lenin put a ban on factions within the Russian Communist Party and introduced the one-party state in 1921—a move that enabled Stalin to get rid of his rivals easily after Lenin's death and cite Felix Dzerzhinsky, who during the Bolshevik struggle against opponents in the Russian Civil War exclaimed: "We stand for organised terror—this should be frankly stated".[87]

Opponents of this view include revisionist historians and a number of post-Cold War and otherwise dissident Soviet historians including Roy Medvedev, who argues that although "one could list the various measures carried out by Stalin that were actually a continuation of anti-democratic trends and measures implemented under Lenin [...] in so many ways, Stalin acted, not in line with Lenin's clear instructions, but in defiance of them".[88] In doing so, some historians have tried to distance Stalinism from Leninism in order to undermine the totalitarian view that the negative facets of Stalin were inherent in communism from the start.[89] Critics of this kind include anti-Stalinist communists such as Leon Trotsky, who pointed out that Lenin attempted to persuade the Communist Party to remove Stalin from his post as its General Secretary. Lenin's Testament, the document which contained this order, was suppressed after Lenin's death. In his biography of Trotsky, British historian Isaac Deutscher says that on being faced with the evidence "only the blind and the deaf could be unaware of the contrast between Stalinism and Leninism".[90] A similar analysis is present in more recent works, such as those of Graeme Gill, who argues that "[Stalinism was] not a natural flow-on of earlier developments; [it formed a] sharp break resulting from conscious decisions by leading political actors".[91] However, Gill notes that "difficulties with the use of the term reflect problems with the concept of Stalinism itself. The major difficulty is a lack of agreement about what should constitute Stalinism".[92] Revisionist historians such as Sheila Fitzpatrick have criticised the focus upon the upper levels of society and the use of Cold War concepts, such as totalitarianism, which have obscured the reality of the system. ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism
​

From the same link:

Trotskyists argue that the Stalinist Soviet Union was not socialist (and not communist), but a bureaucratised degenerated workers' state—that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which although not owning the means of production and not constituting a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class. Trotsky believed that the Bolshevik revolution needed to be spread all over the globe's working class, the proletarians for world revolution. However, after the failure of the revolution in Germany, Stalin reasoned that industrializing and consolidating Bolshevism in Russia would best serve the proletariat in the long run. The dispute did not end until Trotsky's assassination in his Mexican villa by the Stalinist assassin Ramón Mercader in 1940.[80]

In the United States, Max Shachtman, at the time one of the principal Trotskyist theorists in the United States, argued that the Soviet Union had evolved from a degenerated worker's state to a new mode of production he called "bureaucratic collectivism": where orthodox Trotskyists considered the Soviet Union an ally gone astray, ...​

Stalin even awarded Mercader a medal for killing Trotsky.

​

 

No.
Just collected it some time ago but never researched the origins myself and did not encounter any mentioning of it anywhere. But there may be something out there on the internet !?

 

The Conspiracies Were Genuine

On June 17, 1937, just prior to the June CC plenum, Nikolai Ezhov, who had replaced Iagoda as Commissar of the NKVD, transmitted a message from S. N. Mironov, NKVD chief in Western Siberia, reporting the threat of revolts by subversives in concert with Japanese intelligence. Mironov reported that Robert I. Eikhe, Party First Secretary of Western Siberia, would request the ability to form a “troika” to deal with this threat (Furr 2016, 48; Khaustov and Samuel’son 2009, 332–333).

On June 19, 1937 Stalin received a telegram, addressed to the Soviet government, sent by Trotsky from his exile in Mexico. In it, Trotsky stated that Stalin’s policies would lead “to external and internal collapse.” On it Stalin signed his name and wrote: “Ugly spy! Brazen spy of Hitler!” It was also signed by Molotov, Voroshilov, Mikoian, and Zhdanov. Clearly, they all believed that Trotsky really was in contact with the Germans. Given Tukhachevsky’s confession and Marshal Budennyi’s comments on the Tukhachevsky trial, there can no doubt that this conspiracy did exist (Furr 2009, 15).
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/research/furr_yezhov_jls17.pdf​

So far, I've only read this far, and I have to say, "WTF"? I hope that Furr has better evidence than this. Merely believing in something, or wanting to believe in something doesn't make it a fact. Confessions sans hard evidence and comments are frequently untrustworthy, especially given the high stakes involved. If there was hard evidence, then I would have to imagine that Furr would offer up such, but here, at least, he doesn't.

