The Third World War - The Untold Story (19 page)

Within the CPA there had been for at least a decade before 1968 a growing disenchantment with Soviet insistence on the total subordination of Czech interests to those of the Soviet Union, which was particularly galling to an officer corps deeply concerned for national security. Almost equally galling to military professionals was the growing intrusion of political considerations into military affairs. This was especially resented among highly qualified younger officers who often found their careers suffering from their own strong disinclination to accept Soviet doctrine, structures and interests as of unique and paramount importance in the sphere of Czechoslovak defence.

The invasion of August 1968, ordered and led by the Soviet Union but with a token inclusion of forces from other client states, tore the CPA apart. It also put an end to hitherto quite marked pro-Soviet tendencies in the country as a whole. The army never recovered, in size and professionalism, its previous standing. Up to the outbreak of war in 1985, in spite (and partly because) of persistent Soviet efforts to re-impose total Soviet control over the Czechoslovak military apparatus, the CPA could never be counted on as a wholly reliable Soviet instrument. It remained firmly tasked, none the less, to offensive action in a quick war against the West. Even before the advance slowed down, however, as a result of NATO defensive action in the Federal Republic of Germany, the mutiny which broke out in the CPA 4 Motor Rifle Division at Cheb on 17 and 18 August was predictable.

All in all the Soviet planners could not count very much on the military contribution of their Warsaw Pact allies. The purpose of the Pact was not, as in NATO, that a group of nations should pool their war efforts in a common cause. It was much simpler and more brutal.

What the Soviets wanted from the Pact was a security apparatus under their control to prevent the territory of the other members being used as a springboard or corridor for an attack on the Soviet Union. They needed a glacis, not an alliance. Both the definitions of ‘glacis’ given in the
Oxford English Dictionary
are apposite: ‘A place made slippery by wet lately fallen and frozen on’, or ‘The parapet of the covered way extended in a long slope to meet the natural surface of the ground, so that every part of it shall be swept by the fire of the ramparts’. It is not a place on which to expose friendly forces.

Major General Igor Borodin, a member of the Central Committee and of the Secretariat of the so-called Administrative Department, in effect the controlling element of the Red Army and the KGB, escaped the carnage of the last days of August 1985 in Moscow and found his way to the headquarters of VII US Corps. His debriefing at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe produced the following document (SH-003-47B-5320) dated 17 September 1985, declassified 5 June 1986.

Except in a time of crisis the Politburo would only meet once a week, on Thursdays at 3 pm, when members and candidate members assembled in the old Senate building of the Kremlin.

The Politburo was the embodiment of the Party’s absolute power over all aspects of life and society. This was somewhat disguised by cosmetic devices such as the post of President, who had no power whatsoever, and the Parliament, or Supreme Soviet, which ratified every Politburo decision unanimously and whose members were appointed from amongst the most devoted Party officials and could be replaced without any difficulty. There was no doubt at all where real power lay.

The agenda for a normal Politburo session were drafted several months in advance by the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee and then approved by the Politburo members. The Secretariat of the Central Committee prepared and distributed all necessary material in good time, besides summoning people required to furnish information, such as ministers, marshals and generals, diplomats and intelligence officers, the editors of leading newspapers, writers, scientists and judges, the leaders of Gosplan (the state planning organization), of the penal system, of the ideological propaganda front, of agriculture and so on.

For some of these the summons by the Central Committee Secretariat was a catastrophe. For others it marked the beginning of an upward turn in their careers. In crucial cases some, after the summons to the Secretariat, would then have to give evidence before the Politburo itself.

The Politburo was interested in everything and had its own resolute opinion on all matters. It could decide that a given opera conformed to the interests of socialism, but that a particular ballet did not and must not be performed.

On 6 December 1984, the Politburo discussed the situation in Europe. It was accustomed to use several sources of information. Two reports had been prepared for this meeting, one by the political intelligence service (the First Main Directorate of the KGB), the other by the military intelligence service (the Second Main Directorate of the Soviet Army General Staff - the GRU). The two reports relied on different methods of analysis. They both reached the same conclusion: Western Europe was dying of decay.

The KGB was able to take some credit in suggesting that the unbridled power of the trade unions was at the heart of the West’s economic and political decline. With memories of Solidarity in Poland still fresh in Soviet minds, this struck a sympathetic note. The communist political parties in the West had largely turned out to be unsatisfactory instruments of Soviet infiltration, either because they were notably unsuccessful in the political arena, as in the United Kingdom, or politically unreliable, as in Italy. But they had achieved real success in industrial organization, in penetrating or influencing the trade union structure both locally and nationally. The bourgeois governments of Western Europe had not been able or willing to apply the Polish remedy of martial law in order to control the self-destructive strikes and go-slows which contributed so satisfactorily to the decay of Western capitalism. Their efforts to improve matters by ‘social contracts’ and similar devices had been laughably ineffective, and Western society was, in accordance with Marxist doctrine, riven by economic contradictions. Governments were prepared to tolerate massive unemployment as an alternative to inflation. The workers were prepared to destroy large parts of industry in order to maintain their historic working practices. The time was ripe for the Soviet Union to act, before the accumulated frustrations of the bourgeoisie led Western governments at last to take adequate measures to control industrial anarchy.

The GRU believed that the reason for Europe’s decay lay in the unprecedented spread of neutralist and pacifist attitudes. Europe did not want to defend itself. It seemed to believe that its best defence lay in helplessness. The more determination the Soviet Union showed in the international arena, the weaker Europe would become. Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan had not been followed by a strengthening but by a noticeable weakening in NATO and Western Europe. The same was true of the troubles in Poland. These neutralist and pacifist attitudes might not persist.

