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KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

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Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#31

Post by orangepurple »

herbstein wrote: post #27
orangepurple wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with Reagan. Bezmenov defected to Canada. His role in the KGB was so inconsequential that he saw the files of journalists who were slated for executed come revolution. Got it. I'm sure everyone could freely access those.

> This has nothing to do with Reagan. Bezmenov defected to Canada. And the interviewer is an American. They're talking about American conditions. Where he defected isn't that important within that context. Additionally, he moved to Los Angeles a couple of years before this interview was conducted. Specifically to have an easier time connecting with his audience.

He was back in Canada by 1989 until he died in Canada in 1993.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#32

Post by mopsi »

This ties well into the "three days to Kyiv" expectation at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russians really did think that Ukraine had been subverted to a degree that it would just roll over and die; that leadership would run away and local resistance would be limited to disorganized pockets that riot police could suppress, but their informants and agents just stole the money and reported what the Kremlin wanted to hear. Calling the invasion a "special military operation" shows how it was thought of as a special operation by intelligence services instead of conventional war.

But Zelenskiy responded with "I need ammo, not a ride", and instead of unarmed protesters, Russian riot police convoys driving into Ukraine were met by Armed Forces of Ukraine.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12qWthUM_II (Riot helmets and shields are clearly visible.)

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#33

Post by mahogany »

orangepurple wrote: post #20
herbstein wrote: post #10

This interview keeps coming up, and I don't really understand why. It's utterly uninteresting. Bezmenov had an inconsequential role in the KGB. He was not privy to any large-scale details. Bezmenov defected in 1970. After his defection would not be privy to any new information. The interview is from 1984 and not 1985 as the title purports. Ultimately, the claims in this video are categorically false. We can observe t…

This has nothing to do with Reagan. Bezmenov defected to Canada. His role in the KGB was so inconsequential that he saw the files of journalists who were slated for executed come revolution. Got it. I'm sure everyone could freely access those.

The CIA helped him defect and change his name. Years later, he appeared on TV in the US repeating neoconservative talking points in the 80s. But I guess he was just your ordinary Canadian.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#34

Post by kneebonian »

diimdeep wrote: post #5

CIA propaganda. Detailed explanation from former CIA analyst Frank Snepp about how the newspapers and magazines you were taught to regard as mainstream and reliable have always eagerly served as disinformation megaphones for the CIA and the US Security State. That's still true. [1] [1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1589624331919060997

[flagged]

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#35

Post by evanwise »

herbstein wrote: post #10

This interview keeps coming up, and I don't really understand why. It's utterly uninteresting. Bezmenov had an inconsequential role in the KGB. He was not privy to any large-scale details. Bezmenov defected in 1970. After his defection would not be privy to any new information. The interview is from 1984 and not 1985 as the title purports. Ultimately, the claims in this video are categorically false. We can observe t…

It gets reposted because it confirms the biases of right-wing posters and is an easy way for them to farm positive engagement and feel like they have some special insight into current events.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#36

Post by boomboomsubban »

orangepurple wrote: post #26
j0hnyl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't a lot of this guy's rhetoric and credentials been debunked over and over as a bit hyperbolic. I mean... the guy made a career out of selling fear?

What career? He died a few years after this interview.

The career he had in the years before this interview and then in the remaining years before his untimely death?

I'm not informed enough to say whether his entire career was USSR fear mongering, but dying doesn't mean you didn't have a career.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#37

Post by etiam »

orangepurple wrote: post #21

FSB shills are out in full force on HN on this one trying to discredit him with exceptional pilpul and deflection. I grew up in the Eastern Bloc and find his stories plausible. Everything Bezmenov said is true. Watch the entire interview.

> Watch the entire interview

In fact, watch more! Here's some:

https://archive.org/details/yuri_bezmenov_all_interviews_lec...

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#38

Post by j0hnyl »

orangepurple wrote: post #26
j0hnyl wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hasn't a lot of this guy's rhetoric and credentials been debunked over and over as a bit hyperbolic. I mean... the guy made a career out of selling fear?

What career? He died a few years after this interview.

I've done a lot of googling on this guy and either the truth is scrubbed, or I'm landing on soviet propaganda, OR there's not much evidence that he even worked for the KGB. The guy was a journalist and played up this narrative in order to get the attention of the public eye. I'm not saying that everything he said was bullshit. Do nation states at odds actively try to stabilize each other? Of course. But seems to me like he was more of a creative story teller than anything else.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#39

Post by narrator »

lostlogin wrote: post #25

There is a good book on a different defector, Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky. The story is excellent - The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37542581-the-spy-and-the...

There is an eerily prophetic work by the high-ranking Eastern European military defector Golitsyn called "The Perestroika Deception"[1] in which he says that Perestroika is a strategic retreat because the Soviets know they are too far behind technologically to have any hope of defeating the west. They will however use that retreat to acquire modern technology and improve their economy so they can ultimately conquer the west.

Only one analyst, J.R Nyquist has been taking this stuff seriously, and he was ignored. In fact, the idea that Russia could rise from the ashes was considered paranoid right-wing conspiracy for much of the last 30 years. He has been pretty prescient about the war in Ukraine and developments in Russia over the last 20 years. They have rearmed and have some crazy weapons now like the hypersonic missiles[2] that we have no defense against and the Poseidon system[3] which is a 100mt radioactive tsunami fully autonomous doomsday weapon designed to foil any attempt by the west to win a nuclear war with anti-ballistic missile technilogy.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Perestroika-Deception-Memoranda-Centr...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-47M2_Kinzhal

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpos...

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#40

Post by mopsi »

mahogany wrote: post #28
herbstein wrote: post #10

This interview keeps coming up, and I don't really understand why. It's utterly uninteresting. Bezmenov had an inconsequential role in the KGB. He was not privy to any large-scale details. Bezmenov defected in 1970. After his defection would not be privy to any new information. The interview is from 1984 and not 1985 as the title purports. Ultimately, the claims in this video are categorically false. We can observe t…

Did he even work for the KGB? Where does this claim originate? Wikipedia says he worked for a Soviet press agency, but I don't see a good source that documents his involvement with KGB that doesn't ultimately track back to himself.

Without any doubt, if this snipped from Wikipedia is true:

> After graduating in 1963, Bezmenov spent two years in India working as a translator and public relations officer with the Soviet economic aid group Soviet Refineries Constructions, which built refinery complexes.

Soviet citizens could not freely leave the country. All travel was subject to very strict background checks several generations into your family tree to verify loyalty to the state, and travel groups had KGB informants attached to them to keep an eye out for any suspicious behaviour.

Not to mention such foreign assignments, which were under total KGB control. Either he worked directly for KGB or had a curator from KGB. Independently going abroad and working there was unthinkable.

Given that he did public relations and was probably visible more than most Soviet staff, his posting to India should be pretty easy to verify through contemporary newspapers, photos from public events and other similar sources. His major at Moscow State University is also easy to verify and it's a well-known fast-track into intelligence work.

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