In any case, I now have to consider that Stalin was a Trotskyite, and Trotsky was a Stalinite, based upon the reconciling their claimed actions with their rhetoric. And that Stalin never achieved his goal of grassroots democracy, because as far as I understand it only the members of the Communist Party got to vote on some matters.

How does one reconcile Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" with the fact that the USSR militarily took the Baltic states, parts of Finland, Romania, and half of Poland? That he had no part in these doings?

Iakovlev’s Arrest and Confession

The Saratov oblast’ Party organization had distrusted Iakovlev, who had been a Trotskyist in 1923. Stalin had stood firmly by him. But on October 12, the day after the opening of the CC Plenum, Iakovlev was arrested. Two days later he confessed to having been a clandestine Trotskyist “sleeper” since 1923. An even greater shock was the fact that Iakovlev also confessed to having been recruited by a German agent who told him that they, the Germans, were in contact with Trotsky and wished to work with Iakovlev on the same terms. Iakovlev’s confession is arguably one of the most important documents from the former Soviet archives published in recent years. That no doubt explains why it is virtually never mentioned, let alone studied, by mainstream historians of the USSR. Iakovlev inculpated as conspirators a number of leading Soviet figures. In a few cases, we also have one or more confessions that confirm Iakovlev’s confession.​

This is pretty bizarre. The man who was just prior described as being one of Stalin's closet associates in drafting the 1936 Constitution calling for contested democratic elections then confesses to being a sleeper Trotyskyite, ... when it seems that Trotsky's rhetoric was that of a democratic socialist?

One wonders why the Politburo and such allowed Stalin to continue on, considering how he was so going against the grain of those holding the power over him, otherwise preventing him from doing what he wanted? On the other hand, Trotsky's position of permanent revolution seems more consistent with Suvorov's presentation of a plan to attack 'Hitler's Europe'.

Ezhov was arrested on April 10, 1939. According to Ezhov the idea of an NKVD conspiracy was first suggested to him by German military attache General Ernst Kostring. After the Tukhachevsky Affair trial and executions Marshal € Egorov (already a conspirator) and the Germans reconsidered this original plan, which was oriented towards aiding an invasion of the USSR by Germany and/or allies. With the top figures in the military conspiracy now removed, the Germans suggested a coup d’etat instead.​

Operation Barbarossa started June 22, 1941, more than two years after Ezhov was arrested. So Stalin et al. had to have understood that Hitler planned to attack at some point.

Perhaps Furr's general argumentation is evidence that Stalin has indeed been framed by hidden 'others', a Deep State of sorts, something akin to the argument that Trump is merely a useful idiot?

​

 

Some good facts about the Soviet Union mixed with the usual propaganda lies about Germany.
No wonder this video is available at Amazon !

 

Chapter 29 of Icebreaker has Suvorov discussing why Stalin would not have trusted Churchill's so-called "warning letters" to him, and that, in any case, they should not be interpreted as "warning letters". Instead, rather as encouragements to attack Germany by opening up a second front, thus repeating the disastrous situation Germany found itself in in WWI. But as Suvorov explained, Hitler had sealed Germany's fate by signing the fateful Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty that resulted in the loss of effective defensible space in the intermediate countries, even beyond that of Poland.

Stalin knew that war on two fronts would be suicide for Hitler. Stalin calculated that Hitler would not commit suicide, and that he would not begin a war in the east without having first ended the war in the west. Stalin was patiently waiting for the German tank corps to land in Britain. He was not alone in looking upon the brilliant airborne assault on Crete as a final rehearsal for landing in Britain. At the same time Stalin did everything possible to convince Hitler of his peaceableness. That was why Soviet anti-aircraft guns were not firing on German aircraft, while Soviet newspapers and TASS proclaimed that there would be no war between the Soviet Union and Germany.

Had Stalin succeeded in convincing Hitler that the Soviet Union was a neutral country, then the German tank corps without any doubt would have landed on the British Isles. And then a truly unprecedented situation would have arisen. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, France, Greece and Albania no longer had armies, governments, parliaments or political parties.

Millions of people had been driven into Nazi concentration camps and the whole of Europe was awaiting its liberation. All that remained on the European continent was the regiment of Hitler's personal guards, the guards of the Nazi concentration camps, German rear units, military schools and . . . five Soviet airborne assault corps, tens of thousands of fast tanks built specially for moving along motorways; tens of thousands of aircraft; pilots who had not been trained for fighting in the air, but who had been taught how to make air strikes on ground targets; divisions and whole armies of the NKVD; armies made up of prisoners from the Soviet labour camps; extra-high-power formations of the Glider Air Force to make rapid landings on enemy territory; mountain divisions trained to make swift thrusts into the mountain passes over which flowed oil, the life- blood of war.

