by John Hackett
In Wroclaw and Szczecin, communist party leaders went into the factories to ‘negotiate’. In both places they then tried to break the promises made in the negotiations and arrest the workers’ leaders. In Wroclaw they failed, and the communist mayor was shot by the strikers, who also took other communist leaders as hostages. In Szczecin the Party soon regained control.
The central government then entered into negotiations. It promised no punitive action against those who had made even the most open shows of defiance, including those who had shot the mayor of Wroclaw. This promise was honoured until mid-January. The communist government went on ruling the country, but — it seemed to some (perhaps to communist mayors especially) — in name only. In Moscow there was growing concern.
A special meeting of the Soviet Politburo was called for 14 November, together with the heads of government of all the republics in the Soviet Union. For this meeting the Kremlin leaders asked Academician Y. I. Ryabukhin, a Harvard-educated Muscovite sometimes known in the West as the best backroom Kissinger the Russians had, to prepare a position paper. This was what he wrote, in a document labelled ‘most secret’.
THE RYABUKHIN REPORT
1 Although President-elect Thompson has said some regrettable things, he is unlikely ever to countenance nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, just as we are unlikely to countenance it on the USA. Both superpowers have to bear in mind the high probability of second-strike destruction.
2 Despite this, we in the governing structure of the Soviet Union now face a situation which demands attention. Of the 180 heads of government in the different countries of the world, about 100 go to bed every night wondering whether they may be shot in a coup d’état in the morning. Except in Stalin’s day, men in the top posts in the Soviet Union have not had to fear that. Now they might well soon be doing so. After what happened in Poland there is a distinct possibility of coups d’état against several socialist governments in Eastern Europe. It cannot be wholly ruled out in some republics of the Soviet Union itself, especially in the Far East and south.
3 Nevertheless, we should not, at this juncture, send Soviet troops into Poland to arrest those workers in, for example, Wroclaw, who have been allowed almost literally to get away with murder. It has been thought unwise to order units of the Polish Army to open fire on the workers concerned. There are units of the Red Army which might conceivably also be reluctant to obey such orders. Only if the Polish government is overthrown by a plainly revanchist regime, or if similar events take place in other socialist countries (above all in the German Democratic Republic), should considerable Soviet forces be sent in to rectify the situation. Yugoslavia is a different matter (see note on the Yugoslav situation, below).
4 The position in Poland makes it important that we should put the Americans in a position of weakness somewhere else, and ensure that some humiliating retreats have to be undertaken by the Americans during the early weeks of President Thompson’s Administration. This can be called a Bay of Pigs strategy.
5 It will be remembered that in the early days of the Kennedy Administration in 1961 our agents among the so-called Cuban émigrés in America, who have been in many respects useful, helped to instigate the bound-to-be-abortive American-backed invasion of the Bay of Pigs against Fidel Castro, who knew every detail of the invasion plan in advance. This humiliation of the Americans enabled Soviet penetration of South America to continue unchecked throughout the Democratic Administration of 1961-8, except that by placing offensive missiles in Cuba in 1963 Khrushchev unwisely pushed the Americans too far.
6 Unfortunately, we cannot precisely repeat the Bay of Pigs, because the United States is not preparing to invade anywhere unsuccessfully during the early days of the Thompson Administration. We should therefore try to set up situations where President Thompson in his early days will be forced to order or accept a retreat by America and its allies from a situation created by us.
7 A ‘Thompson retreat’ of this sort should be engineered in order to check a possible ‘momentum of revolt’ which may otherwise begin to be felt by the Soviet Union. At risk, if there is no such early retreat, may be the lives and livelihoods of many who work within the governing structure of the Soviet Union and its allies. If a ‘momentum of revolt’ were to spread from Poland, many would indeed go to bed each night fearing that they might be shot in a coup d’état next morning. There is little likelihood that the United States will risk the desolation of the planet by nuclear action simply because we have provoked the President, and it is unlikely to allow possibly less stable allies like Iran to risk doing so either. On the contrary, as Thompson has to operate in accordance with a public opinion which will grow scared much more quickly than our own censor-protected public opinion will do, he will order retreats at a much earlier stage than we. A straightforward threat of nuclear holocaust carries little conviction. On the other hand, to hint at escalation towards it offers great advantage to the USSR. We should make constant use of this.
