Ideological undermining of America from the outside
By Bill Connor
In the past year, Americans have experienced upheaval on an unprecedented scale. Riots ensued throughout many of America’s cities, bringing violence and destruction to private businesses. Simultaneously, iconic American memorials were viciously torn down or defaced. Beyond that, we experienced an exponential rise in the demeaning of American foundational history and ideas. This manifested in hypercritical attacks against leading historic figures and ideals we have traditionally held dear. Celebrity figures have also increasingly dishonored the flag and anthem. It’s important to recognize root origins of these attacks from outside the nation, and stop them.
I have written previously about the internal threats undermining of America. How the father of cultural Marxism, Antonio Gramsci, slowly seeped into America through the Frankfurt School. How neo-Marxists like Herbert Marcuse helped push what became “Critical Theory” of hypercriticism of the foundational institutions and the oppressor/oppressed paradigm. How Critical Race Theory goes further with the oppressor/oppressed paradigm by race and attacks the foundations of the nation as being systematically racist and requiring change. During this time, America was simultaneously ideologically undermined by communist nations, first the Soviet Union and then the Chinese Communist Party.
The Soviet Union sought to undermine free democracies, particularly America, from the beginning of the USSR. Retired KGB Major General Oleg Kulagen, former head of Foreign Counter Intelligence for the KGB (1973–1979), described “active measures” used against the other nations. He defined active measures as “the heart and soul of Soviet Intelligence.” This involved subversive measures to weaken and destroy nations. It included weakening the United States in the eyes of the people of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The head of the “active measures department” was Yuri Modin, former controller of the Cambridge Five spy ring.
To weaken America from within, the Soviets used the United Front strategy, putting forward groups that appeared benign (not communist) to spread communism. According to American communist leader Ben Gitlow, the Soviets adopted the idea of using United Front groups as far back as 1922 to “spread Communist propaganda, incite discontent amount the people, undermine the loyalty of the American people and to divide them on religion, national, racial and economic lines.” United Front helped Marxism infiltrate seminaries, churches, trade unions and peace organizations in the 1930s. In the 1960s, the Soviets spent more than $1 billion for United Front peace movements against the Vietnam War, which was a “hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost,” according to GRU director Lunev, who also said, “The GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad.”
According to Oleg Kalugin, “the Soviet intelligence [was] really unparalleled. ... The [KGB] programs — which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women’s movements, trade union movements … allegations that AIDS ... was invented by the CIA ... all sorts of forgeries and faked material — [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at [the] public at large.” Of note, the Soviets developed Operation PANDORA in 1971, which, according to Wikipedia, “was to start a race war that would consume and self-destruct the United States.”
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, but communist China continued the same tactics. As most Americans know, Black Lives Matter (BLM) participated in almost all of the riots in the summer of 2020. According to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, BLM activism was linked to 95 percent of the riots. BLM was substantially funded by the Chinese Communist Party early in the riots. According to the Heritage Foundation, “Black Futures Lab, a venture of the Black Lives Matter founder Alicia Garza, has on its website a ‘Donate’ button that, when clicked, explains that ‘Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the Chinese Progressive Association.’” According to Mike Gonzalez: “The Chinese Progressive Association is a partner of China in the U.S. This potential link between the communist regime in Beijing and the riots destroying American lives and livelihoods deserves investigation from the executive branch and Congress.”
In writing about Chinese Communist Party influence, the New York Post opined: “The most dangerous useful idiots for the CCP may well be the anarchists, agitators and looters now regularly crossing state lines to invade our Democratically run cities. When Antifa and Black Lives Matter storm troopers swarm … they are destroying everything sacred about our tradition of peaceful protest.” Ho-fung Hung provides the secondary CPP motivation: “Beijing points to the violence and injustice of the United States to exonerate itself from its own egregious violence and injustices…”
It’s past time for the U.S. to recognize, expose and end the influence of Marxism. Ultimately, the ideology is the antithesis of America: “In God We Trust.”
Bill Connor is a 1990 Citadel graduate, 30-year Army infantry colonel (ret.) and combat veteran. He is a writer and attorney and lives in the Charleston area.
