# [\#35 Issue](https://github.com/milahu/alchi/issues/35) `closed`: Ideological Subversion. by Yuri Bezmenov, Ex KGB Agent

#### <img src="https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/12958815?v=4" width="50">[milahu](https://github.com/milahu) opened issue at [2022-08-13 12:37](https://github.com/milahu/alchi/issues/35):

Ideological Subversion. by Yuri Bezmenov, Ex KGB Agent  
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLdDmeyMJls>  
<https://bezmenov.net/lecture/>

deutsche tonspur von Alexander Benesch:  
Ex Kgb Agent Yuri Bezmenov Alias Tomas Schuman Klärt Auf über
Subversion  
<https://archive.org/details/deutschexkgbagentyuribezmenovaliastomasschumanklaertaufbersubversion>

<blockquote>

Subversion is the term — if you look in a dictionary, or criminal codes
to that matter — usually is explained as a part of activity to destroy
things like the religion, government system, political economical system
of a country. And usually it’s linked to espionage and such romantic
things as blowing up bridges, side tracking trains, cloak and dagger
activity in Hollywood style.

What I’m going to talk about now has absolutely nothing to do with the
cliche of espionage or KGB activity of collecting information. So the
greatest mistake or misconception, I think, is that whenever we are
talking about KGB, for some strange reason — starting from Hollywood
movie makers to professors of political science and quote unquote
“experts,” some on Soviet affairs or “Kremlinologists” as they call
themselves — they think that the most desirable thing for Andropov and
the whole KGB is to steal blueprints of some supersonic jet, bring it
back to the Soviet Union and sell it to the Soviet military industrial
complex. It’s only partly true.

If we take the whole time, money, and manpower that the Soviet Union,
and KGB in particular, spends outside of USSR border we will discover —
of course, there are no official statistics, unlike with the CIA or FBI
— that espionage as such occupies only 10–15% of money, time and
manpower. Fifteen percent of the activity of the KGB. The rest, 85%, is
always subversion. And unlike a dictionary of English, Oxford
Dictionary, subversion in Soviet terminology means always a destructive,
aggressive activity aimed to destroy the country, nation or geographical
area of your enemy.

So there are no romantics in there, absolutely no blowing up bridges, no
microfilms and Coca-Cola cans. Nothing of that sort. No James Bond
nonsense. Most of this activity is overt, legitimate, and easily
observable if you give yourself time and trouble to observe it. But
according to the law and law enforcement systems of the Western
civilization, it’s not a crime exactly because of misconception,
manipulation of terms. We think that a subverter is a person who is
going to blow up our beautiful bridges. No. Subverter is a student who
come for exchange, a diplomat, an actor, an artist, a journalist like
myself was ten years ago.

Now, subversion is an activity which is a two-way traffic. You cannot
subvert an enemy which doesn’t want to be subverted. If you know history
of Japan, for example, before the 20th century, Japan was a closed
society. The moment a foreign boat comes to the shores of Japan, the
Imperial Japanese army politely tell them to get lost. And if American
salesman comes to the shore of Japan, I’d say 60 or 70 years from now
back and says, “Oh, I have a very beautiful vacuum cleaner for you, you
know, with good financing.” He says, “Please leave us. We don’t need a
vacuum cleaner.” If they don’t leave, they shoot them. To preserve their
culture, ideology, traditions, values — intact. You were not able to
subvert Japan. You cannot subvert the Soviet Union because the borders
are closed. The media is censored by the government. The population is
controlled by the KGB and internal police. With all the beautiful glossy
pictures of TIME magazine and Magazine America, which is published by
the American embassy in Moscow, you can not subvert Soviet citizens
because the magazine never reaches Soviet citizens. It’s collected from
the newsstands and thrown in the garbage can.

Bezmenov explains that subversion is a two-way street  
Fig. 1 – Subversion is a two-way street  
Subversion can be only successful when the initiator, the actor or the
the agent of subversion, has a responsive target. It’s a two-way traffic
\[Fig. 1\]. The United States is a receptive target of subversion.

There is no response similar to that one from the United States to the
Soviet Union. It stops halfway some way. It never reaches here. \[Fig.
2\]

Subversion flowchart  
Fig. 2 – Flowchart  
The theory of subversion goes all the way back 2,500 years ago. The
first human being who formulated the tactics of subversion was a Chinese
philosopher by the name of Sun Tzu. Twenty five hundred years B.C. He
was an adviser for several imperial courts in ancient China, and he
said, after long meditation, that to implement state policy in a warlike
manner is the most counterproductive, barbaric and inefficient to fight
on the battlefield. You know that war is continuation of state policy,
right? So if you want successfully to implement your state policy and
you start fighting, this is the most idiotic way to do it. The highest
art of warfare is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value
in the country of your enemy until such time that the perception of
reality of your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not
perceive you as an enemy. And that your system, your civilization and
your ambitions look to your enemy as an alternative, if not desirable
than at least visible. “Better red than dead.” That’s the ultimate
purpose, the final stage of subversion after which you can simply take
your enemy without a single shot being fired — if subversion is
successful. This is basically what subversion is, as you see, not a
single mention of blowing up bridges. Of course, Sun Tzu did not know
about blowing up bridges. Maybe they were not that many bridges at that
time.

