Maxim Shevchenko: "The Fifth Column" Is Far More Dangerous Than Terrorists and Saboteurs

As long as power does not belong to the people, there will inevitably be traitors

Author: Mikhail Zubov

Under the mediation of Putin and Trump, Iran and Israel reached a ceasefire agreement. Meanwhile, Iran executed several citizens who provided information to the Israeli intelligence agency — it was based on this intelligence that the Israeli Defense Forces launched fierce attacks on Iranian targets.

Russia is under daily drone attacks, apparently guided by traitors within the country. What would happen if Russia dealt with internal spies as decisively as Iran did with its traitors? "Free Media" interviewed journalist and political scientist Maxim Shevchenko on this issue.

Free Media (SP): Maxim Leonidovich, we know that the drones that fell in Novosibirsk were not from Ukraine, because they don't have such long range. This means — someone inside the country is controlling and launching them. How should we deal with our "Fifth Column"?

"Terrorists are not the Fifth Column. The key point is that open enemies who do not hide their stance are 'problems', but not 'disasters'."

Terrorists belong to the "Fourth Column" or the "Third Column". Let me first explain where the term "Fifth Column" comes from: when Spanish General Emilio Mola led Franco's army to attack Madrid, he advanced from four directions, and later said in an interview, "We have four columns attacking, but there is also a fifth column inside Madrid City."

He referred to those who verbally supported the Spanish Republic but actually sympathized with Franco. In other words, the Fifth Column refers to those who publicly declare support for the regime but secretly plot betrayal.

I don't take seriously people who openly oppose the regime (including saboteurs and terrorists) — they are just tools recruited, and they will eventually be caught. They are far less dangerous than the Fifth Column, who pretend to be loyal friends or obedient servants.

Those who constantly repeat "we support the regime" are often the first to betray.

SP: Like the communists who betrayed the Soviet Union in the 1980s?

"Exactly! The Fifth Column in the Soviet Union was the Soviet leadership, not the madmen who tried to hijack the airport at Vnukovo.

The leadership who taught us ideology all day long, brainwashed us with this theory, and expelled us from the Komsomol for listening to 'unacceptable' music, finally stabbed us in the back.

Some people secretly read the works of Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak, or Brodsky. I was banned from going to East Germany because I read "The Master and Margarita", and I had trouble because I had a cassette of Vysotsky."

SP: Now it's not as repressive as the Soviet era, only the older generation over 50 still has those memories...

"Those who once controlled the fate of middle school and university students, who rose through the ranks by denouncing others, became cooperatives operators, merchants, and oligarchs a few years later, no longer being Bolsheviks at all.

It was these people who expelled Komsomol members, banned university and even vocational school enrollment in the 1980s, forming the Fifth Column that 'defeated' our country at a certain stage. Now we are struggling to rebuild the country.

We are not afraid of terrorists, we know they will eventually be sent to where Putin said they should go. But more dangerous people than terrorists have not decreased.

Gaidar worked at the magazine "Bolsheviks" and later followed Gorbachev with the 'shock therapy' — this is the Fifth Column."

SP: Now the Bolshevik movement is in a difficult position. If I'm not mistaken, Russia is the only country with reasonable representation in parliament, while other countries including Ukraine have banned it. Is this a kind of "metaphysical revenge" for the hypocrisy of the 1980s?

"I once asked former KGB officials (such as Bobkov): 'Respected sir, how could you side with Gusinsky?' They answered: 'Maxim Leonidovich, you don't understand too much.'

Indeed, I don't understand a lot. The oath at that time said: 'I must obey the orders of the Soviet government and protect the Soviet people.' But the entire elite betrayed this oath."

SP: I'd like to hear your conclusion: what should we do?

"As long as Russia does not have a true people's government, and as long as power cannot be accountable to the people through a system of people's supervision, the regime will inevitably have a Fifth Column.

Why did the Bolsheviks in the Soviet regime become the Fifth Column? Because Khrushchev's 'Ukrainian experiment' destroyed honest Bolsheviks.

The Soviet regime died along with the parties killed by Khrushchev, and was replaced by 'democracy' that didn't last long, until the tank fire on the parliament in 1993.

Since then, Russia has been searching for its own path, a long and painful one, always opposing the Fifth Column."

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7521599456677069355/

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