The idea was very simple. It first came up in 1985-86, when the Italian Communists visited Gorbachev, followed by the German Social-Democrats. They all complained that the changes in the world, particularly after [British Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher introduced privatisation and economic liberalisation, were threatening to wipe out the achievement (as they called it) of generations of Socialists and Social-Democrats – threatening to reverse it completely. Therefore the only way to withstand this onslaught of wild capitalism (as they called it) was to try to introduce the same socialist goals in all countries at once. Prior to that, the left-wing parties and the Soviet Union had opposed European integration very much because they perceived it as a means to block their socialist goals. From 1985 onwards they completely changed their view. The Soviets came to a conclusion and to an agreement with the left-wing parties that if they worked together they could hijack the whole European project and turn it upside down. Instead of an open market they would turn it into a federal state.

According to the [secret Soviet] documents, 1985-86 is the turning point. I have published most of these documents. You might even find them on the internet. But the conversations they had are really eye opening. For the first time you understand that there is a conspiracy – quite understandable for them, as they were trying to save their political hides. In the East the Soviets needed a change of relations with Europe because they were entering a protracted and very deep structural crisis; in the West the left-wing parties were afraid of being wiped out and losing their influence and prestige. So it was a conspiracy, quite openly made by them, agreed upon, and worked out.

In January of 1989, for example, a delegation of the Trilateral Commission came to see Gorbachev. It included [former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro] Nakasone, [former French President Valéry] Giscard d’Estaing, [American banker David] Rockefeller and [former US Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger. They had a very nice conversation where they tried to explain to Gorbachev that Soviet Russia had to integrate into the financial institutions of the world, such as Gatt, the IMF and the World Bank.

In the middle of it Giscard d’Estaing suddenly takes the floor and says: “Mr President, I cannot tell you exactly when it will happen – probably within 15 years – but Europe is going to be a federal state and you have to prepare yourself for that. You have to work out with us, and the European leaders, how you would react to that, how would you allow the other Easteuropean countries to interact with it or how to become a part of it, you have to be prepared.”

This was January 1989, at a time when the [1992] Maastricht treaty had not even been drafted. How the hell did Giscard d’Estaing know what was going to happen in 15 years time? And surprise, surprise, how did he become the author of the European constitution [in 2002-03]? A very good question. It does smell of conspiracy, doesn’t it?

Luckily for us the Soviet part of this conspiracy collapsed earlier and it did not reach the point where Moscow could influence the course of events. But the original idea was to have what they called a convergency, whereby the Soviet Union would mellow somewhat and become more social-democratic, while Western Europe would become social-democratic and socialist. Then there will be convergency. The structures have to fit each other. This is why the structures of the European Union were initially built with the purpose of fitting into the Soviet structure. This is why they are so similar in functioning and in structure.

It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes – two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb]. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes. I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.

Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures. Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up.

It looks like we are living in a period of rapid, systematic and very consistent dismantlement of democracy. Look at this Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. It makes ministers into legislators who can introduce new laws without bothering to tell Parliament or anyone. My immediate reaction is why do we need it? Britain survived two world wars, the war with Napoleon, the Spanish Armada, not to mention the Cold War, when we were told at any moment we might have a nuclear world war, without any need for introducing this kind legislation, without the need for suspending our civil liberaties and introducing emergency powers. Why do we need it right now? This can make a dictatorship out of your country in no time.

Today’s situation is really grim. Major political parties have been completely taken in by the new EU project. None of them really opposes it. They have become very corrupt. Who is going to defend our freedoms? It looks like we are heading towards some kind of collapse, some kind of crisis. The most likely outcome is that there will be an economic collapse in Europe, which in due time is bound to happen with this growth of expenses and taxes. The inability to create a competitive environment, the overregulation of the economy, the bureaucratisation, it is going to lead to economic collapse. Particularly the introduction of the euro was a crazy idea. Currency is not supposed to be political.

I have no doubt about it. There will be a collapse of the European Union pretty much like the Soviet Union collapsed. But do not forget that when these things collapse they leave such devastation that it takes a generation to recover. Just think what will happen if it comes to an economic crisis. The recrimination between nations will be huge. It might come to blows. Look to the huge number of immigrants from Third World countries now living in Europe. This was promoted by the European Union. What will happen with them if there is an economic collapse? We will probably have, like in the Soviet Union at the end, so much ethnic strife that the mind boggles. In no other country were there such ethnic tensions as in the Soviet Union, except probably in Yugoslavia. So that is exactly what will happen here, too. We have to be prepared for that. This huge edifice of bureaucracy is going to collapse on our heads.

