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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

#51

Post by dale_glass »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #4

For e ti's shocking how much people are in denial about this. In spite of us seeing with our own eyes that this strategy is being deployed and it works, it works depressingly well. In spite of that, many people I know try to dismiss the video, the speaker, and the main message conveyed by it. It is as if we got blind by our own request.

I have no doubt that Russia engages in a lot of shenanigans today.

However that back in 1985, what this guy is saying about the USSR managing worm into the US to the point of raising an entire generation that thought what the USSR wanted them to think -- that to me seems extremely dubious.

There may be a kernel of truth there -- yes, the KGB may have had such a strategy, and it might have been successfully executed in some cases. What I highly doubt is that it actually did work on the US in 1985.

You have to consider a conflict in priorities there. This guy defected. He burned every bridge there was to burn back home, and that means he desperately needs to ingratiate himself with where he ended up instead, and given that McCarthyism was right around that time it doesn't take a genius to latch on that.

Also, let's be serious here. This is almost 40 years ago. Many people of importance from back then are now dead or retired. If this interview has anything to do with modern reality it's more by accident than anything.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#52

Post by selectodude »

CalChris wrote: post #48
dale_glass wrote: post #41

This sounds pretty silly. Now fuck Russia and all, but this guy is convinced that Russia managed to worm into American consciousness in the mid 80s, to the point of raising an entire generation of people who believe what Russia wants them to believe. That just doesn't add up to me. Now not being American I don't know what things were over there, but at least I can recall that in the 80s and 90s, Russians were the sta…

I agree about the 80s. If anything, we viewed them as a bigger threat than they really were, our defense industry in particular. But the USSR fell apart in 1989 and Russia was a spent force in the 90s. We bought Ukraine’s nukes with money because we could. But we, George W Bush really, then underestimated Russia in the 2000s.

Obama far more than Bush.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#53

Post by ImHereToVote »

mopsi wrote: post #32

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 Kreml…

Is there a quote of link to the "three days to Kyiv" comment from the Russian Federation?

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#54

Post by sorokod »

noduerme wrote: post #2

It's crazy. I know a Russian guy who is exactly like this; I debate with him all the time. Almost every night. About the war. Bluntly invested in winning, regardless of what the system looks like; even admitting that it's a terrible system; using weak arguments for why people need structural dominance, while simultaneously arguing in favor of "the people" - (and using a historical American failings as a way to draw f…

Because "almost every night" I assume he is not mobilized. Why would that be so?

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#55

Post by rationalfaith »

I mean all the rainbow stuff is crippling our society from an objective perspective. If a war broke out, historically tried philosophies and objectively useful skills will take precedence. If you see how fragmented the younger generations are based on materialistic criterias you'd think it's a psyop operation to divide the nation up to the polarized state we're in. Almost nothing getting done with stalemates up the wazzouu.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#56

Post by jareklupinski »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #3
noduerme wrote: post #2

It's crazy. I know a Russian guy who is exactly like this; I debate with him all the time. Almost every night. About the war. Bluntly invested in winning, regardless of what the system looks like; even admitting that it's a terrible system; using weak arguments for why people need structural dominance, while simultaneously arguing in favor of "the people" - (and using a historical American failings as a way to draw f…

I believe you, and as a counterpoint I've known many Russians and they uniformly were _not_ like the Russian guy you know. Those I knew expressly mocked the incompetence of letting essentially mobsters pretend to run a country (their country). It reminded me of a much larger scale version of old mobster tales from big cities in the US, long before my time.

basically my feeling when I logged into Experian today

they are offering a service where they would attempt to erase your identity from a list of data aggregators, lest that info is used by "bad actors"

gee i wonder who gave those aggregators my info in the first place...

"would be a real shame if any of them used your unlocked credit score.... oh you have to pay to lock that too :^) "

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#57

Post by abecedarius »

Summary of near-14-minute video, since I certainly wished someone else had posted one to help me decide whether to watch:

Says the KGB works mainly at ideological subversion of the enemy society, not James Bond stuff. This has 4 stages:

- Demoralization. Slow, takes at least a generation to take hold or be reversed. U.S. is 3 generations in, graduates have positions of influence, and now it's mostly done by Americans to Americans.

- Destabilization. 2 to 5 years.

- Crisis. 3 to 6 weeks. E.g. in Central America at that time.

- Normalization.

KGB considers it total war, and we should too. Americans should unify behind stopping their government from aiding communism. Education system especially important.

(There wasn't really anything more specific, it was TV. I would've liked specifics on not just the claimed strategy, but how much real effect they had on mid-20th-C. U.S. education and culture. Of course there's only so much one defector would know.)

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#58

Post by phendrenad2 »

Yeah, don't put too much stock in this guy's words. Being a defector, flipping 180 degrees and becoming the USSR's biggest and most popular detractor is a no-brainer. But sadly, he could have said that the KGB had pink bunny guns and traveled around on marshmallow clouds and many on the right would lap it up, because it fits a political preconception.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#59

Post by phendrenad2 »

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.

Ah yes the classic "everyone who disagrees with me is a shill" (non-)argument. Becoming all to prevalent on HN.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#60

Post by sorokod »

dralley wrote: post #42

Modern Russian propaganda is not all that similar to anything the Soviet Union was interested in. There is no serious ideological backbone to it. It's all about putting out multitudes of conflicting narratives, giving people the "choice" to latch onto the ones they sympathize with most closely, and undermining the very concept of truth, democracy etc. "alternative facts", if you will. Timothy Snyder's description is…

There is no serious ideological backbone to it

You are too kind, there is no ideological backbone at all.

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