This book predicted a new McCarthyism of the left...30 years ago

Recently Glenn Beck and Blaze Books extensively covered Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa and Professor Ronald Rychlak's, "Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism," which discussed the numerous shocking and chilling "disinformation" operations that have been used with great effect to damage and disarm the Western world over the past century.

Before Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa--the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence officer to ever defect--there was another defector, a KGB intelligence officer named Anatoliy Golitsyn who fled the Soviet Union in the 1960s and sought to expose Communist strategic deception and subversion operations being perpetrated against the West, in order to defend the West against the Soviet Union and its Communist proxies worldwide.

Here's what Golitsyn wrote in a passage titled "Convergence" in his 1984 book "New Lies for Old," which seems to have eerily anticipated the recent efforts in politics, the media and academia to silence any dissent from the prevailing progressive orthodoxy [emphasis ours]:

[instory-book ISBN="0945001134"]

After successful use of the scissors strategy in the early stages of the final phase of policy to assist communist strategy in Europe and the Third World and over disarmament, a Sino-Soviet reconciliation could be expected. It is contemplated and implied by the long-range policy and by strategic disinformation on the split.

The Communist bloc, with its recent accretions in Africa and South-East Asia, is already strong. European-backed Soviet influence and American-backed Chinese influence could lead to new Third World acquisitions at an accelerating pace. Before long, the communist strategists might be persuaded that the balance had swung irreversibly in their favor. In that event they might very well decide on a Sino-Soviet "reconciliation." The scissors strategy would give way to the strategy of "one clenched fist." At that point the shift in the political and military balance would be plain for all to see. Convergence would not be between two equal parties, but would be on terms dictated by the communist bloc. The argument for accommodation with the overwhelming strength of communism would be virtually unanswerable. Pressures would build up for changes in the American political and economic system on the lines indicated in Sakharov's treatise. Traditional conservatives would be isolated and driven toward extremism.They might become the victims of a new McCarthyism of the left. The Soviet dissidents who are now extolled as heroes of the resistance to Soviet communism would play an active part in arguing for convergence. Their present supporters would be confronted with a choice of forsaking their idols or acknowledging the legitimacy of the new Soviet regime.

Golitsyn writes of this scenario in context of his overarching conspiracy theory of a so-called Soviet grand deception strategy -- that the Soviets had a conscious, long-term strategic deception operation to build a one world government under Communism. Such an operation entailed a planned fake dismantling of the Soviet Union (including potentially tearing down the Berlin Wall), leading to a period of "liberalization" and "democratization," enabling the Russians to rebuild their economy, "cooperate" with the West (leading the West to slash its defense forces and ally with the Russians), and ultimately "convergence" under an international totalitarian government.

Golitsyn's "New Lies for Old," which he wrote over many years following his defection, proved shockingly prescient, however outlandish his overarching theory. As reported by Mark Riebling in a book on the decades-long battle between the CIA and FBI titled "Wedge," of 148 falsifiable predictions, 139 of Golitsyn's predictions had come true by the end of 1993.

Golitsyn was heavily influential following his defection with former CIA director of counter-intelligence, James Angleton, though many sought to discredit their shared theories and Angleton was forced to resign in 1974 after angering many for his zealous efforts to expose "moles" within U.S. intelligence circles.

American Thinker ran an article in 2010 that more extensively delves into Golitsyn and his theories, for those who are interested.

Regardless of what one makes of Golitsyn's grand strategy however--and to be sure it is nearly impossible to tell fact from fiction when it comes to Cold War era conspiracies and intelligence revelations more broadly--it is striking to know that the prediction of left-wing McCarthyism had been made some three decades ago.