But the basics of subversion is being taught to every student of KGB
school in USSR and to officers of military academies. I’m not sure if
the same author is included in the list of reading for American
officers, to say nothing about ordinary students of political science. I
had difficulty to find the translation of Sun Tzu in the library of a
university in Toronto and, later on, here in Los Angeles. But it’s a
book which is not available. It is forced to every student in USSR.
Every student is who is taught to be dealing further in his future
career with foreigners.

What subversion is, basically it consists of four periods timewise. We
start from here and go this way — time, right, this is the beginning
point. The first stage of subversion is the process, which is called
basically demoralization. It says for itself what it is. It takes from,
say, 15 to 20 years to demoralize a society. Why 15 or 20 years? This is
the time sufficient to educate one generation of students or children,
one generation, one lifetime span of a person, a human being which is
dedicated to study, to shaping up. The outlook, ideology, personality —
no more, no less. Usually it takes from 15 to 20 years. What it
includes? It includes influencing or by various methods, infiltration,
propaganda methods, direct contacts — it doesn’t really matter, I will
describe them later — of various areas where public opinion is
formulated or shaped \[Fig. 3\]. Religion, educational system, social
life, administration, law enforcement system, military of course, and
labor and employer relations, economy. Okay? Five areas. I will not
write them down because we’ll not have enough space.

The subversion process  
Fig. 3 – Flowchart  
Some sometimes when I describe all the methods, students ask me a
question, “Are you sure this is the result of Soviet influence?” Not
necessarily. Is it the tactic of subversion about which I’m talking is
similar to the martial art, the Japanese martial art. If some of you
familiar with that tactic probably you will remember that if an enemy is
bigger and heavier than yourself it would be very painful to resist his
direct strike. If a heavier person wants to strike me in the face, it
would be very naive and counterproductive to stop his blow. The Chinese
and Japanese judo art tells us what to do. First, to avoid the strike.
Then, to grab the fist and continue his movement in the direction where
it was before, right, until the enemy crashes in the wall. So what
happens here? The target country obviously does something wrong. If it’s
a free, democratic society, there are many different movements within
the society. Obviously, in every society there are people who are
against the society. They may be simple criminals, ideologically in
disagreement with the with the state policy, conscientious enemies,
simply psychotic personalities who are against anything. Right? And
finally, there is a small group of agents of a foreign nation. Bought,
subverted, recruited, right? The moment all these movements will be
directed in one direction. Right? This is the time to catch that
movement and to continue it until the movement forces the whole society
into collapse, into crisis \[Fig. 4\]. So that’s exactly the martial
arts tactic. We don’t stop an enemy. We let him go. We help him to go in
the direction we want them to go.

Bezmenov showing judo follow-through  
Fig. 4  
So on the stage of demoralization, obviously, there are tendencies in
each society, in each country, which are going in the opposite direction
from the basic moral values and principles. To take advantage of these
movements, to capitalize on them, is the main purpose of the originator
of subversion. So we have religion, we have education, we have social
life, we have power structure, we have labor relations, unions, and
finally we have law and order \[Fig. 5\]. One, two, three, four, five,
six. OK. These are the areas of application of subversion. What it means
exactly in the case of religion: destroy it, ridicule it, replace it
with various sects, cults which bring people’s attention, faith whether
it is naive, primitive, doesn’t really matter. As long as the basically
accepted religious dogma is being slowly eroded and taken away from the
supreme purpose of religion, to keep people in touch with the supreme
being, that serves the purpose. Therefore, replace accepted and
respected religious organizations with fake organizations. Distract
people’s attention from the real faith and attract them through various
different faiths.

Bezmenov and the sub-steps of demoralization  
Fig. 5 – Demoralization  
Education. Distract them from learning something which is constructive,
pragmatic, efficient. Instead of mathematics, physics, foreign
languages, chemistry, teach them history of urban warfare, natural
foods, home economy, your sexuality, anything as long as it takes you
away.

Social life. Replace traditionally established institutions and
organizations with fake organizations. Take away the initiative from
people. Take away responsibility from naturally established links
between individuals, groups of individuals and society at large, and
replace them with artificially, bureaucratically controlled bodies.
Instead of social life and friendship between neighbors, establish
social workers’ institutions, people on the payroll of whom? Society?
No, bureaucracy. The main concern of social workers is not your family,
not you, not social relations between groups of people. The main concern
is to get the paycheck from the government. What will be the result of
their social work? Doesn’t really matter. They can develop all kinds of
concepts to show to the government and to the people that they are
useful. OK. Away from the natural links.

