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Having taken advantage of the carelessness of the KGB, the true communist ran to Moscow, with the intention of announcing the Western journalists that communism in Partgrad is being built in a wrong way and to begging the Western leaders to exert pressure on Soviet leadership so that the latter would rectify the Soviet communism and he, a true communist would be taken back in the party.

Aleksandr Zinovyev#22

PoliticsCommunismPropagandaCold warMedia

About this quote

What does it mean?
A self‑declared true communist exploited KGB laxity to go to Moscow, urging Western journalists and leaders to pressure Soviet leadership to correct communism.
In plain terms
He tried to get the West to push the USSR toward a different form of communism.
What can you take from it?
External pressure is seen as a way to reform internal politics.

Where it applies

  • political dissent
  • media outreach

Putting it to work

  • write open letters
  • appeal to foreign media

Questions to consider

  • What motivates dissidents to seek foreign support?
  • Can external pressure truly change a regime's ideology?

Another view

The strategy assumes Western powers will intervene, which is historically unlikely.

More from Aleksandr Zinovyev

  1. The oblast head of Church disproved the claim in a party newspaper. At the same time he condemned the president of the US as a warmonger.

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  2. She is well known as an ardent supporter of whatever the party's main direction is. She used to be a passionate Brezhnevist. Now she is an even more passionate…

    Permalink to quote #23
  3. The Stalin Square and Stalin Prospect were renamed Lenin Square and Lenin Prospect. The statue of Stalin was remade into statue of Lenin.

    Permalink to quote #20

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