Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last President who led the last phase of the counterrevolution, ignored disturbing intelligence reports about the activity of U.S agents in the leadership of the USSR in the late 1980s. Such an accusation was made by former illegal KGB officer, retired Colonel of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Andrei Bezrukov.
According to RIA Novosti, Bezrukov, who is currently a Professor at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), made this revelation during a speech at the “Digital History” science festival.
According to RIA Novosti, Bezrukov, who is currently a Professor at the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), made this revelation during a speech at the “Digital History” science festival.
Berzukov said that Gorbachev personally ignored intelligence reports concerning the activity of U.S. agents in leadership, taking advantage of the degradation of the then Soviet power structures. “I know for a fact that many things that were given to the leadership were then ignored”, the retired Colonel said, adding that Gorbachev proceeded to voluntaristic decisions as long as the power structures in the Soviet Union had deteriorated to such an extent that it was impossible “to build an effective defense” against Gorbachev's clique in the Communist Party.
Regardless of whether Berzukov's assertion is real or false, it is a fact that by the mid-1980s the counterrevolutionary process within the Soviet Union was in a very advanced stage. The possible existence and activity of foreign agents within the Soviet leadership in the late 1980s may contributed to the acceleration of the process that led to the dissolution of the country in 1991. Nonetheless, the victory of the counterrevolution as a whole rests on the violation of fundamental laws of socialist construction, following the revisionist turn at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956.
It must be noted that Andrei Bezrukov worked as a sleeper agent for both KGB and SVR in the United States, under the cover name Donald Heathfield, until his disclosure in 2010.