8 When we have brought about one or two ‘Thompson retreats’, we should flatter the new president and move back towards detente. We should not even insist on keeping all the ground gained for our Egyptian and other allies (some of whom might become inconveniently big for their boots) during the initial Thompson retreats. We should also play upon the President-elect’s vanity by manoeuvring the lame-duck Carter Administration into taking some of the preliminary steps in preparation for a possible war before Thompson’s Inauguration Day on 20 January. Then we should proclaim on Inauguration Day that ‘Democratic Administrations have always started wars in American history, while Republican Administrations have always stopped them’, and make Thompson feel he is a great peacemaker instead of the weak demagogue he is. This desirable timetable means that we need to move quickly.
9 The five (partly alternative) plans that might be put into effect quickly are: (a) Operation Middle East; (b) Operation India; (c) Operation Central America; (d) Operation Southern Africa; (e) Operation Yugoslavia. We know from our agents in the US that Thompson’s advisers — e.g., in last week’s so-called secret Think-Tank report and the Ex-Secretary’s report — are worried about all five of these, and are in the usual state of capitalist muddle about how to react to any of them. As will emerge, I recommend only Operation Middle East and Operation Southern Africa. I am opposed, for reasons I will state, to Operations India and Central America. I would also not yet implement Operation Yugoslavia. But let us keep the Americans worrying for a time that we may start any of them.
10 Operation Middle East. Some people in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Egypt have long wished to arrange coups d’état in the enormously oil-rich and effete states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Gulf, and to proclaim a new United Arab Republic. We have hitherto restrained them from this. We should now actively and immediately encourage it. A Middle East planning team should be set up, and make daily reports to the Politburo each evening at 6 p.m. from now on. Primary (and attainable) objective: by Thompson’s Inauguration Day on 20 January, the new president should have to take steps to restrain Iran and to safeguard America’s oil, jumping humiliatingly through hoops plainly held by us. Secondary (but more difficult) objective: it will be a very great advantage indeed if thereafter Egypt remains in command of the oil of a new United Arab Republic, and we can remain in command of Egypt.
11 Operation India. Some of the Asian republics of the Soviet Union are frightened that the more successful (and unfortunately more capitalist) successor states of the old Indian Union may gravitate towards the China-Japan co-prosperity sphere; this is the so-called policy of ‘turning India into a hundred Hong Kongs’. Our Asian comrades say this could intensify pressures in the industrializing Soviet-Asian republics to move the same way, and even ‘bring a coup d’état in Khabarovsk’, where too many Japanese businessmen are now allowed on day trips from Tokyo in connection with joint Japanese ventures for the development of Siberia. It is therefore suggested, under Operation India, that friendly socialist
states of the former Indian Union be encouraged to overrun successful capitalist neighbours (especially the smaller and most capitalist and most successful ones); this is the so-called strategy of ‘making those hundred Indian Hong Kongs into a hundred Goas’. I am opposed to a full Operation India at this juncture, because (a) I am not sure we would win (we would be allying ourselves with the weakest forces in the region, not the strongest); (b) I do not want to annoy China-Japan at this time (it is vital to keep China-Japan separate from America, instead of unnecessarily promoting an alliance between them); and (c) we should not disperse our effort in these next few critical weeks. By all means, however, make the Americans think uneasily that an operation in India may be in the wind. Perhaps we should encourage some ‘trade union’ strikes in appropriate places in capitalist India, and possibly some assassinations. I suggest that a second-rank KGB planning team be given this responsibility. Objective: to keep the pot boiling, but not to precipitate any actual changes of regime, except if some rotten Indian capitalist apples fall off the bough right into our buckets.
