Preliminary communication
THE SECRET ORIGINS OF COMMUNISM: COUNTERINTELLIGENCE HISTORY FROM MARX TO MAO
Josip Pandžić
orcid.org/0000-0002-8265-9452
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb
Abstract
Biographical literature on key historical figures of Communism published in the last several decades offers an interesting base for exploring the theory, movement and political track record of the doctrine itself. To do so this paper will be focusing on the seemingly secondary issue of counterintelligence. By delving into various biographies written on Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao and consulting other contemporary historical works that emphasize the role of secret/security intelligence in political history, the intention of this paper is to highlight the relationship between the 19th century Marxist-backed Communist ideology and the 20th century state terrorism of Marxist-Leninist one-party states. The derived explanation of a “counterintelligence history of Communism” is based on a causal chain that stretches from conspiratorial political activism of Marx, Lenin’s reinvention of Jacobin state terrorism and Stalin’s despotism to Mao’s wrongful misappropriation of mass counterintelligence. The covert origins of Marxist illegal political movements and parties, as well as their founders, are hereby proven to be essential building blocks of future Communist regimes and their consequential usage of counterintelligence and the power of security services used for political control. Although the paper is based on well informed secondary sources, the new intelligence perspective that it puts forth may serve as a guidepost for further detailed research.
Keywords
history; communism; counterintelligence; service; totalitarianism
Hrčak ID:
276219
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2021.
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