Nikolai strolled into the stuffy office where the older man stood waiting behind a desk which had stood in the same spot back in Stalin’s day. The older man – Colonel Rakhmetov – gestured him brusquely to a seat in front of him, sat down himself, looked up and said “Sit”.
The Colonel glared at him. “The plan for Agent Gideon began under Brezhnev. Do you have any idea of the resources required to place a mole at the heart of the British establishment, trained from birth to further the cause of Communism? So can you tell me what, precisely, is happening in that miserable backwater right now?”
Nikolai took a deep breath. He was new to this world of hidden communist sleepers, left in place as the KGB became the FSB and knew he had to tread carefully around an officer who had earned his pips back when the letters CCCP still struck such fear into the heart of capitalists that they’d made concessions to the working class.
“Sir, you are familiar with the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky?”
The wrong thing to say. The Colonel ran nicotine-stained fingers through his hair, glared. “I am. The originator of the doctrine of ‘the worse, the better – that only through a continual worsening of the conditions of the proletariat can they be motivated to throw off their chains. Author of the original “What is to be done?” a work that so inspired Lenin that he named his own book after it. What of it?”
“Well agent Gideon has rather taken the doctrine to heart. Rather than gradually introduce Socialism, as per his original instructions, he’s trying to incite the British working class to revolution. Thus, although government debt interest accounts for only a shade over 3% of UK GDP, he’s inflicted growth-destroying fiscal tightening of more that amount on the country already, with more to come. And to ensure maximum damage, he’s taken the bulk of the money from public sector investment – which he’s halved.It’s killing two birds with one stone sir. You kill economic growth and you also reduce the ability of the country to grow in future.”
The Colonel’s brow wrinkled. He disapproved of initiative, which in his day had meant replacing a long retirement by the Black Sea with an early but short one by the White Sea.
“Yes so I heard. And the riots were surely promising, even if class-consciousness wasn’t entirely obvious in the raiding of sportswear retailers over government ministries and barracks. But now he’s run out of control. But wouldn’t it be more effective to just bankrupt the country by running up debt?”
“Not really sir. All the money in the UK is crying out for a home, so interest rates are extremely low. And the average maturity of the debt is 13 years, so it’s almost impossible to provoke a liquidity crisis – I think our other agents in the banking sector are much more promising in that respect. And without getting completely into the realms of fantasy, it’s quite hard for the government to get rid of a huge amount of extra borrowing without causing some economic growth. But the cuts are excellent for provoking discontent with the public at large.”
“Interesting. Sounds like things are going well. So why did you request this meeting?”
“Well sir, to be frank, it looks like Agent Gideon is going rogue. He’s overreaching, and it can only lead to his downfall. He’s been emphasising the privilege of the ruling plutocracy” – Nikolaj wondered if he should spit, decided against it – “by cutting taxes that only apply to the very elite, insisting on defending the privileges of the bankers who brought the country to its knees. Only someone with his training in Socialist theory would be quite so adept at underlining the injustice and contradictions of capitalism, and it’s only a matter of time before British Intelligence catch on.”
“Yes, I can see why this is an issue, and you were right to come to me-”
“Excuse me sir, but that’s not the worst of it. His latest scheme seems intent on provoking revolution this year, and I fear he’s overreaching. It’s called Help to Buy. Essentially it puts the government balance sheet – which he’s promised can’t be used for even essential infrastructure – to work to boost house prices without really increasing the number of houses being built. So the government can take losses, but all the benefit accrues to the homebuyer.”
“So he pushes up house prices in a country with already expensive prices, increases the risks to the banking sector, pushes more people into loans they can’t afford and spends money without creating any real benefits to society?”
“Yes sir. He did try to get it extended to buy-to-let landlords, but even the Treasury spotted that one. But it will make a nice subsidy for second homes for the rich.”
The Colonel frowned, but paused no more than a second. “We’ll risk it. This is the best chance we have to make England the vanguard of the new socialist revolution. You’re overruled. let Agent Gideon proceed.”
This piece originally appeared on Morski’s blog, and is reposted here with permission.
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