Isegoria

I mentioned recently that Larry Taunton had listened to the audiobook of Frederick Forsyth’s The Fourth Protocol and then went to take a closer look at certain passages — about how British democracy might be subverted from within via a classic “march through the institutions” — and found, first, that the book was out of print, and then, second, that the used copy he could find was missing those passages entirely.

Naturally, I listened to the audiobook myself and recommend it. There’s no Kindle edition, and I assume the mass-market paperback is missing the “offending” passages — but you can find them by searching for the fictitious Manifesto for the British Revolution:

The twenty-point plan is known as the Manifesto for the British Revolution — or MBR for short. The first fifteen points concern mass nationalization of private enterprise, property, and wealth; abolition of all private landholding, medical care, and education; subordination of the teaching professions, police force, information media, and law courts to state control; and abolition of the House of Lords, which has the power to veto an act of self-perpetuation by an elected government. (Evidently, the British revolution could not be stopped or put into reverse at the whim of the electorate.)

But the final five points of the MBR vitally concern us here in the Soviet Union, so I will list them.

1. Britain’s immediate withdrawal, regardless of any treaty obligations, from the European Economic Community.

2. The downscaling without delay of all Britain’s conventional armed forces to one fifth of their present size.

3. The immediate abolition and destruction of all Britain’s nuclear weapons and weapon-delivery systems.

4. The expulsion from Britain without delay of all United States forces, nuclear and conventional, along with all their personnel and matériel.

5. Britain’s immediate withdrawal from, and repudiation of, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

I need hardly underline, Comrade General Secretary, that these last five proposals would wreck the defenses of the Western Alliance beyond any possible hope of repair in our lifetimes, if indeed ever. With Britain gone, the smaller NATO nations would probably follow suit, and NATO would wither on the vine, isolating the United States firmly on the other side of the Atlantic.

Obviously, everything I have outlined and described within this memorandum depends for its full implementation on a Labour Party victory, and for this the next election, expected in the spring of 1988, may well be the last opportunity.

All the above was, in fact, what I meant by my remark at General Kryuchkov’s dinner that the political stability of Britain is constantly overestimated in Moscow “and never more so than at the present time.”

Yours sincerely,

Harold Adrian Russell Philby

I purchased a used hardback copy of Dogs of War a decade ago and quite enjoyed it. It seemed to be completely out of print, aside from the audiobook — which may or may not include any excised passages — until I stumbled across it under the slightly different name of Dogs of War: A Spy Thriller.

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