From the December 2009 Idaho Observer:

The Yuri Factor

Four Stages of Mind Control

by Patricia Aiken

One of the privileges of working at The Idaho Observer office is answering calls from subscribers. No matter how brief or long the conversation, the topic seems to invariably lead to the frustration of sharing truth. “Why can’t they see this? I showed them the paper, DVD, photos, websites”…fill in the blank. It’s safe to say we’ve all experienced this more often than we care to. When I stumbled upon videos of a KGB defector from lectures in the 1980’s, I finally understood. In fact, a colleague and I have a code word for this experience that doesn’t alleviate the frustration but does shorten the discussion. “Yuri.” That’s all we say now. So if you happen to call the office and we get to that point in the conversation, feel free to just say “Yuri”.

In 1984 G. Edward Griffin interviewed Yuri Alexandrovic Bezmenov. Born in 1939 in suburban Moscow, the son of a high ranking Soviet Army officer, he was educated in elite schools inside the Soviet Union. Bezmenov developed an expertise in Indian culture and languages. He went on to a career as a “journalist” for Novosti, which was and still is the press agency of Russia. It’s also a front for the KGB. After becoming totally disgusted with the Soviet system and at great risk to his life, Bezmenov defected to the West in 1970. He escaped disguised as one of the many hippies that had flocked to India for enlightenment. Ardently Pro-American, he began writing and lecturing on the subject of propaganda, disinformation, and ideological subversion.

Bezmenov explained that psychological warfare has little to do with James Bond style spies. Hollywood’s fascination with espionage films is romanticized to sell more advertising. “But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all.” He estimated only 15 percent of time, money and manpower is spent on Bond-type espionage, the other 85 percent is the slow process of ideological subversion or psychological warfare. The goal is to change the perception of reality of every American that “despite the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusion in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.” This tremendous brainwashing process goes very slowly and is divided into four basic stages. America is clearly in the last stages.

Stage One- Demoralization

These individuals are divided into roughly two groups- those who would tow the Soviet foreign policy and those who would refuse. Those that go along are promoted to positions of power through media and public manipulation. Character or physical assassination awaits those that refuse. Even the pro-Marxist, when he has outlived his usefulness, is targeted for death or imprisonment. Bezmenov gives a handy tour of the Marxist foreign policy hit list- Nicaragua, Grenada, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cuba and Vietnam. “Idealistic, leftist communists are the useful idiots; the leftists who are idealistically believing in the beauty of Soviet or Communist or Socialist or whatever system; when they get disillusioned, they become the worst enemies.” His KGB instructors specifically made the point, “never bother with leftists, forget about these political prostitutes - aim higher”. Large circulation, established conservative media, rich movie makers, intellectuals in academic circles are the goal. Cynical, ego-centric people, suffering from self-importance, who lack morals, are the most desirable recruits. In other words, the sociopath.

The first stage of psychological warfare has long been complete. Bezmenov pointed out that “America is stuck, even if you start right now this minute; you start educating [the] new generation of Americans - it will still take you 15 to 20 years to turn the tide of ideological perception of reality, back to normalcy and patriotism.

“The result? The result you can see -- most of the people who graduated in the 60’s, dropouts or half-baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, and educational systems. You are stuck with them. You can’t get rid of to them. They are contaminated. They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot 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 cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other words [for] these people the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To rid society of these people you need another 15 or 20 years to educate a new generation of patriotically minded and common sense people who would be acting in favor and in the interests of United States society.”

The good news, if there is any, is the psychological shock when the idealists see “what the beautiful society of equality and social justice means in practice, obviously they will revolt. They will be very unhappy, frustrated people, and Marxist Leninist regime does not tolerate these people. Obviously they will join the [ranks] of dissenters; dissidents. Unlike the present [1984] United States there will be no place for dissent in future Marxist-Leninist America.

“The demoralization process in the United States is basically completed already for the last 25 years [50 years]. Actually, it’s over fulfilled because demoralization now reaches such areas where not even Comrade Andropov and all his experts would even dream of such tremendous success. Most of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to lack of moral standards. As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A 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 and pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him the concentration camps...he will refuse to believe it.... until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When the military boot crashes - then he will understand, but not before that. That’s the tragedy of the situation of demoralization.”

Stage Two- Destabilization

“It only takes 2 to 5 years to destabilize a nation. This time what matters is essentials; economy, foreign relations, [and] defense systems. And you can see it quite clearly that in some... sensitive areas such as defense and [the] economy, the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas in the United States is absolutely fantastic. I could never believe it 14 years ago when I landed in this part of the world that the process will go that fast.”

Stage Three- Crisis.

Stage Four- Normalization