Summary of David Shimer's Rigged

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Oleg Kalugin, who was the KGB’s chief of counterintelligence from 1974 to 1982, said that the Soviet Union first targeted foreign elections a century ago. They would provide money and support to people they thought would be friendly and change their countries’ foreign and domestic policies.

#2 Secret funding is perhaps the oldest form of covert electoral interference. It allows political campaigns to better target, turn out, and manipulate the masses. In 1919, Lenin laid the groundwork for such operations at a pivotal conference in Moscow.

#3 The first Red Scare occurred in the United States in 1919, and it was followed by a similar crisis in the United Kingdom in 1924. The Comintern was funding the British Communist Party, which was covertly interfering in the affairs of another nation.

#4 The Comintern, the Soviet Union’s international organization, had become Stalin’s liability. It had alienated democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States. The Soviet Union had intervened in foreign elections, and its existence was untenable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822520073

IRB Media

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Insights on David Shimer's Rigged

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Oleg Kalugin, who was the KGB’s chief of counterintelligence from 1974 to 1982, said that the Soviet Union first targeted foreign elections a century ago. They would provide money and support to people they thought would be friendly and change their countries’ foreign and domestic policies.

#2

Secret funding is perhaps the oldest form of covert electoral interference. It allows political campaigns to better target, turn out, and manipulate the masses. In 1919, Lenin laid the groundwork for such operations at a pivotal conference in Moscow.

#3

The first Red Scare occurred in the United States in 1919, and it was followed by a similar crisis in the United Kingdom in 1924. The Comintern was funding the British Communist Party, which was covertly interfering in the affairs of another nation.

#4

The Comintern, the Soviet Union’s international organization, had become Stalin’s liability. It had alienated democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States. The Soviet Union had intervened in foreign elections, and its existence was untenable.

#5

After World War II, the Soviet Union was able to take advantage of the power vacuum left by the destruction of Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan, and the United Kingdom. The Soviet Union manipulated elections in its favor in Eastern Europe, and its tactics were often brazen.

#6

After World War II, American policy makers were worried that the Red Army would push farther, past Berlin, and into Western Europe. Stalin did little to assuage these concerns. In 1947, he established another international body, the Communist Information Bureau, to unite foreign Communist parties.

#7

The first of these battles took place in Italy in 1948, when the American government attempted to preserve the country’s centrist government. The Truman administration hoped to preserve Italy’s democracy, but its economy was struggling, and its Communist Party was surging.

#8

The United States and the Soviet Union each had