Power structure. OK. The natural bodies of administration, which are
traditionally either elected by people at large or appointed by elected
leaders of society, are being actively substituted by artificial bodies.
The bodies of people, groups of people who nobody elected, never — as a
matter of fact, most of the people don’t like them at all — and yet they
exist. One such group is media. Who elected them? How come they have so
much power? Almost monopolistic power on your mind. They can rape your
mind. But who elected them? How come they have the nerve to decide what
is good and what is bad for the elected — by you — president and his
administration. Who the hell are they? Spiro Agnew, who is hated by the
liberal left, called them a bunch of enfeebled snobs. And that’s exactly
what they are. They think they know. They don’t. The level of mediocracy
in a big establishment like New York Times, Los Angeles Times, major
television network, you don’t have to be an excellent journalist. You
have to be exactly a mediocre journalist. That’s easier to survive.
There’s no competition anymore. You have you good nice income. One
hundred thousand dollars a year. That’s it. Whether you are better or
worse doesn’t really matter anymore. As \[long\] as you are smiling for
the camera and do your job. That’s it. No more competition.

Power structure. Slowly it is eroded by the bodies and groups of people
who do not have either qualifications nor the will of the people to keep
them in power, and yet they do have power. Together with that, there is
another process.

Law enforcement. Law and order organization and structure is being
eroded. For the last 20, 25 years, if you see old movies and new movies,
you can see that in new movies a policeman, an officer of the United
States Army looks dumb, angry, psychotic, paranoid. A criminal looks
nice, kind of. Well, he smokes hash and shoots the whatever drug. But
basically, he’s a nice human being. He’s creative and he’s unproductive
only because society oppresses him, \[whereas\] a general of Pentagon is
always by definition dumb, a war maniac. A policeman is a pig, rude
policeman. He abuses his power. A generalization like that. The hatred,
the mistrust to the people who are supposed to protect you and enforce
law and order. Moral relativity. The Angelo Buono process lasted two
years in Los Angeles and yet there are still some lawyers who say,
“Look, he’s a nice character.” As a matter of fact, there was some
witness, also a criminal, who said, “Well, he’s a nice guy. I asked him
one day to burn a house of my enemy and he wouldn’t do it. Nice fellow.”
A slow substitution of basic moral principles whereby a criminal is not
a criminal, actually. He’s a defendant even if his guilt is proven.
There is still a doubt. To kill or not to kill, to be or not to be. Thou
shall not kill, yes. But this line may not necessarily be applicable to
a murder. Thou shall not murder. That should be the presumption, not
that thou shall not kill. OK.

Labor relations. At this stage, within 15–20 years, we destroy the
traditionally established links of bargaining between employer and
employee. The classical Marxist–Leninist theory of natural exchange of
goods. Person A has five sacks of grain and Person B has five pairs of
shoes. The natural exchange without money is when they bargain between
each other. And only with the introduction of the third Person C, an
entirely third, foreign stranger who says, “No, don’t give him five
sacks of grain, give it to me. And you give me or five pairs of shoes
and I will distribute it accordingly so that the economy will go.”
\[Fig. 6\]

Natural exchange  
Fig. 6 – Natural exchange  
This is the death of natural exchange, the death of natural bargaining.
Well, trade unions were established a hundred years ago. The objective
was to improve working conditions and to protect the rights of workers
from those employers who were abusing their rights because they had more
money. Objectively at that time, initially, the trade union movement did
work. What we see now is that the bargaining process is no longer
resulting in a compromise which is leading objectively to the detriment
of working conditions and increase of salary. What we see is that after
each prolonged strike, the workers lose even if they have 10% increase
of their salaries. They cannot catch up due to inflation and due to
missed time. More than that, millions of people suffer from that strike
because the economy now is interdependent. It’s intertwined like one
body. Previously, steel workers, say a hundred years ago, could strike
and nobody would suffer. Now, it’s impossible anymore. If a garbage
collector strikes today, the rest of the multimillion city is stinking.
I mean, there is no more service. In Quebec, for example, we had the
electricians who were on strike in the middle of winter. You can freeze
your bottom and they still were on strike. Did they catch up with the
salary? No, they lost. Who benefited? The leaders of trade unions. What
is the motivation for a strike? Improving a worker’s condition? No.
Obviously, it’s not. Then what is it? Ideology. To prove to these
capitalists and the obedient horde of workers like sheep, all of these
people. And they cannot disobey. Why? Because if they do, you know what
happens to them? Pickets, murders, shooting truck drivers by picketers.
In Montreal, for example, I saw with my own eyes when I was a
correspondent of CBC International — Canadian Broadcasting Corporation —
when the workers of aircraft factory destroyed computers and the
equipment in the factory. And the administration employed strike
breakers. Their cars were turned upside down and burned. Their houses
were burned. Their kids were intimidated. And some victims were there,
of that we can be sure. Why? To improve conditions of worker? No.
Ideology.

