Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship
Pastor Dale Morgan
Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship*
From the desk of Paul Belien on Mon, 2006-02-27 22:13
Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that
the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a
speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a
“monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it
develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.
Mr Bukovsky paid a visit to the European Parliament on Thursday at the
invitation of Fidesz, the Hungarian Civic Forum. Fidesz, a member of the
European Christian Democrat group, had invited the former Soviet
dissident over from England, where he lives, on the occasion of this
year’s 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. After his
morning meeting with the Hungarians, Mr Bukovsky gave an afternoon
speech in a Polish restaurant in the Trier straat, opposite the European
Parliament, where he spoke at the invitation of the United Kingdom
Independence Party, of which he is a patron.
An interview with Vladimir Bukovsky about the impending EUSSR
In his speech Mr Bukovsky referred to confidential documents from secret
Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992. These documents
confirm the existence of a “conspiracy” to turn the European Union into
a socialist organization. I attended the meeting and taped the speech. A
transcript, as well as the audio fragment (approx. 15 minutes) can be
found below. I also had a brief interview with Mr Bukovsky (4 minutes),
a transcript and audio fragment of which can also be found below. The
interview about the European Union had to be cut short because Mr
Bukovsky had other engagements, but it brought back some memories to me,
as I had interviewed Vladimir Bukovsky twenty years ago, in 1986, when
the Soviet Union, the first monster that he so valiantly fought, was
still alive and thriving.
Mr Bukovsky was one of the heroes of the 20th century. As a young man he
exposed the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners
in the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 1917-1991) and
spent a total of twelve years (1964-1976), from his 22nd to his 34th
year, in Soviet jails, labour camps and psychiatric institutions. In
1976 the Soviets expelled him to the West. In 1992 he was invited by the
Russian government to serve as an expert testifying at the trial
conducted to determine whether the Soviet Communist Party had been a
criminal institution. To prepare for his testimony Mr Bukovsky was
granted access to a large number of documents from Soviet secret
archives. He is one of the few people ever to have seen these documents
because they are still classified. Using a small handheld scanner and a
laptop computer, however, he managed to copy many documents (some with
high security clearance), including KGB reports to the Soviet government.
Paul Belien: You were a very famous Soviet dissident and now you are
drawing a parallel between the European Union and the Soviet Union. Can
you explain this?
Vladimir Bukovsky: I am referrring to structures, to certain ideologies
being instilled, to the plans, the direction, the inevitable expansion,
the obliteration of nations, which was the purpose of the Soviet Union.
Most people do not understand this. They do not know it, but we do
because we were raised in the Soviet Union where we had to study the
Soviet ideology in school and at university. The ultimate purpose of the
Soviet Union was to create a new historic entity, the Soviet people, all
around the globe. The same is true in the EU today. They are trying to
create a new people. They call this people “Europeans”, whatever that means.
According to Communist doctrine as well as to many forms of Socialist
thinking, the state, the national state, is supposed to wither away. In
Russia, however, the opposite happened. Instead of withering away the
Soviet state became a very powerful state, but the nationalities were
obliterated. But when the time of the Soviet collapse came these
suppressed feelings of national identity came bouncing back and they
nearly destroyed the country. It was so frightening.
PB: Do you think the same thing can happen when the European Union
collapses?
VB: Absolutely, you can press a spring only that much, and the human
psyche is very resilient you know. You can press it, you can press it,
but don’t forget it is still accumulating a power to rebound. It is like
a spring and it always goes to overshoot.
PB: But all these countries that joined the European Union did so
voluntarily.
VB: No, they did not. Look at Denmark which voted against the Maastricht
treaty twice. Look at Ireland [which voted against the Nice treaty].
Look at many other countries, they are under enormous pressure. It is
almost blackmail. Switzerland was forced to vote five times in a
referendum. All five times they have rejected it, but who knows what
will happen the sixth time, the seventh time. It is always the same
thing. It is a trick for idiots. The people have to vote in referendums
until the people vote the way that is wanted. Then they have to stop
voting. Why stop? Let us continue voting. The European Union is what
Americans would call a shotgun marriage.
PB: What do you think young people should do about the European Union?
What should they insist on, to democratize the institution or just
abolish it?
VB: I think that the European Union, like the Soviet Union, cannot be
democratized. Gorbachev tried to democratize it and it blew up. This
kind of structures cannot be democratized.
PB: But we have a European Parliament which is chosen by the people.
VB: The European Parliament is elected on the basis of proportional
representation, which is not true representation. And what does it vote
on? The percentage of fat in yoghurt, that kind of thing. It is
ridiculous. It is given the task of the Supreme Soviet. The average MP
can speak for six minutes per year in the Chamber. That is not a real
parliament.
In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee
secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for
30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of
turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed
between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project
which [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our “common
European home.”
The idea was very simple. It first came up in 1985-86, when the Italian
Communists visited Gorbachev, followed by the German Social-Democrats.
They all complained that the changes in the world, particularly after
[British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher introduced privatisation and
economic liberalisation, were threatening to wipe out the achievement
(as they called it) of generations of Socialists and Social-Democrats –
threatening to reverse it completely. Therefore the only way to
withstand this onslaught of wild capitalism (as they called it) was to
try to introduce the same socialist goals in all countries at once.
Prior to that, the left-wing parties and the Soviet Union had opposed
European integration very much because they perceived it as a means to
block their socialist goals. From 1985 onwards they completely changed
their view. The Soviets came to a conclusion and to an agreement with
the left-wing parties that if they worked together they could hijack the
whole European project and turn it upside down. Instead of an open
market they would turn it into a federal state.
