Update:
Bezmenov divides the stages of ideological subversion into four:
1. Demoralization (15 -20 yrs) 2. Destabilization 3. Crisis 4. Normalization
My speculation:
1. The 1960s – 1980s is the period of demoralization
2. 1990s – 2001 The fall of the Berlin Wall marks the acceleration of this into active destabilization of the US’s economy and foreign policy (the neo-conservative paper, “A Clean Break,” as well as proposals for “full-spectrum” dominance; Yugoslav and Iraq wars; the total financialization and electronification of the US capital markets, leading to the stock market bubble). This period is initiated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989 (11-9-1989) and George Bush’s statement about a “new world order” on September 11, 9-11-1990.
3. 2001 – 2008 Period that entails vast changes in the political and economic systems, following two crises – one, political, on 9-11 and another exactly 7 years later, economic, around 9-11 too.
We are now still in the period of crisis, which, in my opinion, will throw up further catalyzing “events’ of all kinds, whether occurring spontaneously in the realm of politics/economics/nature, or whether manufactured.
Note:
Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he was describing (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since then, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in “The Language of Empire.”]
The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years certainly, even longer. Instead, its experienced ever-accelerating state intervention/mercantilism and crony capitalism. Now that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.
Thus the Bezmenovian analyis might plausibly be applied both to the actual situation in the US, as well as to the propaganda the US directs toward its enemies.
Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to voice (since this was the country he defected to), the fact that US propaganda and psyops have been subtler, and thus in the long run much more effective, than Soviet propaganda.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships have become symbiotic and created a globalized kleptocracy in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn a “third way.” This is the corporatized politically correct social democracy that increasingly seems to be the benign face of corrupt neo-liberalism, which is the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions – the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others.
ORIGINAL POST
March 07, 2009 — Yuri Bezmenov 1983 Soviet subversion of Western Society
Yuri Bezmenov, a.k.a. Tomas Schuman, soviet KGB defector, explains in detail his scheme for the KGB process of subversion and takeover of target societies at a lecture in Los Angeles, 1983.
Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.
He also explains in detail the goal of Soviet propaganda as total subversion of another country and the 4 step formula for achieving this goal. He recalls the details of how he escaped India, defected to the West, and settled in Montreal as an announcer for the CBC.
Note: As I said before about the wikileaks video, the notion that you need to ferret out secret documents, hack computers, or conduct spy v spy ops to understand what’s going on is simply romantic myth. 85% of KGB intelligence ops in the US, according to Schuman, is about ideological subversion or aggressive propaganda, which is intended to demoralize the population so that even when presented with all possible information it’s unable to draw common sense conclusions, protect its own self-interest, or act rationally. Even when confronted with evidence of war atrocities, such as those on the video, people will simply reframe the facts to fit their ideological predisposition.
Lila,
Just a note of caution not to buy into buy into everything a defector says years after they have defected. Unless a defector is a goldmine like Oleg Gordievsky these guys do not get much attention after they have been debriefed. As a result sometimes they get bored and will pander to political groups or exaggerate to the media. Don’t know if that is the case here.
HI DCN –
No, no. You mistake why I posted this…
I’ll put a comment on this..
I don’t think he’s exaggerating, it’s just that convergence has already occurred so the analysis has to be reconfigured..the labels have changed.
Hi Lila,
Thought I’d post a few lines from one of my favorite books for you. It resonates with what you are saying here and I’d love for Joel Barlow to be able to update it for us. He wrote ‘Advice To the Privileged Orders’ back in the 1790’s and Cornell reprinted it in the 1950’s. In his chapter on Revenue and Expenditure he writes:
A nation is surely in a wretched condition, when the principal object of its government is the increase of its revenue. Such a state of things is in reality a perpetual warfare between the few individuals who govern, and the great body of the people who labour. Or, to call things by their proper names, and use the only language that the nature of the case will justify, the real occupation of the governors is either to plunder or to steal, as will best answer their purpose; while the business of the people is to secret their property by fraud, or to give it peacefully up, in proportion as the other party demands it; and then, as a consequence of being driven to this necessity, they slacken their industry, and become miserable through idleness, in order to avoid the mortification of labouring for those they hate.
The art of constructing governments has usually been to organize the State in such a manner, as that this operation could be carried on to the best advantage for the administrators; and the art of administering those governments has been so to vary the means of seizing upon private property, as to bring the greatest possible quantity into the public coffers, without exciting insurrections. Those governments which are called despotic, deal more in open plunder; those that call themselves free, and act under the cloak of what they teach people to reverence as a constitution, are driven to the arts of stealing. These have succeeded better by theft that the others have by plunder; and this is the principal difference by which they can be distinguished. Under those constitutional governments the people are more industrious, and create property faster; because they are not sensible in what manner, and in what quantities, it is taken from them. The administrators, in this case, act by a compound operation; one is to induce the people to work, and the other to take from them their earnings.
In this view of government, it is no wonder that it should be considered as a curious and complicated machine, too mysterious for vulgar contemplation, capable of being moved by none but experienced hands, and subject to fall to pieces by the slightest attempt of innovation or improvement. It is no wonder that a church and an army should be deemed necessary for its support; and that the double guilt of impiety and rebellion should follow the man who offers to enter its dark sanctuary with the profane light of reason. It is not surprising, that kings and priests should be supposed to have derived their authority from God, since it is evidently not given them by men; and that they should trace to a supernatural source claims which nature never has recognized, and which are at war with every principle of society.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships have become symbiotic and created a globalized kleptocracy in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn a “third way.”
Of course. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
But his approach is naive, yes? He doesn’t ever acknowledge that (as Griffin has shown) the USSR was a product of the larger Anglo-American axis and the “Anglo-American century” – one that in the 21st century has been somewhat undermined by the Internet.
Yes.
I think that’s true….but I think he’s writing in the 1980s and having come from the Soviet Union, he still sees it from that point of view.
Plus he’s speaking to an American audience and he has to butter it up a bit..
He might know about the Fed Reserve..
Many people did not.