OK, so this is what happens basically. It may or may not happen without
the help of the Soviet Union, but the natural tendencies are being
greatly taken advantage of and capitalized on by the Soviet propaganda
systems. How? Whenever a trade union strikes, we have an influx of
propaganda, mass media, ideological dissemination, the “worker’s right.”
And we repeat it like parrots. “Yes, workers rights.” Whose rights?
Workers? No, the only freedom of the worker — to sell his labor
according to his own desire and will — is taken away from him. By whom?
By the trade union boss. Unlimited power is given \[indistinct\]… “I
want to sell my labor not for $2.50 an hour, but for $2.00.” I don’t
have the right. My freedom is denied to me. I know that if I sell my
work for $2.00 an hour, not for $3.00 an hour, I will compete better
with the other guy who is lazy and more greedy. I don’t need three
dollars, I need only two dollars. No. I was made to believe by media, by
business, by advertising agencies that I need more and more and more.
Have you ever heard any advertising on TV to consume less? No, no way.
Whether you need a six cylinder car or not, you have to buy it and hurry
up.

When I was driving here on the local radio stations, an excited
announcer said, “You, hurry up. Rush and save, save, save! There’s a
pantyhose sale! Save — by buying more!”

Of course, of course, it would be too naive to expect the KGB makes that
advertising agency to do such a crazy commercial. No, of course not. But
what we did when I was working for Novosti Press, we would snowplow
editorial offices, student organizations, religious groups with
literature of class struggle. If not directly Marxist–Leninist
propaganda, then propaganda of the legitimate aspirations of the working
class: betterment of life, equality. Equality, mind you. President
Kennedy once said, “We will make America believe that people are born
equal.” Are people born equal? Is there any mentioning in the Bible or
any other holy scripture in any religion, any religion — if you don’t
believe me, go to the library and check it — there is not a single word
about equality. Just the opposite. By your deeds, God will judge you.
What you do is important, the merit of your personality. You cannot
legislate equality. If you want to be equal, you have to be equal — you
have to deserve it. And yet we built our society on the principle of
equality. We say people are equal. We know it is false. It’s a lie. Some
people are tall and stupid. Others are short, bald, and clever. \[Fig.
7\]

Short, bald, and clever  
Fig. 7 – Short, bald, and clever  
Bezmenov missing  
Fig. 8  
If we make them equal by force, if we put the principle of equality in
the basis of our social political structure, it’s the same thing as
building a house on sand. Sooner or later, it will collapse. And that’s
exactly what happens. And we as Soviet propaganda makers are trying to
push you in the direction which you go yourself. “Equality, yes,
equality. People are equal. Land of equal opportunities.” Is it true or
not? Think about it. Equal opportunities, should there be equal
opportunity for me and for a lazy bastard to come here from some other
country and immediately registers as a welfare recipient? \[Fig. 8\] I
never received a single — sorry, I did receive once — but I never
applied for welfare. For thirteen years I took any job. Security guard,
journalist, taxi driver, anything. Well, I was restless but some people
don’t like it. They admit it. So why should we be it? Why should we have
equal opportunities? Why?

Woman: Equal opportunity to excel.

Equal opportunity in equal circumstances, yes. But we know people are
different. To excel, yes. Provided we reach the same level of
excellency, perfection — which is a hypothetical distant future — yes,
maybe. But we know perfectly well that even with the best intentions,
people could not be equal. Why should we have equality in the, say,
legal system? Myself, I’m considering myself a law abiding citizen. And
a person who comes here to rob and shoot… The United States
administration under Carter imported thousands of Cuban criminals. There
were known criminals, yet they were accepted. Do you think it’s fair if
myself and my wife from Philippines who work like a, excuse me, horse as
a lab technician in the hospital should have the same rights as a
criminal came from Cuba? Why?

And yet we repeat as parrots, “Equality, equality, equality.” And the
Soviet propaganda system helps us to believe that equality is something
which is desirable. Democracy, as it was established by fathers of this
country, of this system in the last century, is not equality. It is the
system where different people, unequal people, have a chance to survive
and help each other in constant competition and constant perfection. Not
in equality, which is superimposed from from a godfather or nice person
in Washington, D.C. And the absolute equality exists in Soviet Union,
quote-unquote “equality.” Everybody’s equal in dirt. Except some people
are more equal than the others in politbureau.

So the moment you bring a country to the point of almost total
demoralization, when nothing works anymore, when you are not sure what
is right or or wrong, good and bad, where there is no division between
evil and good, when even the leaders of the church sometimes say, “Well,
violence for the sake of justice, especially social justice, is
justified in countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador — well, maybe
Rhodesia.” And we listen to them and say, “Yeah, probably it’s true.” Is
it true? No, it is not true. Violence is not justified, especially for
the sake of quote-unquote “social justice” introduced by
Marxist–Leninists. That is, my former colleagues from Novosti Press
Agency. Okay, so we reached that point.