Has anyone in history ever been in such a favourable position to 'liberate' Europe? And this situation did not come about by itself. Stalin, working long, persistently and in sustained fashion, had made a subtle mosaic from the smallest of fragments. It was Stalin who helped to bring Hitler to power, and made Hitler, in Stalin's phrase, a real icebreaker for the revolution. It was Stalin who encouraged the icebreaker to move into Europe. It was Stalin who demanded of the French and other communists that they should not prevent the icebreaker from breaking up Europe. It was Stalin who supplied the icebreaker with everything it needed for its victorious advance. It was Stalin who closed his eyes to all the crimes being committed by the Nazis and rejoiced in the pages of Pravda 'when the world was shaken to its foundations, when powers perished and greatness fell'.

But Hitler guessed Stalin's design. That was why World War II ended catastrophically for Stalin. He only got half of Europe, and some places here and there in Asia.

One final question. If Churchill did not warn Stalin that an invasion was being prepared, why do the communists hold on so tenaciously to the legend that he did? To show to the Soviet people that Churchill was a good man? Or to prove that the Western leaders were to be trusted? It was not, of course, for either purpose. The communists need the legend of Churchill's warnings to justify their own preparations for war. The 'warnings' bolster the orthodox view that the 'big plan' for which such elaborate preparations had been made was simply intended to forestall German aggression. 'We knew that Hitler was going to attack,' they say. 'It was Churchill who warned us . . .' (Icebreaker, pp. 294-296)​

Regarding the red highlighted (mine) text above, I have mentioned elsewhere that the failure of the German communists to compromise with the German socialists upon a candidate to oppose Hitler in 1933 resulted in the election of Hitler. It is pretty agreed, as far as I know, that communists beyond the USSR took their marching orders from the Kremlin.

While Suvorov discusses that Stalin was indeed is such a great position to achieve total victory in Europe, Suvorov has also discussed (and besides this chapter) that Hitler had to have been aware that the Soviets would indeed be attacking him, sooner or later. And so we are generally left with historians, including Suvorov, debating about whether and how Churchill, Stalin , and Hitler were gaming each other. But perhaps we should be considering more that all these were more gaming their own people than each other. As Suvorov noted, in the one Churchill warning that he quoted, Churchill's literal words could not really be taken seriously by anyone that was reasonably abreast of the real situations. And so they were yet sufficient to use as post-war justification propaganda by the USSR for decades. We have also seen that both the German and Soviet sides had to be aware of each others' intentions and actions in preparing for offensive actions against each other.

Such forms a nice segue into Chapter 30, where Suvorov tells us that Stalin liquidated the top levels of the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency, 8 times before 1940.

Stalin prepared himself very seriously for war. He showed particular concern for Soviet military intelligence which is known today as the GRU. It is sufficient to read through the list of all the GRU chiefs since the institution was set up prior to 1940 to appreciate Stalin's touching concern for his valiant intelligence officers:

Aralov— arrested, spent several years under investigation, in which 'measures of physical coercion' were used
Stigga— liquidated
Nikonov— liquidated
Berzin— liquidated
Unshlikht — liquidated
Uritsky— liquidated
Yezhov— liquidated
Proskurov — liquidated​

It goes without saying that when the military intelligence chiefs were liquidated, their first deputies, their deputies, advisers and directors of their services boards and departments were liquidated as well. And when the heads of departments were liquidated, a shadow invariably fell over the executive officers and agents whom they were directing. The liquidation of the heads of military intelligence, therefore, meant the liquidation of the entire military intelligence. (Icebreaker, pg. 297)​

It is understandable that from time to time one can find either incompetent or treasonous 'agents' within one's intelligence services and thus must be replaced. In the case of the latter 7 top layers, they were apparently 'liquidated', according to Suvorov. In this case "dead men tell no lies", or otherwise.

Suvorov goes at some length to explain that each time the GRU was purged in such a manner it became more effective. If so, I would imagine that this could be the case only after the first few episodes, in that the incoming replacements 'aggressiveness' also leads to its own biasing mechanisms. Instead, this reads to me more like Stalin and his own hidden hand needing to make sure that various dirty laundry is taken care of as they go along. We seem to be witnessing similar in the curious cases of James Comey, Peter Strzok, and General Flynn, etc. in relation to handling matters related to Obama, Hillary, and Trump.

