I came over this video via the comment section at Hot Air. It’s a must watch; Soviet dissident Yuri Bezmenov explained 20 years ago how the Soviet Union – and especially the secret service the KGB – tried to reform U.S. society from the inside out. It’s fascinating to watch this man explain how the KGB tried to, and succeeded in, influencing Western intelligentsia in such a way that they would abandon the principles of ‘the West’ and advocate solutions that would, the KGB hoped, result in the collapse of the capital system.

Before watching it has to be pointed out that whether or not the KGB succeeded in its goal remains up for debate. Some will argue they did, some will argue they did not. It is not the intention of this post to pretend that ‘all members of the intelligentsia and media elite’ are working to destroy the Western system, nor that succeeding in implementing their policies will (somehow) destroy society as we know it. Such conclusions would, in my opinion, be exaggerations.

Exaggerations, but only to a degree. I think that there is a lot of truth to what Bezmenov said 20 years ago, and that we can still see the effects of the KGB approach today. It is undoubtedly true that progressives have taken over universities and other ‘elite institutions,’ and that these individuals tend to greatly dislike the western capitalist system.

If nothing else, it shows us how the KGB operated, which should still interest us today.

Also – it has to be pointed out that the man conducting the interview does not have the best of reputations. George Griffin is somewhat of a conspiracy theorist, so one should take that into account when one watches the video. Nonetheless, I felt it worthy of posting… if for nothing else, than to ignite a debate about this subject.

Yuri Bezmenov
by onmyway02

What is ideological subversion, the interviewer asks. Bezmenov explained that it is “open… there is no mystery. It has nothing to do with espionage,” he said. In order to see it take place, to see it in action, “all the media have to do is to unplug those bananas from their ears.”

85% of the KGB budget went to such programs, he said, only 15% to ‘espionage’ and other romantic projects. “The other 85%,” he said, “is either what we call ideological subversion or active measures or psychological warfare.”

“What it basically means is to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their family, their community and their country,” he went on to say.

“It’s a great brainwashing process,” Bezmenov said, “which goes very slow and was divided in four basic stages, the first one being demoralization. It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years which requires to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, expose to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxism-Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or being counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism.”

“Most of the activity of the organization” was aimed at “collecting information” on people “who were instrumental in creating public opinion: Publishers, editors, journalists, actors, educationalists, professors of political sciences, members of parliament, representatives of business circles. Most of these people were divided roughly into two groups: Those that would toe Soviet policy” who would be “promoted to positions of power” via the media and other tools to influence public opinion. “Those who refuse Soviet influence in their own country,” were the second category. These individuals would be “character assassinated or executed.”

Bezmenov then gave information on how the Soviets were able to execute hundreds, even thousands of individuals who opposed the Soviets in Vietnam and other countries. They did that, he explained, by using the information collected by pro-Soviet civilians and officials. They had collected information about all people who influence public opinion. When they took over, the Soviets had all those opponents executed.

But not only opponents were killed. A main victim of the Soviets would be ‘useful idiots’: people who were true ideological leftists. They believed in progressivism, Bezmenov explained, and were a problem once the Soviets would take over. These individuals only served a purpose in “the process of destabilization of a nation. For example, your leftists,” he said, “all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defenders, they are instrumental in the process of subversion only to destabilize a nation. When the job is completed they are not needed anymore. They know too much.”

“Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist-Leninists come to power, obviously they get offended. They think that they will come to power. That will never happen, of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot” because not taking them out may result in them becoming “the most bitter enemies” of Marxism-Leninist ideology because they are so sorely disappointed and frustrated.

Rather, the Soviets wanted individuals working for them who were opportunists, solely interested in their own immediate interests. Those who would lie through their teeth, while looking at you with a baby face. These were the people they needed.

Interestingly, Bezmenov said that “you are basically stuck” with demoralization. It would, he said, take 20 years for America to get rid of the Soviet influence; an entirely new generation will have to be raised with ‘patriotic’ views, not influenced by Soviet propaganda. “Most of the people graduated in the 1960s, drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, educational system. You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind. Even if you would expose them to authentic information, even if you would prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words, these people… the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible.” The “demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already,” the Soviet dissident said 20 years ago.

Another 20 or 15 years would be needed back then to reeducate new generations, to raise “common sense people” who would “act in favor of United States interests.”

After the phase of demoralization should normally come destabilization. This would only take between 2 and 5 years. “What matters” in this phase are “essentials: economy, foreign relations, defense systems. And you can see quite clearly that in some such sensitive areas the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas is absolutely fantastic. I could never have believed it 14 years ago when I first landed in this part of the world that the process would go so fast.”

The next stage would be “crisis,” which would take 6 months only, and that period would be followed by “normalization,” which would took place after the communists would have taken over the government. “This is what will happen in the United States,” Bezmenov said, “if you allow all the schmucks to bring the country to crisis, to promise people all kinds of goodies and ‘paradise on earth,’ to destabilize your economy, to eliminate the principle of free market competition and to put a Big Brother government in Washington with benevolent dictators like Walter Mondale who would promise lots of things, never mind whether the promises are fulfilled or not.”

What is clear is that the KGB did not succeed in overthrowing the U.S. government. After all, the Soviet Union collapsed before anything could have happened to the U.S. But one has to wonder whether the non-violent war, or ‘demoralization’ process, didn’t influence America and the West in general and whether it doesn’t continue to do so today.

It has to be pointed out that the one conducting the interview is a somewhat questionable character. But Bezmenov is not the one asking the questions. This former Soviet insider was answering the questions. Sometimes, one may think, he was giving the most fantastic ‘information,’ but… whether it is truly ‘fantastic’ or not is a matter of perspective. Of opinion. And even if he exaggerated it somewhat he did, as this article says, certainly earn “his bragging rights.”