From Soviet Union's Aggressions Against the World, Gen. Oleg Sarin & Col. Lev Dvoretsky, 1996

Mikhail Gorbachev was the first Soviet leader to condemn this aggression against its southern neighbor [Afghanistan]. But he still did not speak against the expansionist policy of his predecessors, their strategic goal of . . a Communist world. Moreover, Gorbachev voiced his philosophy of global perestroika, philosophy rather closely connected with the ideals and actions of the past. He began by expressing his historic mission in the title of his book, Perestroika and New Thinking for our Country and the World.. He concluded the book with these words: �Today the entire world needs perestroika . . . qualitative changes. . . .  We have embarked in this direction and call upon other peoples and nations to do the same.�⁴

But here we address the fundamental question. Why should the prosperous United States and other nations of the world want to follow the example of Gorbachev�s Perestroika, which occurred to save the USSR from social and economic collapse? Gorbachev cited theoretical bases for his position. In his report devoted to the seventieth anniversary of the October revolution, he stated: �Perestroika is the continuation of the October revolution of 1917. . . .  Today we see that humanity is not doomed to living eternally the way it lived before October 1917. .  . . [Etc.]�⁵

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    4. M.S. Gorbachev, Perestroika and New thinking for Our Country and the World (Moscow: News, 1987), p. 52.
    5. Pravda, November 3, 1987.

( pages 218-9, notes on p. 233. )

Alien wars : the Soviet Union's aggressions
against the world, 1919 to 1989 / Oleg Sarin, Lev Dvoretsky
Novato, CA : Presidio, 1996.

�We can only grimace at the thought that this nation that for over seventy years has been plagued by poverty is going to show the rest of humanity the �way to the future.� But these were the words of the last Soviet leader of the nation and the Party. He could not give up these outdated ideas either. He does deserve credit for his policy of glasnost . . .etc.�

So continued the two (formerly Soviet) Russian authors. I assume that the quotation from Gorbachev is accurate ; it does contain some remarks on �socialism� showing humanity �the way to the future�.

No, sir. There are at least two reasons for not continuing with such propositions :

1) �Socialism� has been so thoroughly discredited by the doings of Bronstein (Trotsky), Ulyanov (Lenin), Peter Stutchka, Aaron Kohn (Bela Kun). Hirsch Apfelbaum (G. Zinoviev), L. Krassin, Finkelstein-Wallach-Litvinov, Sobelsohn-Kradek (Radek), Dzugashvilli (Stalin), Klaus Fuchs, Alger Hiss, etc., etc., that it seems entirely hopeless to try to disentangle whatever merit there may have ever been in any �socialism� from the tradition of crimes against humanity, greater or lesser, nevertheless crimes, committed under that denomination.

2) �Socialism� is, anyway, based on a fundamental misconception. At any rate, such an �ideology� does contain a fundamental misconception ; it confounds the real entity who is an individual (e.g. I) with an abstraction called �society�.

There may have been many entirely honest �socialists�, especially before the October Revolution in 1917. Such authors cannot, it seems, be disregarded.

However, their �socialism� may have ever been hopeless and it certainly seems hopeless today. One needs something better, possibly including someof the propositions by some �socialists� — but under some other banner.

WPT.

Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeevich, 1931- Title(s) Perestroika : new thinking for our country and the world / Mikhail Gorbachev. Publisher South Yarmouth, Ma. : John Curley & Associates, 1988. Paging xix, 452 p. (large print) ; 22 cm. Notes Translation from Russian.