In 1954, early on in the Cold War, the Soviet Union created the Committee for State Security, more commonly known in the West as the KGB. The group came to oversee the Soviet Unionā€™s internal security, secret police, and domestic and foreign intelligence operations.

Across the world, the KGB did whatever it could to thwart pro-Western and anti-Soviet political movements and figures. The group would assassinate political leaders with cyanide and other weapons. It would fund and arm leftist groups, especially those in developing nations. And the KGB successfully established moles in U.S. intelligence agencies, though the exact number still isnā€™t ā€” and may never be ā€” known for sure.

Also unclear were the groupā€™s long-term plans involving the U.S. One glimpse, however, comes from a former KGB agent named Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, who defected to Canada in 1970. He claimed to know details of a Soviet plan to undermine the U.S., not on the battlefield but in the psyche of the American public.

In 1984, Bezmenov gave an interview to G. Edward Griffin from which much can be learned today. His most chilling point was that thereā€™s a long-term plan put in play by Russia to defeat America through psychological warfare and ā€œdemoralization.ā€ Itā€™s a long game that takes decades to achieve but it may already be bearing fruit.

Bezmenov made the point that the work of the KGB mainly does not involve espionage, despite what our popular culture may tell us. Most of the work, 85% of it, was ā€œa slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare.ā€

What does that mean? Bezmenov explained that the most striking thing about ideological subversion is that it happens in the open as a legitimate process. ā€œYou can see it with your own eyes,ā€ he said. The American media would be able to see it, if it just focused on it.

Hereā€™s how he further defined ideological subversion:

ā€œWhat it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.ā€

Bezmenov described this process as ā€œa great brainwashingā€ that has four basic stages. The first stage is called ā€œdemoralizationā€ which takes from 15 to 20 years to achieve. According to the former KGB agent, that is the minimum number of years it takes to re-educate one generation of students that is normally exposed to the ideology of its country ā€” in other words, the time it takes to change what the people are thinking.

He used the examples of 1960s hippies coming to positions of power in the 1980s in the government and businesses of America. Bezmenov claimed this generation was already ā€œcontaminatedā€ by Marxist-Leninist values. Of course, this claim that many baby boomers are somehow espousing KGB-tainted ideas is hard to believe but Bezmenovā€™s larger point addressed why people who have been gradually ā€œdemoralizedā€ are unable to understand that this has happened to them.

Referring to such people, Bezmenov said:

ā€œThey are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern [alluding to Pavlov]. You can not change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still can not change the basic perception and the logic of behavior.ā€

Demoralization is a process that is ā€œirreversible.ā€ Bezmenov actually thought (back in 1984) that the process of demoralizing America was already completed. It would take another generation and another couple of decades to get the people to think differently and return to their patriotic American values, claimed the agent.

In what is perhaps a most striking passage in the interview, hereā€™s how Bezmenov described the state of a ā€œdemoralizedā€ person:

ā€œAs I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore,ā€ said Bezmenov. ā€œA person who was 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 [receives] a kick in his fan-bottom. When a military boot crashes his balls then he will understand. But not before that. Thatā€™s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.ā€

Itā€™s hard not to see in that the state of many modern Americans. We have become a society of polarized tribes, with some people flat out rejecting facts in favor of narratives and opinions.

Once demoralization is completed, the second stage of ideological brainwashing is ā€œdestabilizationā€. During this two-to-five-year period, asserted Bezmenov, what matters is the targeting of essential structural elements of a nation: economy, foreign relations, and defense systems. Basically, the subverter (Russia) would look to destabilize every one of those areas in the United States, considerably weakening it.

Smarter faster: the Big Think newsletter Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday Fields marked with an * are required Email The third stage would be ā€œcrisis.ā€ It would take only up to six weeks to send a country into crisis, explained Bezmenov. The crisis would bring ā€œa violent change of power, structure, and economyā€ and will be followed by the last stage, ā€œnormalization.ā€ Thatā€™s when your country is basically taken over, living under a new ideology and reality.

This will happen to America unless it gets rid of people who will bring it to a crisis, warned Bezmenov. Whatā€™s more ā€œif people will fail to grasp the impending danger of that development, nothing ever can help [the] United States,ā€ adding, ā€œYou may kiss goodbye to your freedom.ā€

It bears saying that when he made this statement, he was warning about baby boomers and Democrats of the time.

