Robert Conquest: What to Do When the Russians Come

Note that a willingness to cooperate with the Soviet army does not carry with it immunity from rape. In Yugoslavia, local Communists complained that some two hundred female secretaries of Communist organizations had been among the ravished.

You will have little defense against looting. If you go out, leave behind your watch or jewelry. It is even known for Soviet soldiers to demand jackets and shirts at gunpoint, so wear your oldest clothes. Remember that for these soldiers many things regarded as commonplace and as the everyday concomitants of American life will appear as new and marvelous. Looting of stores will probably be more general than the looting of homes; but you should be prepared for the latter. Hide anything of value, or anything you are going to need in the dark days ahead, if it is in any way possible to do so.

Incidentally, it is unwise to complain of looting or rape to the military authorities. It will do no good and may get you listed as a troublemaker. Moreover, in the ensuing period, the secret police will regard as particularly suspect anyone they know who has suffered at the hands of the Russians and who is hence likely to be an “unfriendly element.”

It will not be the aim of the Russians to annihilate the American people but, rather, to reduce them to the status of loyal, or at least submissive, subjects of the puppet regime in Washington. The full rigor of the system will not be put into effect all at once; there will be no immediate Sovietization.

While ruthlessly suppressing open opposition and ensuring complete control of the police, the secret agencies, and all armed bodies, they will maintain a democratic facade, at least over a transitional period of several years. Under this cover, they will introduce the major changes in the social and economic order in a piecemeal manner with the grip gradually tightening.

After the first troubled months, there will thus be an interval when things seem to be cooling down, when there is some semblance of a return to “normality,” when things appear to be at least tolerable and even “not so bad.”

On the political side, the Soviets will promise that there will be no intention to interfere with, or even seriously to tamper with, the operation of American democracy.

In fact, it is probable that the first government following the American surrender will not even contain any open Communists. It will be a “coalition” of surviving Democrats, Republicans, and “Independents”—the latter being known as well disposed toward the USSR, but no more. In principle, the parties left in existence, purged of all anti-Soviet elements, will be designed to harness, as far as possible, the political energies of the various sections of the population. The new government will not even term itself “socialist,” but will proclaim itself “democratic” in the old sense, as was done in most of Eastern Europe.

On what kind of people will the Russians rely at this stage of the occupation? Experience shows that in the moment of defeat, it is usual, however one may detest the enemy power, to place a good deal of blame for the disaster on one’s own former government. Therefore, important politicians of quite honest character will be found who will have maintained, sincerely and over a long period, that the fatal confrontation with the USSR was America’s fault. They will assert that America has brought the catastrophe upon itself, and they will in consequence claim that it is their moral duty to make the best of a bad job and ensure that some sort of American government continues. This was the position taken by many Frenchmen (whose basic patriotism was unquestioned) who chose to remain with Pétain and Vichy in 1940 instead of crossing the English Channel and joining de Gaulle and by many honest Eastern European democrats when Stalin’s troops arrived. It is a genuine moral dilemma.

Such people will in effect assist the Russians in their immediate aim of securing a government temporarily acceptable to Moscow without, at the same time, being too repulsive to the people of the United States. In any case, stunned by calamity, Americans will scarcely know which way to turn.

We should also mention, not only the outright Quislings and Husáks, but the host of opportunists and eager collaborators who customarily come crawling out of the woodwork in such crises and often from the most unlooked-for directions. A few at least will turn out to have been long-term and devoted Soviet agents all along. This you will only learn years later when they write their memoirs and boast about the matter. Such self-revelations were made by several leading political figures in Eastern Europe, for example, Fierlinger in Czechoslovakia and Ronai in Hungary. Outwardly genuine Social-Democrats, although secretly Soviet agents, they rose high in the councils of their party with Russian support. They later went on record about the way in which they eventually got control of their parties and then dissolved them into the local Communist parties.

Blackmail, often of the crudest sort, will also be used in suborning the loyalties of politicians. Those politicians (and other public figures) who have something in their lives that they wish to conceal, and that has been discovered by the KGB, could be pliable instruments during the period of transition. Such men, who would not betray their country in wartime, not even to save their own reputations, may probably now be able to persuade themselves, under KGB prompting, that they can be “moderating influences.” In Eastern Europe a number of “Agrarian,” “Social-Democrat,” and other figures of eminence were found to have been involved in financial or sexual scandals that the Soviets authorities kept quiet in exchange for their collaboration. The cases of Tonchev and Neikov in Bulgaria come to mind. In Western Europe, major leaders like Jouhaux, head of the French trade unions, and various other socialist and union figures in Britain and elsewhere, became puppets of Soviet blackmail and were compelled to steer their organizations in a direction indicated by the Communists. There are certainly some American figures who would be susceptible to such tactics.

In every sphere, people whom the Soviets consider useful as tools during the transitional era, even if they do not regard them as entirely trustworthy, will emerge. However, if you are considering a career as a collaborator, it is well to recollect that the Soviets are short on gratitude and that, as in Eastern Europe, within half a dozen years, the initial group of Soviet cat’s-paws is bound to vanish, almost without exception, in decidedly sticky circumstances.

Meanwhile, the “new” American government, containing familiar and even respected faces, will give the appearance of constitutionality and the reassurance of continuity.

This appearance of constitutional continuity will involve a flurry of “by-elections” to fill the seats that have been vacated by men who have been executed, who have fled the country, or who have resigned in despair. The new candidates will be hand-picked by organizations that have already been purged of their “anti-Soviet” elements. Those likely to present an image of sturdy independence will be discouraged from presenting themselves as candidates by various effective means. The counting of the votes in such elections and by-elections will be done by committees selected with special care.

By this means, Congress and state and local bodies will be largely transformed into organs that offer no effective resistance to the consolidation of the new order. Even so, at first there will be men and women, even among the newly elected, who will begin to voice objections. They will be attacked in the media, harassed, and left for removal until the next “elections,” by which time the whole political process will be under complete control and no awkward-minded senators or congressmen will remain to inconvenience the government. This will result in a wave of show trials in which the objectors will be charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government.