GEORGE SOROS’ OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS AND THEIR ROLE IN COLOR REVOLUTIONS

GEORGE SOROS’ OPEN SOCIETY FOUNDATIONS AND THEIR ROLE IN COLOR REVOLUTIONS

by Matyas Benyik*

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the „color revolutions” began to unfold intensely. Their meaning consisted in bringing to power openly anti-Russian, pro-Western, and often nationalistic political forces in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and thereby finally tearing these countries away from Russia, to frustrate integration, and in the long term to include them in NATO as occurred in the Baltic countries. The peculiarity of these revolutions was that they were all aimed at bringing about closer relations of the countries with the USA and the West, and they followed the method of „non-violent resistance”, which American strategists had elaborated in the framework of the „Freedom House” project.This was carried out through subversive measures and the organization of revolutions that had been executed in the Third World under the direction of the CIA.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ex-socialist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia had been able to gain their „independence”. However, the ex-Soviet system still exerted an influence on the political development of these countries. Most of these countries did not fully make the transition from socialism to capitalist bourgeois democracy but instead appeared as „hybrid regimes” which inclines more to autocracy. The transplant of capitalist liberal democracy to the post-Soviet regimes is not so successful due to the very bad experience of the often silent populations.

However various political upheavals that have that happened following allegations of electoral fraud in national elections since 2000 seem to indicate some bourgeois democratic changes. Scholars witnessed a „bulldozer revolution” in Serbia in 2000, a „rose revolution” in Georgia in 2003, an „orange revolution” in Ukraine in December 2004 and then a „tulip revolution” in Kyrgyzstan in early 2005. Besides these four revolutions, such political upheavals also impacted other post-Soviet countries with related and connected anti-regime’s reactions and movements.

Analysing the color revolutions it was found that they had been successful only, if four criteria are simultaneously satisfied:

Firstly, their incumbent leader of the regimes must be very unpopular and face the so-called „lame-duck syndrome”, which refers to the elite defection related to their expectation about the future.

Secondly, the anti-regimes forces are enforced by mass-media and foreign influences.

Thirdly, the revolution must not be ideological; it must be for the sake of better national integration, freedom, liberal democracy and economic development. Most importantly, the demand for such improvement should be massive among the population.

Lastly, the anti-regime forces should also be motivated by the grievances on the corrupted government, which is supported by a foreign state which the people do not desire. The anti-regime forces that arouse in post-Soviet countries can only be transformed into a successful color revolution if these criteria are fulfilled. Although there might be other variables that are also able to determine the color revolution, these four criteria can still be the fundamental conditions for a color revolution.

The main and direct causes of the colour revolutions were United States foreign-policy interests (strategic expansion, energy security and the war on terrorism) as they were serviced by International Non-governmental Organisations (Ingos). Without the intervention of these US-sponsored Ingos, the political landscapes in countries like Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan would not have been repainted in new colours.

These three revolutions each followed a near-identical trajectory; all were spearheaded by the American democratization Ingos working at the behest of the US foreign policy establishment.

The comparable political convulsions of Uzbekistan (May 2005) and Azerbaijan (November 2005) did not experience „colour revolutions” due to a variation in the independent variable, US foreign-policy priorities.

Any color revolution taken place in Eastern Europe involved George Soros, who is most well-known for playing a major role in the funding and facilitating of pro-capitalist liberal system changes, none of which brought anything other than greater misery, impoverishment, and unequlity everywhere. Soros has had a bad influence who helped bring down socialism.

Geoge Soros, born as György Schwartz in Hungary, fled in the 1940s for the UK and later became an American citizen.The demonization of the American-Hungarian billionaire and Holocaust survivor, aged 86, has spread from Hungary and Moscow across Europe and into the United States. He is increasingly being accused mainly by nationalists of using his money to force his liberal values, including support for refugees, on their societies. Main critique of the communists, like myself, is based on the fact that Soros contributed greatly to the collapse of socialism by funding the anti-communist, liberal groups and persons including Viktor Orban, now prime minister of Hungary.

When Soros first got started as a philanthropist, in 1979, millions of people lived relatively well in the Soviet Bloc. There was no unemployment, education, healthcare and culture was free of charge or very cheap, social security was on high level. A lot has changed for the worse since then, and the Open Society Foundation (OSF) of Soros has been involved in much of that change. Fundamentally, OSF is an institution that is optimistic about the possibilities for progress, meaning wrongly that capitalism can have a human face. Shortly, Soros has supported the transition from socialism to capitalism in CEE, which caused growing poverty and social deprivation. He is reponsible for promoting neoliberal economic policies harmful to the workers.

The OSF is the largest philanthropic organization ever built, with branches in 37 countries and a yearly budget around one billion USD—which is substantially more than Ford’s total grantmaking.

That budget is set annually by Soros, who is given away nearly $12 billion since he got into philanthropy decades ago. Nevertheless, thanks to his skills in financial markets, Soros is now richer than ever, with a net worth estimated at $26 billion. The bulk of that fortune is slated to go one day to OSF, creating a massively endowed foundation that, in recent years, has been redesigned to exist in perpetuity.

While Soros himself is famous—or infamous, depending on your worldview—the giant foundation he funds is not as high-profile as you might expect. There are some reasons for that. In its communications with the outside world, OSF tends to spotlight the issues it cares about as opposed to its own doings.