The next step is destabilization. Again, this word says for itself what
it is. To destabilize all the relations, all the accepted institutions
and organizations in the country of your enemy. How do you do it? You
don’t have to send a battalion of KGB agents to blow up bridges. No, you
let them do it themselves. The area of application is, again, it’s
narrower now. Not like the previous case. The overt, legitimate actions
of the of the KGB in this case would be hardly noticeable. There is no
crime if a professor who recently went to USSR introduces a course of
Marxist–Leninism in a Californian college, for example. Nobody is going
to come to his doorstep and say, “Okay, mister, come. You are under
arrest.” No, it’s not a crime. It’s not even considered a moral crime
against your country. So the area of application here is narrowing down
to economy, again labor relations, to law and order. Plus military. And
again, the media, but wider scope, a little bit different. I’ll explain
later. OK, basically three areas. \[Fig. 9\]

Bezmenov showing the destabilization process  
Fig. 9 – The destabilization process  
The destabilization stage of subversion  
Fig. 10  
Economy. The radicalization of the bargaining process. If at that stage
we still could achieve theoretically some positive compromise between
the negotiating sides with, say, introduction of arbitrary judges, a
third side objectively judging that the demands of both sides. Here,
it’s radicalization. At this stage of destabilization we cannot come to
a compromise even within a family. The husband and wife couldn’t figure
out which is better: the husband wants his kids to eat the table and the
wife wants the child to roam around the room and drop food all over the
floor. They can not come to compromise unless they start a fight. \[Fig.
10\] It’s impossible to reach a compromise, a constructive compromise,
between neighbors. Some people say, “I don’t like you to watering your
lawn at the time because exactly at that time I’m walking my dog and
he’s getting nervous that he cannot pass his bowels.” They cannot
compromise, they go to a civil court or something like that.
Radicalization of human relations. No more compromise. Fight, fight,
fight.

The normal, traditionally accepted relations are destabilized. The
relations between teachers and students in schools and colleges. Fight.
The relations between an economical sphere between laborers and
employers are further radicalized. No more acceptance of the legitimacy
of demands of workers. Unlike the Japanese, if you ever heard about it,
when the workers are involved in the decision-making process, therefore
they don’t have a moral incentive to to fight their bosses. In United
States it’s just the opposite. The harder the the fight, the better. The
more heroic they look. When the Greyhound network was on strike recently
\[Fig. 11\], the correspondence of local TV networks all over the United
States were approaching the strikers and they say, “Oh, yes, we are
doing something nice.” They looked like heroes and they were proud.
There was some family, the husband was a bus driver. Now they decided in
the protest against the bosses to camp somewhere in the forest. And they
were presented to the to the audience as heroic, nice people. You see?
The violent clashes between passengers, picketers, and the strikers are
presented as something normal.

Greyhound strike  
Fig. 11 – The Greyhound bus strike  
Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, we would we would be where we would be
angry. We’d say, “Why? Why? Why so much hatred?” Today, we are not. We
say, “Well, it’s commonplace.” Radicalization, militarization sometimes,
as I explained at that stage, I took a step little bit further. Shooting
people.

Law and order now also is pushed into the area where previously people
settle their differences peacefully and legitimately. Now, we are
getting court cases in the in the smallest, irrelevant cases. We cannot
solve our problems anymore. The society at large becomes more and more
antagonistic between individuals, between groups of individuals, and the
society at large. The media puts himself in the opposition to the
society in general at large. Separate, alienated. At that stage — you
remember I was talking a couple of hours ago about the sleepers — that’s
when the students from, say, the United States, if they are trained in
Lumumba University or developing nations — that’s the students I was
dealing with — are being sent back from the Soviet Union \[to\] here. Or
if they were already in the United States, in the country which is an
object of subversion, they spring to action. The sleepers go up. They
slept for 15–20 years. Now they become leaders of groups, preachers — I
don’t know — public figures prominently. They act. They actively include
themselves in the political process. All of a sudden, we see a
homosexual. Fifteen years ago, he did his dirty job and nobody cared.
Now he makes it a political issue. He demands recognition, respect,
human rights. And he rallies a large group of people, and there are
violent clashes between him and police, his group and ordinary people,
no matter what. It’s black against white, yellows against green. Doesn’t
matter where this division line goes. As long as these groups come into
antagonistic clash, sometimes militantly, sometimes with firearms, that
is the destabilization process. The sleepers, many of whom are simply
KGB agents, become leaders of the process of destabilization. Doesn’t
mean that Comrade Andropov sends Comrade Ivanov to the United States.
The person who takes care is already here. He’s a respected citizen of
the United States. Sometimes he gets money from various foundations for
his legitimate struggle for, I don’t know, human rights, women’s rights,
kid lib, prison lib, whatever. There are sympathetic Americans who
donate their money to him.

