How Soviet Intelligence Promoted Christian Marxism
The communists’ strategy against the church had three pillars: A propaganda offensive; the implanting of agents of influence and the promotion of Liberation Theology, an anti-Western spin on scripture.
Disinformation is written by Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc defector and Ronald Rychlak, Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. A related documentary has also been released, titled Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West. They disclose how a primary target of Soviet “active measures” was Pope Pius XII.
“The Soviets understood that Pius XII was a mortal threat to their ideology, despising communism as much as he did Nazism. They thus embarked on a crusade to destroy the pope and his reputation, to scandalize his flock, and to foment division among faiths,” Rychlak told me in an interview.
The claim that Pope Pius XII was “Hitler’s Pope” originates in a 1945 broadcast from Radio Moscow or, in other words, the Soviet propaganda apparatus. Later, the Soviets reacted to his death in 1958 with a new disinformation campaign. It’s a lot easier to lie about someone when they can’t respond.
Pacepa, who was serving in Romanian intelligence at the time, says Soviet Premier Khrushchev approved the KGB-drawn plan in February 1960. It was code-named “Seat-12” and Pacepa says he was the Romanian representative for it. He is now publicly detailing his involvement.
Revealing this operation against Pope Pius XII isn’t only important for historical analysis. It teaches us a sober lesson about the effectiveness of enemy influence operations that are undoubtedly ongoing.
“It tells us that disinformation experts can convince us of anything. They took a person widely regarded as a champion of the Jews and other victims—someone who was despised by Adolf Hitler—and convinced the world that he was a virtual collaborator,” Rychlak said.
The second leg of the KGB’s anti-church strategy was to influence those it could not destroy using East Bloc churches, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church.
KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin provided a secret 1961 directive to infiltrate the Russian Orthodox Church. The objective was to implant agents of influence that could then push out “reactionary” and “sectarian” church figures that were seen as threats to communism.
Mitrokhin disclosed a secret meeting of senior East Bloc intelligence officers in Budapest in July 1967. Two KGB officers gave instructions regarding “work against the Vatican; measures to discredit the Vatican and its backers; and measures to exacerbate differences within the Vatican and between the Vatican and capitalist countries.”
Pacepa illustrates the success of this operation with multiple examples. For example, in January 2007, the newly-appointed archbishop of Warsaw had to resign amidst revelations that he had been a secret collaborator with the Polish secret service during the Cold War.
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