Yuri Bezmenov

Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate overt and open, you can see it with your own eyes. All you can do, all Americans needs to do is to unplug their bananas from their ears, open up their eyes and they can see. There is no mystery. It has nothing to do with espionage. I know that espionage and intelligence gathering looks more romantic, it sells more to the audience through the advertising, probably. That's why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond type of thrillers. But in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all. According to my opinion and the opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about fifteen percent of time, money and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other eighty-five percent is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite an abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their family, their community and their country.

It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being demoralization. It takes from fifteen to twenty years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate on generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxism, Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or contra-balanced by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism.

Most of the activity of the department was to compile huge amount, volume of information on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publishers, editors, journalists, actors, educationalists, professors of political science, members of Parliament, representatives of business circles. Most of these people were divided roughly in two groups. Those who were told the Soviet foreign policy, they would be promoted to the positions of power through media and public opinion manipulation. Those who refuse the Soviet influence in their country would be character assassinated, or executed physically contra-revolution. Same was as in a small town named HEWA in South Vietnam. Several thousand so of Vietnamese were executed in one night when the city was captured by Vietcong for only two days. And American CIA could never figure out, how could possibly Communists know each individual, where he lives, where to get him, and would be arrested in one night, basically in some four hours before dawn, put on a van, taken out of the city limits and shot.