12 Operation Central America. Our Caribbean friends (among whom Jamaica is now rather more valuable than Cuba) say that the new President of Mexico is a dynamic and able man, who is dangerously liable to turn Mexico into a prosperous and breakthrough country. This could raise the danger of coups d’état against the governments of our Caribbean allies and the less successful semi-socialist governments in South America. The Jamaicans and Cubans are therefore eager to arrange a coup d’état in Mexico in these next few dying weeks of the lame-duck Carter presidency. I am opposed to Operation Central America on much the same grounds as I oppose a full Operation India: (a) we might not succeed; and (b) Mexico is altogether too near America, and an attempted communist coup d’état there might unite Americans around Presidents Carter and Thompson, possibly even leading to decisive American action, while our whole object is to find operations which will produce disunity, and where America cannot take decisive action because the outgoing and incoming Administrations will not agree. Once again, however, as with Operation India, there might be a case for a modified version of Operation Central America. An assassination of the Mexican president could be advantageous, done by somebody who cannot be traced to us, while we express the most effusive condolences to the still capitalist but much weaker Mexican vice-president, whose vanity will be assuaged by then acceding to office. A KGB team should report on the possibilities.
13 Operation Southern Africa. The Jamaicans are keen that the friendly countries in black Africa should extend external and internal guerrilla war against the ‘white homeland states’ of the former Union of South Africa and their associated ‘Uncle Tom’ states. There are three reasons why we should support this action, provided it can be organized in time. First, the economic success of the ‘Uncle Tom’ states, and the surprising continuing prosperity of the white homelands, mean that a process of right-wing coups d’état is liable to spread all up black Africa — and also, which naturally worries Jamaica, into the black Caribbean. Second, the white homelands do still follow a baaskap policy in some respects; many Americans, especially black Americans, will not regard them as respectable allies beside whom American troops should fight. Third, the confused military set-up in South Africa should create advantages for us. We have the capability there to keep on putting the Americans in very embarrassing situations indeed. With the troubles in the Middle East because of our operation there the Americans will also be anxious about the supply lines for oil round the Cape. In addition, I suggest (for your ears only) that the Red Army ‘volunteer officers’ we send to Southern Africa should be those whom we could not wholly trust to put down workers in Warsaw, and whom we would most like to have out of Moscow. Instead of repeating Stalin’s Red Army purges of the 1930s (which we have not the power to do), let us send the less reliable officers to lead bands of black natives wandering over the undefended veldt! The black natives will stop these gentlemen from being too liberal. It does not matter much that there will be no time for a coherent military plan, because Operation Southern Africa will not have a coherent military objective. The political objectives will be: (a) to put the Americans in an embarrassing position by compelling lame-duck President Carter to commit American forces to unpopular pro-white South Africa action, from which President Thompson will have to retreat embarrassingly; and (b) to make it clear to the international business world that continued investment in the white homelands and in the ‘Uncle Tom’ states will not remain peaceful and profitable for long. At the end of Operation Southern Africa it would possibly be desirable that at least one of the three white homelands should pass over to black rule, so as to mark Thompson’s humiliation.
14 Operation Yugoslavia. If we are to make a move in Europe, it would be better to ‘capture Yugoslavia’ than to ‘recapture Poland’ (which is not lost anyway). The arguments in favour of Operation Yugoslavia are: (a) the weak federal government in Yugoslavia is unpopular with most of the Yugoslav people, and the various state governments are all unpopular with the people of the other states; (b) if Soviet troops intervened on the side of one state against another, we would have some support from the people (while in Poland we would have practically none); (c) our communist friends in the Soviet-run Serbian Committee for the Defence of Yugoslavia want Red Army troops in Yugoslavia (after the murder of the mayor of Wroclaw, they feel quite naked and unprotected without any Russians there); (d) in Slovenia and Croatia our troops would be arresting politicians rather than storming worker-held factories; and (e) a swift overnight move of this sort would serve notice to Polish and other workers that the Red Army is in a high state of readiness and can move very quickly.