Destabilization process usually leads directly to the process of crisis.
In the case of developing nations — this is the area where I was active
— the process starts when the legitimate bodies of power, the social
structure, collapse. It cannot function anymore. So instead, we have
artificial bodies injected into society such as non-elected committees.
You remember I was talking about them here. Social workers who are not
elected by people, media who are self-appointed rulers of your opinion,
some strange groups which claim that they know how to lead society
forward. They don’t, usually. All they care \[about\] how to collect
donations and sell their own concocted ideology, mixture of religion and
ideology. Here we have all these artificial bodies claiming power. If
the power is denied to them, they take it by force. In the case of Iran,
for example, all of a sudden we have revolutionary committees. What kind
of revolution? There was no revolution yet. And yet they had the
committees. They were the taking power of judgment. They had they had
the power of execution, they had the power of legislation, and they had
the power of judicial. All of them combined in one person who is
half-baked intellectual, sometimes graduated from Harvard University or
Berkeley. He comes back to his country and then he thinks that he knows
the answer to all the social and economical problems.

Crisis is when society cannot function any more, productively. It
collapses. Obviously, that’s the word for crisis. So therefore, the
population at large is looking for a savior. The religious groups are
expecting a messiah to come. The workers say, we have a family to feed.
Let’s have a strong government, maybe a socialist government,
centralized, where somebody will put the employers in their place and
let us work. We are sick and tired of going to strike and missing
overtime and all that stuff. We need some strong man, strong government.
A leader, a savior is needed. The population is sick and tired of
waiting. And here we are. We have a savior. Either a foreign nation
comes in or the local group of leftists, Marxists — no matter what they
call themselves — Sandinistas, a reverend of some sort, Bishop Muzorewa
like in Zimbabwe. Doesn’t matter. His savior comes and says, “I will
lead you.”

The Crisis phase of subversion  
Fig. 12 – Crisis  
So we have two alternatives here: civil war and invasion. \[Fig. 12\]

See how it goes? Civil war, we know what it is. Lebanon is is the best
example. The civil war, which was artificially implanted in Lebanon by
injection of force of PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization. Invasion
we had in many other countries like Afghanistan — and name any East
European country, it was invaded by the Soviet army. But the result is
the same.

The next stage is normalization. Normalization is a very ironic word, of
course. If this borrowed from the 1968 situation in Czechoslovakia when
the Soviet propaganda, and after them the New York Times, declared the
country is normalized. The tanks moved into Prague, so there is no more
Prague Spring, there is no more violence. Normal. Normalization. \[Fig.
13\]

The Normalization phase of subversion  
Fig. 13 – Normalization  
At that stage, the self-appointed rulers of the society don’t need any
revolution anymore. They don’t need any radicalism anymore. So this is
the reverse from destabilization. Basically, it is stabilizing the
country by force. So all the sleepers and activists and social workers
and liberals and homosexuals and professors and Marxists and Leninists
are being eliminated, physically sometimes. They’ve done their job
already. They’re not needed anymore. The new rulers need stability to
exploit the nation, to exploit the country, to take advantage of the
victory. So no more revolutionaries, please. And that’s exactly what
happened in a number of countries. You remember Bangladesh? This is the
crisis in which I was instrumental. First they had Mujibur Rahman. In
1971, he was the leader of People’s Party, Awami League. With mustache
like Stalin, he was in Russia many times. In five years he was shot by
his former colleagues, Marxists. He fulfilled his function. In
Afghanistan, it happened three times. First there was Taraki, then there
was Amin, now there is Babrak Karmal. They killed each other
successively, one after another, the moment he fulfills his duty. The
first one demoralized the country, the second destabilized, the third
one brought it to crisis. Goodbye, comrades. Babrak Karmal comes from
Moscow and \[they\] put him into the seat of power. The same thing
happened in Granada recently. Maurice Bishop, a Marxist, was killed by
Austin — what’s his name, General Something — who was also a Marxist. So
no more revolutions, please. Normalization now. From now on, no more
strikes, no more homosexuals, no more women’s lib, no more kid lib. No
more lib, period. Good, solid, democratic proletarian freedom.