This is why, and I am very frank about it, the sooner we finish with the EU the better. The sooner it collapses the less damage it will have done to us and to other countries. But we have to be quick because the Eurocrats are moving very fast. It will be difficult to defeat them. Today it is still simple. If one million people march on Brussels today these guys will run away to the Bahamas. If tomorrow half of the British population refuses to pay its taxes, nothing will happen and no-one will go to jail. Today you can still do that. But I do not know what the situation will be tomorrow with a fully fledged Europol staffed by former Stasi or Securitate officers. Anything may happen.

We are losing time. We have to defeat them. We have to sit and think, work out a strategy in the shortest possible way to achieve maximum effect. Otherwise it will be too late. So what should I say? My conclusion is not optimistic. So far, despite the fact that we do have some anti-EU forces in almost every country, it is not enough. We are losing and we are wasting time.’

My Comment – Litvinenko was revealing facts about Russia’s penetration of european governments, for example that Romani Prodi was the KGB’s top agent in Italy. Sure he was killed by Russians but maybe the EU was just as keen he be eliminated. Scaramella who had made a video revealing all that Litvinenko knew, has been neutralised in Italian jails after initially being accused of Litvinenko’s murder. The EU story is trying to come out, and it seems that Russians have a lot more to tell us yet.

Helen Szamuely of EUreferendum and The Bruges Group was not impressed by Bukovsky. In her post on EU Ref, Bukovsky Ought To Know Better, she wrote

Finally, what of the Gulag? Given Bukovsky’s experiences, that should figure strongly in his analysis.

He is rightly worried about Europol and about the European Arrest Warrant, though he does not refer to it by name. But even he has to admit that this is not yet the KGB. So, in the end, there is only one thing: people are being persecuted for not saying the politically correct things. That is, of course, outrageous. But a man who has been through Soviet prisons, labour camps and psychiatric hospitals should be careful with his comparisons.

The trouble with all this and the subsequent rather vague warnings against this, that and the other is that there is a kernel of truth in it and one needs to see the dangers of the European Union. But we are engaged in a war of ideas and the first thing we must do is to understand the enemy. I am afraid Mr Bukovsky, much as one admires him in other ways, is no help in that

Bukovsky might not have many of the credentials of a historian, and he seems to be fitting his facts to suit his theories. But his intuitive idea that Europol could in time become an instrument of oppression, and eliminate political enemies of the EU through one method or another, is not impossible to follow. Power is being centralised. Who knows who will find a way to manipulate it, and if those people will ignore what are currently regarded as decent standards. The way Roger Helmer MEP describes the heavies trying to suppress political demonstrations in Brussels could only be the start, or in Strasbourg. See his blog post DUFFED UP.

Power was ever thus.

Christopher Booker wrote - Helen, like you I hugely admire (and have met) Vladimir Bukovsky – and have more than once quoted in books his resonant comment in 1980 that ‘the lack of bitter experience of people in the West makes them incapable of imagining tragedy’. But you are absolutely right in your superb and measured analysis. On this one – his attempt to trace the genesis of the EU in the USSR – Bukovsky has hared off in completely the wrong direction. You are right too in diagnosing that his real problem is that he is remarkably ignorant about the history and nature of the EU, so that he is trying to force some kind of parallel between a construct of which he knows little and one about which he knows very much more than most. Comparing the ‘European construction’ with ‘constructing Socialism’, one is tempted, somewhat frivolously, to quote Marx: ‘history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce’. Except that the EU is itself another tragedy, albeit of a very,very different kind.

Let’s hope Booker’s right. But maybe Bukovsky’s intuitive understanding of how bad things can get, despite his obvious inaccuracies, is better informed than all the historical analysts quoted here believe. Regimes don’t, as a rule win power by brutality. But once they have acquired power, history shows that their standards can quickly slip. Europol might be starting off with more subtle forms of brutality, but brutality cannot remain subtle for long. Bukovsky could well be right to fear a degradation of standards from the EU, and should not be so firmly dismissed as regards his fears for a future train of events.

I imagine that if the EU has been substantially penetrated by the KGB as Litvinenko was alleging before his assassination in London in 2007, the Americans will have been informed. This could be behind much of the change of attitude towards the EU starting to be visible in Washington this year. It could explain why Gordon Brown is receiving the ‘treatment’ from Murdoch’s media, and be another reason why Murdoch has been recruited to fight against the EU Constitution in The Sun.

See also Fear The Silence

And read Dan Hannan on how trials in absentia will now be followed by compulsory extradition to Europe for British citizens. The European State has all the powers it needs to destroy British freedoms.

Henry Curteis.