My objection to Operation Yugoslavia at this stage is that it would be more likely than the other four operations to have wide repercussions. Indeed, an operation in Yugoslavia has been considered by the Soviet High Command in the same strategic contingency plan as a move into West Germany. If we thought that all the communist countries of Eastern Europe were liable to erupt in coups d’état, which would be followed by coups d’état in the Soviet Union itself, then I would certainly be in favour of invasion of either Yugoslavia or West Germany or both. But we have not reached that situation yet. We have merely reached a situation where it is desirable to humiliate and discredit President Thompson. Let us start on this humiliation in the Middle East and Southern Africa.
15 During the operations of the next few weeks we shall need to keep China-Japan neutral. We must also keep Western Europe neutral, possibly by intimidation.
It was to be a far from peaceful Christmas.
CHAPTER 6: No Peace at Christmas
The Ryabukhin plan was accepted by the Politburo, and almost immediately began to move out of control. The chronology of subsequent events was as follows:
30 November 1984. Egypt, having renewed a military relationship with Soviet Russia, overthrows by subversion the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait. It proclaims a new and immensely rich United Arab Republic (including these countries) and calls a meeting of OPEC heads of government for 7 December. Iran is invited to this OPEC meeting, which is to be held on neutral territory, but the new UAR threatens that there could be immediate military action against any country which interferes in the UAR’s ‘proper sphere of interest’ and which sends forces to the Trucial Coast and Oman. This is clearly a threat to Iran. Israel is offered guarantees which ensure her neutrality.
2 December. Rioting, led by students, in Soweto and some other townships which are capitals of ‘Uncle Tom’ black-ruled states or cantons of the former Union of South Africa. These are black states that have good economic relations with the three white South African states and daily send many commuters to work in them. Some of these riots are put down, with bloodshed, by the local black police.
3 December. Strikes in Madras, which appear to be politically inspired. A Pan Am aircraft is hijacked on its way to Singapore and lands in Bangladesh at Chittagong. The Chief Minist
ers of two capitalist states in the old Indian Union and the executives of some American multi-nationals active in Madras are aboard it. The hijackers announce that they are being held hostage until the demands of the Madras strikers are met. Two days later American marines (invited, it is claimed, by Bangladesh) try to storm the aircraft, as the Germans did in 1977 in Somalia. The Americans fail. The aircraft is blown up with total loss of life.
5 December. At a meeting in Zimbabwe the Organization of Socialist African States claims that the ‘fascist police’ in Soweto on 2 December used weapons that were clearly heavier than any allowed to states of the former Union of South Africa under the Brzezinski Agreement. That agreement is therefore now declared at an end. The white homelands and ‘Uncle Tom’ states must be dissolved and their component parts made subject states of a new black-ruled Confederation of Africa South. Military action will be taken to enforce this.
7 December. At the OPEC meeting the new UAR demands a sharp increase in the price of oil. It also announces an oil boycott against any country that does not meet its political demands. These include recognition of the proposed Confederation of Africa South. There is to be strict boycott against anybody who aids and abets the white homelands and ‘Uncle Tom’ states. The UAR insists that majority votes in OPEC are enforceable upon all members, and that the boycott may be policed by ‘friendly naval forces’, which the newspapers suggest means the USSR. Iran dissents strongly.
8 December. The Soviet Union proclaims support for the OPEC decision. It also activates its existing base and missile facilities in Aden. This may be in order to help enforce the oil boycott.
9 December. An unsuccessful attempt is made to hijack an aircraft carrying Iranian finance and petroleum ministers from the OPEC meeting home to Tehran. On the same day there is an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Shah.