To reverse this process takes enormous effort. When today, the United
States had to invade Grenada to reverse the process of subversion. Some
people say, “Boy, this is not good. It’s not kosher to invade the
beautiful island country of Grenada.” Well, why didn’t you stop the
process here when another was just approached by leftists? Why not
prevent Maurice Bishop coming into power in the first place? Did
Grenadans want him? Very questionable. They didn’t know who was Maurice
Bishop in the first place. He came to power by coup de etat himself. No,
we let the situation develop further and further and further until the
crisis — and normalization very soon — and then the United States
decided to invade the country, discovering that the country was
absolutely a military base for the Soviet Union. Of course it’s a
drastic measure, of course it’s a pity the Marine Corps has had to lose,
what, seventeen lives? Very bad. Why not stop the process before it
comes to crisis? Oh no, intellectuals will not let you. It’s
interference into domestic affairs. They’re very careful not to let
American administration interfere in domestic affairs of Latin American
countries. They don’t mind the Soviet Union interfering in these
affairs.

So to reverse this process from here it takes only and always military
force. No other force on Earth can reverse this process at this point.
At this point, it does not take military invasion of the United States
Army. It takes strong action like in Chile. A CIA covert involvement to
prevent the savior from outside to come into power, and to stabilize the
country before it erupts into civil war. Support the right wing
conservative forces by money, by crook — so what, doesn’t matter.
Stabilize the country. Don’t let the crisis develop into into civil war
or invasion. “Oh, no,” your liberals will say, “it’s against the law
that Congress will not appropriate money for covert actions of the CIA.”
Why not? Should we wait until the normalization comes Soviet tanks land
at Los Angeles airport? Now, at that point, at the point of
destabilization, also the process could be reversed. Again, easier than
this. No CIA involvement at this point. You know what it takes here?
Restriction of some liberties for small groups, which are self-declared
enemies of the society. As simple as that. \[Fig. 14\] “Oh no,” the
media and liberals will tell you, “this is against the American
constitution. How can we by force deny the civil rights to criminals,
for example? It’s not good.” So we allow them to. If you allow the
criminals to have civil rights, go on, and bring the country to the
crisis. This is a bloodless way to do: curb the rights.

Flowchart  
Fig. 14  
I mean, not to put them in prison. No, no. I’m not talking about putting
all the gays from San Francisco in a concentration camp. Do not allow
them to take political force. Do not elect them to the seats of power.
Whether it is municipality level, state level, or federal level, it has
to be beaten in the heads of American voters that a person like that in
a seat of power is an enemy. Do not be afraid of this word. It is an
enemy. If he is not an enemy here, he will be here. Later on he will be
shot, of course. But at this point, he is an enemy.

You’re doing great service by denying him a right to capitalize on his
own crazy ideas and become a powerful man, a man who uses the seat of
power. Restriction of certain freedoms and permissiveness at that point
would prevent sliding into crisis and probably will return the process
of destabilization. To curb unlimited power, monopolistic power of trade
unions here, at that point, would save the economy from collapsing
\[Fig. 15\].

Bezmenov pointing at the chalkboard  
Fig. 15  
To introduce a law to stop private companies of raping public opinions,
minds, in the in the direction of consumerism. No company must have a
right to force you into buying more unless you want it. There must be a
law. You want to advertise your car? OK, but not a single mentioning of
buying it now and saving money. It must be against the law to force
people to consume more. Self-restraint. Previously, before this process
started, self-restraint was a business of church, religion, because our
preachers, the fathers of church, would tell us material values are good
but it’s not the prime function of a human being because you have to
live with something… Obviously, the design for our life is not to
consume more deodorants. There must be something greater. If such a
complicated instrument, this human body was created, obviously there
must be some higher purpose for that.

And it’s very easy to avoid destabilization by denying the greedy
companies one little freedom, one little liberty, forcing you into
turning yourself into processors of unwanted products and goods. They
turn you into machines, like the worm. There’s inlet and outlet. How
long an average appliance last these days? Less than a year. Why?
Where’s workmanship? We want you to buy more.

Destabilization process could be easily overcome if, as I say, the
society, by its own will or after persuasion by the leaders, will come
to the idea of self-restraint. It’s so hard, we want to consume more,
but you have to unless you will come to this stage when, as we say in
Russia, “If Sahara Desert ever becomes a communist state, there will be
a shortage of sand.”

You have to curb your expectations at this point before it’s too late.
But no, we don’t want to do it.

Demoralization process. Again, it’s the easiest thing to reverse. First
of all, by restricting import of propaganda, the easiest thing to do.
Unlimited, unrestrained import of Soviet literature. Soviet journalists
giving Soviet propaganda and ideological agitators equal time on
American TV network. It has to be stopped. And it’s easy. They wouldn’t
they won’t be offended. As a matter of fact, they will respect America
more. But then my former colleague, Vladimir Pozner appears on Nightline
and Ted Koppel asks him, “Well, Vladimir, what do you think about this?”
And what can he think? He is an instrument of propaganda, he thinks what
Comrade Andropov tells him to think. He’s just a nice, articulate
mouthpiece of the Soviet subversion system. And Ted Koppel makes you
believe that my friend, Vladimir Pozner thinks.