In another somewhat terrifying excerpt, hereā€™s what Bezmenov had to say about what is really happening in the United States: It may think it is living in peace, but it has been actively at war with Russia, and for some time:

ā€œMost of the American politicians, media, and educational system trains another generation of people who think they are living at the peacetime,ā€ said the former KGB agent. ā€œFalse. United States is in a state of war: undeclared, total war against the basic principles and foundations of this system.ā€

  • kava@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Seems to fit

    Yeah sure. The downfall of America is due to Russian sabotage. Itā€™s not the failure of the economic system to provide for the most basic needs of the bottom half. Thatā€™s totally not why people are getting radicalized. Itā€™s not the failure of public institutions to protect against corporate takeover. Public education, public healthcare, FDA, FCCā€¦ they are all failing because Russia is using propaganda to totally destroy America.

    Sure

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Propaganda works the best when itā€™s based on something real. Itā€™s like throwing gasoline on a smouldering fire.

      • kava@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Sure, all the best propaganda uses the truth to lie. Of course, sometimes they hit you with the ā€œBig Lieā€, as eloquently put by Hitler in Mein Kampf.

        You sprinkle some truth in there but come up with some crazy ridiculous item. ā€œLook at how many Jews work in finance and look how they donā€™t assimilate into our culture even though theyā€™ve been here for hundreds of yearsā€ thatā€™s the sprinkling of truth. ā€œJews are a subhuman class of saboteurs that are working with the Bolshevik Marxists to deliberately take over the world.ā€- the big lie.

        But consider one thing. Who has more incentive to influence Americans through propaganda - Russia or American special interest groups?

        Iā€™m of the persuasion that we have a lot more to fear from PragerU and the Koch Brothers than we do from Russian propaganda. The former is much more effective, widespread, and ingrained. Look at how Koch Brothers has been giving $$$ to universities for decades - but only if their economics class is pro-neoliberal.

        • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          Iā€™m not sure if I actually believe this: but why not both? Their goals align so how absurd would it be if they were actually allied?

          • kava@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Their goals donā€™t really align. Russia wants an American state that is too embroiled in domestic issues, or at least an isolationist one that doesnā€™t interfere with Russian goals in their desired spheres. For example, it would be great for them if Trump came to power and turned off the money tap funding Ukraineā€™s defense against the Russian invasion.

            But what does PragerU want? They want some sort of weird authoritarian oligarchic theocracy. Russia couldnā€™t care less about that. Their goals are separate - it just happens that the best path forward for both right now seems to be the Trump.

            However look at the Koch Brothers and they donā€™t like Trump. They are more of an ā€œold guardā€ GOP group. They would support people like Mitt Romney or Mike Pence over Trump. A moderate Republican who is more ā€œdignifiedā€ and doesnā€™t shake the boat too much. This ā€œold guardā€ of Republicans would continue giving billions to Ukraine. Therefore, they donā€™t align with Russian interests neither in goals or the best path forward.

            And this is where the crux of the issue is - there are many of these interest groups. Some are out in the open like PragerU and others keep a low profile.

            I didnā€™t mean to single out these two - there are a myriad of interest groups with different amounts of money and influence. These groups spend many millions of dollars creating propaganda and spread it all over the country. We have groups for example from the ISPs that deliberately created fake comments on the FCC website during the killing of net neutrality. We have prison-LEO groups that campaign against drug legalization so they can keep prisons full - the DARE program which all Americans who went through public school knows very well was started by a LEO. Etc

            Itā€™s these groups that have infinitely more incentive than Russia and also infinitely more power because they have $$$ and the government isnā€™t actively working against them. Iā€™m 100% more wary of domestic propaganda than foreign. Russian interests are actually very simple - keep America busy with other things so that they can ravage their neighbors.

            Many of the American special interest groups, however, are deliberately trying to put the boot on the head of the average American and they are increasingly creative with how they wanna do it. Russia couldnā€™t care less about whether US prisons are full or empty as long as they donā€™t interfere. But prison groups? Their livelihood depends on it. They will go to whatever lengths.

            See what I mean?

            • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Well, yeah. I mean their goals (in this conspiracy theory) would align on a high level:

              • PragerU wants to fuck up US society (but they think itā€™s good for US)
              • Russia wants to fuck up US society (but they think itā€™s bad for US)

              I believe pushing fringe movements against each other is a classic subversion strategy of various intelligence agencies. And would kinda fit what weā€™re seeing. Social media is a powerful and easily accessible tool for this, which could explain why weā€™re seeing more of it now.

              • kava@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Iā€™m not disagreeing with you but I think youā€™re missing the point Iā€™m trying to make. Yes, PragerU and Russia may be temporarily aligned because of the reasons both of us outlined. But PragerU is not the only special interest group and American interest groups are generally much more intensely focused on policies that hurt Americans.

                Russian propaganda is really a tiny tiny problem that is made out to be a large one because when the real problem is right under our noses.