Highest ranking Soviet bloc intel officer to ever defect: 'Russia today is the first intelligence dictatorship in history

For those who think that the opening ceremonies at Sochi were simply a tacit nod to Russia's totalitarian Communist past, think again.

According to Romanian Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer to ever defect from the Soviet bloc, "Russia today is the first intelligence dictatorship in history."

Further:

"The very idea that the Soviet Union was defeated is disinformation in itself. The Soviet Union changed its name and dropped its façade of Marxism, but it remained the same samoderzhaviye, the historical Russian form of autocracy in which a tsar is running the country with the help of his political police...During the Soviet Union, the KGB was a state within the state. Now the KGB is the state.”

Vladmir Putin. (Getty Images)

Pacepa made the comments during a lengthy and explosive interview with Blaze Books conducted via e-mail on the former Romanian intelligence officer's latest book, "Disinformation" (reviewed here), revealing how the Soviet Union employed the strategy to undermine freedom, attack religion and promote terrorism worldwide.

Lt. Gen. Pacepa went on to argue that intelligence officials effectively run Russia, noting: "Over 6,000 former KGB officers are running Russia’s federal and local governments. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. In 2004, Russia had one FSB officer for every 297 citizens."

While others have made similar arguments in the past, some of whom have even lost their lives in so doing, such an observation coming from a man of Pacepa's stature bears noting in the middle of an Olympic games intended to reflect Russia's resurgence following the fall of the Soviet Union, and in which NBC has been criticized for its non-judgmental coverage of the country's past.

Pacepa, who also authored the 1990 title, "Red Horizons," exposing the corruption and violence of Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime, defected to the United States in 1978 and was granted asylum by President Jimmy Carter. He has had a death threat on his head ever since, and lives in hiding, while continuing to write critically about Russia specifically and socialism generally.

Be sure to read our entire interview with Lt. Gen. Pacepa, in which we discuss topics ranging from the KGB's link to anti-Semitism and Islamic terrorism as a corollary, the campaign to re-brand Pope Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope," Pacepa's impressions of President Barack Obama, his thoughts on Russia's link to the Boston Bombing and much more.