The process of demoralization may not have started at all at that point.
The country which is a recipient of subversion actively, not violently
but actively, prevents importation of foreign ideology. I don’t want
America to follow the pattern of ancient Japan. You don’t have to shoot
every foreigner when \[they approach\] the sacred borders of the United
States. But when he offers you junk in the disguise of a very shiny
something, you have to tell him, “No, we have our own junk.” If at that
point, the society is strong, brave, and conscientious enough to stop
importation of ideas which are foreign then the whole chain of events
could be prevented.

Recently, I’ve been to the Philippines and I was shocked how in big
cities like Manila, children listen to deafening music. A melodious
nation with long traditions of good, nice ethnic music introduced by
Spanish long time ago, maybe two centuries, three centuries ago — I
don’t remember how long — all of a sudden listened to musical garbage
blasting their radios at full blast, at full volume. Why?

In India, I spent many years watching the reactions of Indians walking
out of movie theaters after seeing Hollywood productions. They couldn’t
figure out why Americans are so wasteful, they smashed their cars, their
shiny cars, every five minutes. How come they shoot each other for half
a million dollars? Is it true that they’re so obsessed with sex? Can you
imagine showing a movie where each five minutes there is copulation on
the screen to a country like India with a long tradition of of respect
to this private matter, or to Pakistan?

And the United States expects these people to respect you? No way. Oh
yes, they will see the movie. They’ll pay five rupees to see that
garbage. But they walk out and will tell their kids, don’t respect
Americans. Don’t be like Americans.

So the process of demoralization could be stopped right here, both as an
export and as an import. And that takes one step, one very important
thing to do. You don’t have to expel all the KGB agents from Washington,
D.C. The most difficult and at the same time the simplest answer to the
subversion is to start it here and even before by bringing back the
society to religion, something that you cannot touch and eat and put on
yourself but something that rules society and makes it move and
preserves it. A Soviet scientist, \[Igor\] Shafarevich, who has nothing
to do with religion — he is a computer scientist — did a very intensive
research on the history of socialist countries. He called socialist or
communist any country with a centralized economy and a pyramidal style
of power structure. And he discovered — actually he didn’t discover it,
he just brought to the attention of his readers — that civilizations
like Mohenjo-daro in the River Indus area, like Egypt, like Maya, Incas,
like Babylonian culture collapsed and disappeared from the surface of
Earth the moment they lost religion. As simple as that. They
disintegrated. Nobody remembers about them anymore. Well, distantly.

Two times two equals four  
Fig. 16 – 2 × 2 = 4  
So the ideas are moving society and keeping mankind as a society of
human beings. Intelligent, moral agents of God. The facts, the truth,
the exact knowledge may not. All this sophisticated technology and
computers will not prevent society from disintegrating and eventually
dying out. Have you ever met a person who would sacrifice his life,
freedom, for the truth like that? \[Fig. 16\] This is truth. I’ve never
met the person who said, “This is truth and I’m ready to \[be shot\] to
defend the truth.” But millions sacrifice their life, freedom, comfort,
everything for things like God, like Jesus Christ. It’s an honor. Some
martyrs in the Soviet concentration camps died, and they died in peace —
unlike those who shouted “Long Live Stalin” knowing perfectly well that
they may not live long. Something which is not material moves society
and helps it to survive. And the other way around, the moment we turn
into “two by two is four” and make it the guiding principle of our life,
our existence, we die. Even though this is true and this we cannot
prove. We only can feel and have faith in it.

So the answer to ideological subversion, strangely enough, is very
simple. You don’t have to shoot people, you don’t have to aim missiles,
Pershings and cruise missiles at Andropov’s headquarters. You simply
have to have faith and prevent subversion. In other words, not to be a
victim of subversion, don’t try to be a person who in judo is trying to
smash your enemy and being caught by your hand. Don’t strike like that,
strike with the power of your spirit and moral superiority. If you don’t
have that power, it’s high time to develop it. And that’s the only
answer. That’s it.

</blockquote>

#### <img src="https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/12958815?v=4" width="50">[milahu](https://github.com/milahu) commented at [2022-08-24 16:29](https://github.com/milahu/alchi/issues/35#issuecomment-1225959764):

closing as merged into `src/whoaremyfriends/wersindmeinefreunde.html`

> A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The
> facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with
> authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by
> force to the Soviet Union and show him a concentration camp, he will
> refuse to believe it, until he is going to receive a kick in his fat
> bottom. When the military boot crushes his balls, then he will
> understand, but not before that. That is the tragedy of the situation
> of demoralization. So basically, America is stuck with demoralization.
> And even if you start right now, here, this minute, you start
> educating a new generation of Americans. It will still take you
> fifteen to twenty years to turn the tide of ideological perception of
> reality back to normalcy and patriotism. — Yuri Bezmenov (Ex KGB
> Agent)

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\[Export of Github issue for
[milahu/alchi](https://github.com/milahu/alchi).\]