The following is written by a former high ranking FBI official, Kevin Brock: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/422801-three-oddities-in-fbi-handling-of-flynn-interview

Also apropos: https://thehill.com/policy/national...onal-security-posts-with-turnover-under-trump

In our case today, we do not have the established culture of such quick and irreversible 'justice'. Likely, these 'players' were following their script, and probably many of the Soviet and Nazi 'players' were as well. Were they 'liquidated' ... or given new identities and assignments?

​

 

The following is an excerpt from a Guardian article about Suvorov (mostly) and Skripal.

...
Viktor Suvorov is a literary pen-name: he was born Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun in Soviet Ukraine; his father a military officer, his mother a nurse. (His Ukrainian roots are another reason the Kremlin might have it in for him, sources in Moscow tell me.) His father was a confirmed Bolshevik who believed the USSR could flourish were it not for the “bad guys at the top”, and Suvorov grew up a “fanatical communist”. He attended military school, joined the Red Army and took part in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. An outstanding officer, he trained tactical reconnaissance sergeants and served in the intelligence division of the Volga military district headquarters – an experience Suvorov describes in Aquarium.

In 1970, he was recruited by the GRU. He was now part of an elite organisation that was a bitter rival of the KGB. His disillusionment with the Soviet system began only when he got to Geneva, he says, where he was attached to the UN mission. Suvorov says he was summoned to the airport one day to watch the arrival of an Ilyushin-76 transport plane from Moscow. When its ramp was lowered, gold bars were taken out of the cargo bay – to buy food from America. “We couldn’t feed ourselves,” he says.

Further disillusion came when he and his “wonderful spy wife” Tatiana went on holiday. They took the train from Basel and travelled across West Germany to east Berlin, passing the wall. “It was the same people, same history, same bloody Germans. [But] it’s a Mercedes here and it’s a Trabant there,” he recalls with a laugh. He read George Orwell’s Animal Farm. “At first I thought: ‘These aren’t Russian pigs, they’re pigs from Berkshire.’ Then I realised it was about the people in the Kremlin. They had banned the book inside the Soviet Union because they recognised themselves.”

He read Nineteen Eighty-Four. “Orwell was never a communist, but was close to them. He understood the totalitarian state has to be like that. He never visited the USSR, but he realised everything better than anybody could imagine,” Suvorov says. He says his wife – the daughter of an intelligence officer – agreed to defect with him. They have been married for 47 years. “It’s an achievement,” he says.

From his new home in the UK, Suvorov wrote one of the most influential books of the perestroika era, Icebreaker. When it was published in 1988, his argument was heretical: that Stalin had been secretly plotting an offensive against Hitler’s Germany, and would have invaded in September 1941, or at the latest by 1942. Stalin, he wrote, wanted Hitler to destroy democracy in Europe, in the manner of an icebreaker, thereby clearing the way for world communism. The book undermined the idea that the USSR was an innocent party, dragged into the second world war. Russian liberals supported Suvorov’s thesis; it now has broad acceptance among historians.

Altogether, Suvorov’s books have appeared in 27 languages. His first, Liberators, was a vivid personal account of life in the Soviet army, and his primers on Soviet military intelligence have become mainstream texts. In a previous interview, he pointed out that there is a tradition in Russian literature of military officers turning their experiences into books – Tolstoy, Lermontov and Solzhenitsyn. Suvorov doesn’t rank himself with these greats, but notes that war offers rich material. “There is a sense of romance in battle,” he says.

Post-Skripal, he has written a new book about the GRU, currently being translated from Russian into English and scheduled for publication next year. He says his trainers at the GRU academy in Moscow never explicitly mentioned novichok to him; the USSR developed the powerful nerve agent in the 1970s, and it appears to be one of many lethal substances at the GRU’s disposal. But his instructors did make clear that, “from time to time”, the GRU has to eliminate its enemies. He was told: “When you have such an operation, an expert will meet you. He will personally explain how to do it.” The GRU has its own dedicated chemicals directorate, he says. ...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/29/ex-soviet-spy-viktor-suvorov​

 

Is it possible, Jerry, that such as Mr. Suvorov is a victim of binary thinking, that having witnessed the totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union, that upon his exposure to the differences in the West that he came to romanticize this and, having achieved economic success, via such as his books, that he can ignore the negative aspects of his new masters?

I had posted the above mostly to provide some background on Suvorov as opposed to commenting on the Skripal affair, which I concede looks rather fishy. But what's new?

 

I guess we should stay wit Viktor Suvorov's great Icebreaker research and ignore his opinion about Skripal, to which he admits very limited knowledge.