During discussion the most important question was whether the fruit was ripe enough. Was this the right moment to shake the tree?

Opinions differed. The GRU advised that the moment had come. Thanks to a policy of detente the Soviet Union had been able to deploy a whole new generation of nuclear weapons for the European theatre, as well as improved conventional armaments, which the West, for political and financial reasons, had been unable to match. Europe might in the future change its mind and give more support to the tougher attitude recently apparent in the United States.

The KGB believed that an even more favourable situation would develop in a couple of years’ time. The suggestion that the Western Alliance would become more coherent in the future could, of course, be dismissed. Europe would become still further detached from the USA and within itself more divided. Further sharp increases in the price of oil, economic recession, widespread strikes and increasingly violent demonstrations would lead to deep uncertainty and general discontent. This would culminate in the collapse of several Western European governments, soonest of all in those countries which, having nationalized heavy industries, had proved wholly unable to run them effectively.

Both intelligence services agreed that the best opportunity for military action would follow mass riots in Western European cities, organized by trades unionists, advocates of peace, students, the unemployed, racists and conservationists. National communist parties, largely working through the trade unions, would be particularly helpful here. Western European governments would be so destabilized and paralysed by these riots that it would not be hard for the Soviet Union to find an occasion to intervene.

The question was asked whether the Soviet intelligence services were confident that disturbances could be organized on a large enough scale. The representatives of both services gave a positive reply.

The Defence Council then examined the Operational Plan. The Defence Council was the most powerful part of the Politburo, made up of only those members directly involved in the most important military matters. These were the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, the Supreme Party Ideologist, the head of the Organizational Department of the Central Committee (that is, the head of the Party machine), the Minister of Defence, and the Chairman of the KGB.

The Operational Plan was the war plan drawn up among the 100 generals and 620 colonels who made up the First Main Directorate of the General Staff. It was based on an analysis of known intentions and probabilities, and of Soviet forces and those of likely enemies, the latter supplied by the GRU.

The Operational Plan was worked out at the end of each year for the following year and then approved by the Defence Council. In practice, the Operational Plan for the current year was usually last year’s plan, adjusted in respect of changes in the international situation and the correlation of forces.

On the basis of the General Staff Operational Plan, the General Staffs of the Strategic Rocket Force (SRF) and of the national Air Defence Forces
(PVO Strany),
and also the Staffs of Strategic Theatres, made their own operational plans. In their turn the headquarters of military districts, naval fleets and army groups worked out plans for their own areas of responsibility. The headquarters of Operational Directorates based their planning both on information from the General Staff intelligence service and on reports from their own intelligence directorates. These formed part of each main headquarters, disposing of their own networks of agents, guerrilla sub-units, and electronic, airborne and other means of surveillance.

The Eastern European states did not make their own operational plans. Instead, the Warsaw Pact headquarters informed the Eastern European commands only of what was of particular concern to them in their allotted tasks.

The Operational Plan for the year 1985 embraced every possible theatre.

The fifty Soviet divisions in the Far Eastern and Trans-Baykal districts (of which only eight were in Category One - that is, at operational strength) were sufficient to watch this frontier for the time being. China would without doubt develop into a major threat at some time in the future. A world crisis might give it earlier opportunities. For the moment that theatre was stable.

In South-West Asia there were always possibilities of conflict with the United States, with or without some of its satellites.

In the Middle East the USSR had already in this very year come quite close to a war with the USA. This had arisen largely from local mischief-making, with Syria and Israel, from opposite sides, as chief mischief-makers. Strenuous efforts had made it possible to avoid open conflict and the neutralization of Israel under guarantee, with the creation of an autonomous Palestinian state, had established some sort of stability in the area. This, without prejudice to longer-term political aims, afforded some tactical advantage in the shorter term. It was desirable to keep Israel neutral.

Policies designed to destabilize the Caribbean and Central America, and distract the attention of the United States and particularly that of the American public, from Europe, had had only moderate success. These should be pursued further.

The Operational Plan set out detailed contingency planning for military operations in any likely circumstances - in the Far East and the Pacific, in South-West Asia, in Africa and in Central and South America. Top priority was given to possible operations in Europe.

Document OP-85E-SSOV (Operational Plan for the year 1985, Europe, Top Secret and of Special Importance) consisted of that part of the Operational Plan which related to possible operations against NATO in Europe. No copy of this has come to light. Major General Borodin, however, gave what he maintained was a clear recollection of its contents.

‘The first part of the document was an analysis of the probable enemy’s forces. The second part concerned the strength of Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces in Europe. The third part dealt with the plan for the utilization of these forces.

‘Of the plan put forward in the third part, there were three versions.

Variant A
was divided into five phases, set out as follows:

‘Phase One
(duration 24 minutes): a sudden mass nuclear attack throughout the entire European theatre, including Spain and Portugal, in total depth. The following forces would take part in this first strike: 1 Missile Army of the Strategic Rocket Force; the missile brigades of the thirteen Front Tank Armies and Tank Army Groups (in all twenty-six missile brigades); the missile brigades of the Combined Armies and Tank Armies (in all twenty-eight missile brigades); the missile battalions of all motor rifle and tank divisions within range; the missile submarines of the North, Baltic and Black Sea Fleets and those of 5 Nautical Squadron. Their salvoes would be fired simultaneously by all missile units from their permanent deployment points or their positions at the time. Of the divisional missile battalions (equipped with missiles of up to 150 kilometres’ range), only those would take part in the attack that were located in the immediate vicinity of the frontiers. The first strike was intended to neutralize all enemy forces down to divisions, brigades and regiments, with particular attention to headquarters, together with missile bases, airfields, the principal communications and administrative centres and the air defence systems.