Yuri Bezmenov on Ideological Subversion

KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov (Barrera, 2022) recorded a video (Bezmenov, 2020) in which he outlined the process of ideological subversion the KGB used to destabilize a nation. This process allows for the subversion of a nation from within, without the need for military conflict. It is a slow process that involves four stages.

Screen capture from the video. Yuri Bezmenov is on the left.

The first stage is demoralization. It takes 15 to 20 years and aims to erode the values and principles of a nation’s population. This begins with re-educating a generation, then waiting for that generation to take positions in civil service, universities, business, and media. The propaganda is so extreme that the indoctrinated will reject the evidence of their senses and will be unable to act in their own best interest. Bezmenov recorded this video in 1984, and states that the demoralization stage is complete.

The next stage is destabilization in which core institutions such as the economy, the military, and foreign relations, are undermined. This phase lasts from 2-5 years and disrupts the nation’s ability to function effectively.

This is followed by a crisis stage which lasts from 6 weeks to a few months. During this crisis, a major event or series of events triggers a period of severe dysfunction in the country’s systems, leading to confusion and disorder.

The last stage is “normalization” in which adversarial forces step in to “restore order.” These forces take control of the nation and institute new ideologies. This phase solidifies control and allows the new rulers to enforce the new order. Once the adversarial forces complete their takeover, their early supporters are eliminated, as these useful idiots are no longer useful. This would be a repeat of the Kronstadt Uprising, in which early supporters of the Bolsheviks were “shot like partridges.” (Chapple, 2021)

Bezmenov believed that to reverse this process will require a national effort to reform the education system, focusing on patriotism and the history and civics that makes patriotism reasonable. He recommended that the U.S. must stop aiding communism: supply them with no credit, no money, no grain deals, and no recognition.

The KGB no longer exists in the form Bezmenov knew, and the Soviet Union has collapsed, but ideological subversion described by Bezmenov is still an effective process – the names of the players have simply changed. This process is certainly playing out in current American politics, with woke ideologues taking the place of the KGB, and the deep state replacing Soviet Russia.

 

References

Barrera, J. (2022). “Chaos Agent.” CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/yuri-bezmenov-soviet-defector-canada

Bezmenov, Y. (2020). “Former KGB Agent, Yuri Bezmenov, Warns America About Socialist Subversion.” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q

Chapple, A. (2021). “'Shot Like Partridges': The Crushing of The Kronstadt Uprising.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. https://www.rferl.org/a/crushing-of-kronstadt-uprising-lenin/31102658.html

Gillette So Woke

Gillette's new commercial opens with a montage of real-life and on-line bullying, men cat-calling, a row of men standing behind a row of barbecue grills chanting "boys will be boys." It continues with scenes of "mansplaining", "toxic masculinity", and a news announcer decrying sexual harassment, thus making tie-ins with the #MeToo movement. Throughout the ad, the sanctimonious narrator asks "Is this the best a man can get? Is it?", thereby mocking Gillette's 30-year-old motto "the best a man can get." Near the end it shows men standing up to sexual harassment and stopping bullies. The commercial finishes with the obligatory link to a .org website.

This advertisement was made by Grey Advertising and was directed by Kim Gehrig, who produced last year's "Viva La Vulva" commercial that featured singing sock puppet vaginas.

Grey Advertising may or may not subscribe to P.T. Barnum's maxim that "there is no such thing as bad publicity," but they certainly advocate the older version of that phase: "success through scandal" ("succès de scandale"). But success for whom: for Gillette or for the advertising company?

Commercials are supposed to maintain a customer base and encourage others to use their product. Does the new Gillette commercial do either? It does - especially if you use one of Gillette's competitors.

Commercials are supposed to sell a product, not to proselytize. The act of shaving is just that: shaving. If you do it in the morning, you do it to look it to look professional, not to virtue signal.

Commercials are supposed to generate profits. Does this advertisement do so? It's too early to tell for Gillette and parent company Proctor and Gamble, though they did promise to pay $1 million per year for three years to "worthy nonprofits." So profits were generated for somebody besides Grey Advertising.

Here's the real problem with Gillette's ad: it is condescending AF. It portrays men acting as gentlemen and interfering with bullies as something new and hip and edgy, not as ordinary chivalry that was commonplace before the rise of the soy boy and the culture of victimhood.

Further, imagine if the ad decried the bad habits of Muslims, blacks, gays, etc — there would be an uproar! Instead, the ad is about the bad habits of men, so not only does it get a pass, the commercial is lauded by AdWeek for "flipping the narrative" and Gillette is celebrated for being "woke."

