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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

#71
post #60
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.

Sure there is. I mean, there's no ideology that promises a better future for the common man, like communism, but ideology there is; Imperialism, glory of the motherland, a peculiarly Russian variant of "Manifest destiny", power of the state, domination of lesser peoples, etc. Fascism, if you like.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#72
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?

There’s not, it was actually General Milley who put this number out there and the media and social media ran with it as if it were an official Kremlin statement.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/gen-milley-says-kyiv-could-fall-w...

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#73

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 t…

≥ Poseidon system[3] which is a 100mt radioactive tsunami fully autonomous doomsday weapon

No where on that page does it say it is automated or carries 100mt. The only place it mentions tsunami is where it discredits the idea this weapon could cause one.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#74
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

He studied foreign languages in the Soviet Union and worked abroad at the Soviet embassy - it's safe to say that he was a spy and not a journalist.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#75

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 t…

Thanks.

That’s an almost like a sci-fi plot. It doesn’t fit from my lay perspective though. Putins miracle weapons seems like Hitlers - a PR exercise for the masses. The performance of the Russian military has been so pathetic it’s surely caused huge rethinks in many quarters.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#76
Whenever I interact with russian or pro-russian elements the story remains the same. They deny that they're doing any wrongdoing. If you give them video evidence that they're doing something wrong they deny the evidence is real. If the evidence has undeniable proof they either say the victims deserved it (like the video where they killed civilians around hostomel or the one where a ukrainian family and their dog gets gunned down with no warning). As a final cope they can also retreat to "Well america did it too".

Absolutely disgusting mindset

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#77

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.

Absolutely. As s teen in the 80s I was shocked the USSR collapsed as everything around me made them out to be this huge Russian bear that could kill us at any moment. Granted I was in the Midwest then away from 24h news cycle, and much closer to missile silos and military bases so perhaps that made a difference.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#78

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…

You're misrepresenting that conviction you allege he has though. (Commonly called out as a "straw man" argument here.)

The original post here is pretty vulnerable to both misunderstanding and misinterpretation of that sort. Something like the lecture video rglover linked (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35099311) gives a clearer and more concrete description of the subversion process, and to some extent Bezmenov's view on how far it had progressed in a few nations at that time.

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#79
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?

I hate talking about downvotes but it is really odd that you're being downvoted for asking for a source. Source are requested all the time on this website, and only in certain cases do they get downvoted like this. Hopefully your comment won't be gray in a few hours when more people participate in the thread.

I would like to see a source as well, because I want to see sources for all claims I encounter online. Why should I trust a random person on a website?

Re: KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview – Idealogical Subversion

#80
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, the US is about to ban TikTok. At first I thought they were only going to ban it for government and contractor devices, but it seems now that it will be banned for everyone. I don't use TikTok and probably never will, but how is this bill even constitutionally legal? I understand the concerns about data collection, but the USG seems more concerned about WHO is doing the collecting rather than the collecti…

> the US is about to ban TikTok There are a LOT more steps to making a bill a law[0] than this, so “about to” is pretty disingenuous. [0]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Otbml6WIQPo

It's on the way to Biden's desk, and he has said that he will sign it.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/tech/biden-tiktok-bill/index....

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