Soviet dialectics & predictive power

Correct understanding of the strategy and the application of that understanding to the analysis of events enables one to predict otherwise surprising Soviet actions. Since the strategy is long-range, it has several phases. The strategists plan their actions in the early phases in preparation for the final phase. They conceive Soviet reforms in the initial phase, they rehearse them in the preparatory phase and they introduce them in the final phase. Because of this planning framework, the strategy has its own dialectic. It has its thesis – the Stalinist regime: its antithesis – criticism and rejection of the Stalinist regime: and its synthesis – a new, reformed model which ‘perestroika’ is designed to create, and which will be the product of ‘convergence’ (the joining of the two opposites). Understanding the dialectic and logic of the strategy is crucial for prediction: it enables one to see how the situation in one phase will develop in the next phase.

For instance, it enables one to predict the change in the role and status of Soviet ‘dissidents’. In the initial phase, they were recruited and trained by the KGB. In the preparatory phase, they were ‘criticised’ and ‘persecuted’ by the KGB. In the final phase, they are accepted and even incorporated into ‘perestroika’. It was through understanding this dialectic that the Author was able to predict the simple fact that Sakharov ‘might be included in some capacity in government’. In the event, he became one of Gorbachev’s chief advisers.