According to the [secret Soviet] documents, 1985-86 is the turning
point. I have published most of these documents. You might even find
them on the internet. But the conversations they had are really eye
opening. For the first time you understand that there is a conspiracy –
quite understandable for them, as they were trying to save their
political hides. In the East the Soviets needed a change of relations
with Europe because they were entering a protracted and very deep
structural crisis; in the West the left-wing parties were afraid of
being wiped out and losing their influence and prestige. So it was a
conspiracy, quite openly made by them, agreed upon, and worked out.
In January of 1989, for example, a delegation of the Trilateral
Commission came to see Gorbachev. It included [former Japanese Prime
Minister Yasuhiro] Nakasone, [former French President Valéry] Giscard
d’Estaing, [American banker David] Rockefeller and [former US Secretary
of State Henry] Kissinger. They had a very nice conversation where they
tried to explain to Gorbachev that Soviet Russia had to integrate into
the financial institutions of the world, such as Gatt, the IMF and the
World Bank.
In the middle of it Giscard d’Estaing suddenly takes the floor and says:
“Mr President, I cannot tell you exactly when it will happen – probably
within 15 years – but Europe is going to be a federal state and you have
to prepare yourself for that. You have to work out with us, and the
European leaders, how you would react to that, how would you allow the
other Easteuropean countries to interact with it or how to become a part
of it, you have to be prepared.”
This was January 1989, at a time when the [1992] Maastricht treaty had
not even been drafted. How the hell did Giscard d’Estaing know what was
going to happen in 15 years time? And surprise, surprise, how did he
become the author of the European constitution [in 2002-03]? A very good
question. It does smell of conspiracy, doesn’t it?
Luckily for us the Soviet part of this conspiracy collapsed earlier and
it did not reach the point where Moscow could influence the course of
events. But the original idea was to have what they called a
convergency, whereby the Soviet Union would mellow somewhat and become
more social-democratic, while Western Europe would become
social-democratic and socialist. Then there will be convergency. The
structures have to fit each other. This is why the structures of the
European Union were initially built with the purpose of fitting into the
Soviet structure. This is why they are so similar in functioning and in
structure.
It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me
of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was
designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it
looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact
that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13
or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable
to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all
this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of
regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which
was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five
years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When
you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of
corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.
If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging
European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the
Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union.
Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It
has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures
as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this
organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB.
They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with
diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes –
two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is
called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this
as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb].
So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the
British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled
immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those
who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes.
I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.
Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and
more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology.
Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist,
and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very
carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive
ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost
everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish
pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the
Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate
speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning
race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What
you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of
ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures.
Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we
need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who
is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field
in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up.
It looks like we are living in a period of rapid, systematic and very
consistent dismantlement of democracy. Look at this Legislative and
Regulatory Reform Bill. It makes ministers into legislators who can
introduce new laws without bothering to tell Parliament or anyone. My
immediate reaction is why do we need it? Britain survived two world
wars, the war with Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, not to mention the Cold
War, when we were told at any moment we might have a nuclear world war,
without any need for introducing this kind legislation, without the need
for suspending our civil liberaties and introducing emergency powers.
Why do we need it right now? This can make a dictatorship out of your
country in no time.
Today’s situation is really grim. Major political parties have been
completely taken in by the new EU project. None of them really opposes
it. They have become very corrupt. Who is going to defend our freedoms?
It looks like we are heading towards some kind of collapse, some kind of
crisis. The most likely outcome is that there will be an economic
collapse in Europe, which in due time is bound to happen with this
growth of expenses and taxes. The inability to create a competitive
environment, the overregulation of the economy, the bureaucratisation,
it is going to lead to economic collapse. Particularly the introduction
of the euro was a crazy idea. Currency is not supposed to be political.
I have no doubt about it. There will be a collapse of the European Union
pretty much like the Soviet Union collapsed. But do not forget that when
these things collapse they leave such devastation that it takes a
generation to recover. Just think what will happen if it comes to an
economic crisis. The recrimination between nations will be huge. It
might come to blows. Look to the huge number of immigrants from Third
World countries now living in Europe. This was promoted by the European
Union. What will happen with them if there is an economic collapse? We
will probably have, like in the Soviet Union at the end, so much ethnic
strife that the mind boggles. In no other country were there such ethnic
tensions as in the Soviet Union, except probably in Yugoslavia. So that
is exactly what will happen here, too. We have to be prepared for that.
This huge edifice of bureaucracy is going to collapse on our heads.
This is why, and I am very frank about it, the sooner we finish with the
EU the better. The sooner it collapses the less damage it will have done
to us and to other countries. But we have to be quick because the
Eurocrats are moving very fast. It will be difficult to defeat them.
Today it is still simple. If one million people march on Brussels today
these guys will run away to the Bahamas. If tomorrow half of the British
population refuses to pay its taxes, nothing will happen and no-one will
go to jail. Today you can still do that. But I do not know what the
situation will be tomorrow with a fully fledged Europol staffed by
former Stasi or Securitate officers. Anything may happen.
We are losing time. We have to defeat them. We have to sit and think,
work out a strategy in the shortest possible way to achieve maximum
effect. Otherwise it will be too late. So what should I say? My
conclusion is not optimistic. So far, despite the fact that we do have
some anti-EU forces in almost every country, it is not enough. We are
losing and we are wasting time.