During the 1990s, Soros was widely celebrated for his foundation’s role in bringing down socialism and advancing capitalism, the spread of liberal democracy. More recently, history has been moving in the opposite direction, namely „Dozens of countries that had previously allowed or even welcomed democracy and rights support activities inside their borders are now working to stop it.” But Soros has no intention of ceding the liberal pro-capitalist fight. Under the second President Christopher Stone’s leadership, OSF is digging in for an extended battle to defend the basic idea of open society: That everyone should be heard in public life and no one should have a monopoly on the truth.

According to many Hungarian people (e.g. the sympatizers and members of the ruling right-wing Fidesz party), Soros is the real world equivalent of Dr. Evil. Up until now the world could not see clearly how Soros billions brought misery and suffering on a billion people. Evidence on Soros and his OSFs can be found in the DC Leaks cables, which prove that the hedge fund billionaire is the architect of the entire migrant/refugee situation in Europe. With control mechanisms purchased or leveraged in every sphere that matters, it is not unreasonable to assume Soros directs EU leadership like a master puppeteer. The dogma, missions, rhetoric, tone, and direction of every piece of OSF documentation DC Leaks uncovered puts Soros activities in the crosshairs.

There’s evidence inside these leaks to suggest George Soros exerts undue influence not only on leaders like Angela Merkel and her eastern European counterparts, but on the very organizations in place to mediate conflict. From the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to a vast array of so-called „human rights” NGOs, Soros acts as a kind of „Godfather” figure. The favors he offers, which no one seems able to refuse now extend past the purchasing power of money alone. Today, when any government threatens dissent against the liberal-globalist movement, (OSCE and NGOs versus Hungary) a massively powerful army of collaborators.

Soros NGOs fund and operate organizations and movements that are seen as Left in nature but are, in reality, pro-capitalist liberal organizations designed to push a political agenda, change Macedonian culture, install puppet regimes, and ultimately serve the purpose of the Anglo-American oligarchy.

The Soros influence extends far beyond being able to drive public opinion through clever networking ideas. Indeed, through a much tighter grasp upon media outlets themselves, Soros is vastly more influential in the way that news and events are reported than in other locations, even those located in Eastern Europe.

The unrest taking place across Macedonia over the last few months and currently bringing tens of thousands of Macedonians out into the streets is the result of the deployment of the Western-engineered color revolution apparatus designed to destabilize and overthrow the Macedonian government, who has agreed to work with Russia to build the Balkan Stream pipeline through the country. This color revolution, created and deployed by Western governments, NATO, and the Soros networks of NGOs, Foundations, and „civil society groups” is an attempt to remove any leverage Russia may have over the EU and to expand the hegemony of the world oligarchy.

Soros has supported liberal/bourgeois democratic reform, i.e systemic change from socialism to capitalism in CEE since he distributed photocopiers among anti-communist and/or liberal activists in the 1980s. His programs avowedly promote free media, fair elections and clean government, rather than opposition parties, but local autocrats often miss the distinction. The Kremlin, which blamed Soros for peaceful uprisings in Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbours in the 2000s, kicked his affiliate out in 2015. Belarus and Uzbekistan have also given him the push.

As Russia revives its influence in Europe, antipathy to Soros is redoubling: in Romania, Poland and especially Macedonia, where, amid a political crisis and allegations of graft and vote-rigging against a former prime minister, a „Stop Operation Soros” movement was launched. Meanwhile Viktor Orban—prime minister of Soros’s native Hungary and himself a recipient of a Soros-funded scholarship—reviles his benefactor’s „transnational empire”. Hungary’s parliament passed a law that might close Central European University (CEU), which was founded by Soros in 1991. Another pending law could be used against his Open Society Foundation in Hungary.

In any case, Soros’s infamy from the bayous to the Balkans is well understandable. Some of his wealth comes from currency speculation, as when, short-selling the pound in 1992, he „broke the Bank of England”. He has a French conviction for insider trading in 1988. Yet Soros has given billions to causes like his human rights advocacy of the rights of Roma or the abolition of the death penalty. In politics, Mr Vachon says, unlike many big-time donors he „is always lobbying for a public purpose, never for private gain”. Despite all this Soros is greatly responsible for the system change in CEE, i. e. for the disastrous transformation from socialism to capitalism.

Finally, there is the particular kind of foe that Soros is made to embody. Portrayals of him as an octopus, or, as in a Hungarian billboard, as a puppet-master, inevitably recall the last century’s anti-Semitic propaganda. Some such echoes may be accidental, the conspiracists unconsciously defaulting to ancient tropes, but they are striking. In a tweet praising Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban, for example, Steve King, a Republican congressman, called Soros a „Marxist billionaire”. That chimes with the old slur against Jews whereby, as Tivadar Soros says in his book, “at one and the same time they held in their hands…the Western capitalist countries and Russian Bolshevism.” „He survived the Nazis,” Mr Vachon says of Soros’s current situation, “and he takes a long view.” No doubt, but in some ways this must be depressingly familiar.

Why did the color revolutions fail? Quite simply, because the rule of law never took root in the post-Soviet space. Too often, the color revolution governments acted above or with little regard to the democratic legal standard to which they held their predecessors. A quarter century of experience living under the capitalist system – for the majority of people in the CEE countries – are extremely negative, there was much better life in the socialist system.

Budapest, 29th May 2017.

* President of ATTAC Hungary Association

website: http://attac.hu/

e-mail: benyikmatyas@gmail.com

References

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