Finally, if there is any honest substance to the #MeToo movement, doesn't Gillette's new commercial trivialize that substance? Indeed it does, for the ad is basically saying: "I wake up in the morning feeling guilty for having a penis and balls. I'm not yet ready for gender reassignment surgery, so whatever should I do? I know, I'll shave with a Gillette razor, thereby symbolically castrating myself!"

Am I "triggered" by that ad, like certain news outlets claim I should be? Nope. Am I tired of companies committing suicide by becoming politicized in general, and by shilling for the left in particular? Yup. Right now, I'm laughing as I order razors from the Dollar Shave Club. And Grey Advertising is laughing all the way to the bank.

Two Minutes of Hate

Trump's "Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States" implemented a temporary ban on immigration from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and Libya. The text of that executive order is available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states

Based on the level of vitriol in the reaction to that order, people would rather spend hours protesting something they did not spend 30 minutes reading. After all, why take 30 minutes out of your day to determine what to think when the media will do that for you in two minutes?

What is this executive order about, and what are the protests about?

The executive order is not about immigration
Most everybody is from someplace else, therefore there is nothing special about immigration, regardless of how much immigrants are apotheosized. America is not a country of immigrants, we are a country of pioneers. What is important about immigration is how immigrants arrived and what the individual immigrants do with their lives after arriving. Do they open a restaurant or other business, do they provide for their family, do they integrate into the larger community - in essence, do they become proud Americans? Or do they try their hardest to stay "economic migrants" or "hyphenated-Americans"? Or, at worst, do they attempt to convert America into the countries from which they escaped? Becoming American is commendable, and should be supported, but there are no provisions in that executive order excluding immigrants who merely wish to stand on our soil.

It is the right of every sovereign nation to determine who can and who cannot legally enter within its borders. Of the 196 countries on this planet, only seven were excluded by this executive order. So, the order isn't about immigration. Nor is it an absolute ban on immigration from those seven countries, since there are exceptions made for people from those seven countries "traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas" as well as explicit provisions for case-by-case review.

Lest we forget, Trump's wife is herself an immigrant.

It is not about Islam
The order not only bans Muslims from the seven countries covered by the order, it bans all people, with the exceptions listed above. In fact, two of the families stranded at Philadelphia International Airport were Christian families fleeing from Syria - and they were not returned to Syria.

None of the five countries with the largest Muslim populations are on the list. The words "Muslim" or "Islam" appear nowhere in the EO. The references to Islam are indirect, like this paragraph from section 1 of the EO:

"In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor" killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation."

There can be no justification for harboring those who enjoy the benefits of living in our republic while trying destroy it, so why not deny entry to those who harbor ill will to our Constitution and our founding principles? We are not obligated to aid and abet our own destruction.

Further, why shouldn't we keep out anyone who would "oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation"? We have fought too long and too hard to win the rights of minorities and women and gays and lesbians in this country, and it makes no sense to reverse those gains.

What else isn't the executive order about?
It isn't about racism, since there is no such thing as the "Islamic race" or the "immigrant race". It isn't about free speech, either. If you think this is a "free speech" issue, look at what happened yesterday at UC Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement. So much for Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" policy.

What, then, is the executive order about?
The executive order is an attempt to protect America against foreign terrorism. The seven countries are not even specified in the executive order itself, but were identified in the Terrorist Prevention Act of 2015 and its 2016 extension as being current fomenters of terrorists. The order limits entry to people from only those seven countries, requires that the vetting process be improved, requires the completion of a biometric tracking system, and requires public reporting of immigration statistics.

These are the types of actions that should have been taken following the terrorist attacks on 9-11, or at Boston, Ft. Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, or Mumbai, or multiple places in Pakistan, or Paris (two times), or Berlin, Cologne, or at a whole host of other attack locations.

Finally, what are the protests about?
When Obama banned Cuban immigrants from arriving here, there were no protests. When the Obama administration chose that list of seven countries in 2015 and 2016, where was the outrage? It is easy to say that the root cause of the protests is the election of Trump, or rather, Hillary Clinton's loss. While this is true in part, it is also about the abrogation of the individual's responsibility to determine beliefs based on his or her own observations, research, and reasoning. The protesters are being told what to think, rather than figuring it out for themselves. And they see no problem with this.

The protests are nothing but "Two Minutes of Hate."