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Seven centuries ago a medieval monk invented a useful logical device called Ockham's razor, which posits that we should not introduce new concepts if we can explain problems with old ones - if a current theory offers a satisfactory explanation of a phenomenon, it is useless to introduce a new one. Since medieval monks are not among the favorite authors of the Soviet nomenclature, glasnost was born. We, however, can benefit from the old wisdom and avoid the clever ideological traps of glasnost and perestroika. These multilayered conceptual traps include the political trap for the middle class, which is led to support the shaky bureaucratic monopoly with the help of some intellectuals who would like to wear a roomier straitjacket, and the economic trap for the workers, who are supposed to accept abstinence and unemployment sponsored by Western bankers, as a new triumph on the road to communism. However, the most important trap is designed for the trusting liberals of the West, who are ready to cooperate in their own suicide. Glasnost is simply a sophisticated system of traps in which well-meaning visitors fall from one level of fraud to another, while they are offered an illusion of change. Glasnost is an ideology of reform without actual reforms, while perestroika is just the old Stalinism, polished on the surface to provide Western acceptance for the Politburo of Potemkins who are concealing the flaws in their imperial ambitions as skillfully as their tsarist teacher two centuries ago.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-11783-3_11

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