The subversion process

THE SUBVERSION PROCESS
Yuri Bezmenov (KGB Staff) Model
Bezmenov, Y. (1984). Love Letter to America. Los Angeles, California: W.I.N. Almanac
Panorama. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/BezmenovLoveLetterToAmerica
What to look for before the 2020 Elections

• Yuri Bezmenov (1939-1993) was a KGB defector
• Father was an officer in the Soviet Army General Staff
• Graduate of the Institute of Oriental Languages, Moscow
State University
• Assigned to the Novosti Press Agency
– Propaganda, espionage and ideological front of the KGB
– 75 % KGB - 25% co-opted free lance writers

• Yuri Bezmenov’s Novosti Press Agency duties included
– Prepare propaganda materials to be planted in foreign media
– Establishing “spheres of influence” in target counties
• Became Deputy Chief of “Research and Counter-
Propaganda Group”, under Valeri Neyev (KGB)

• Yuri Bezmenov as Deputy Chief of “Research and
Counter-Propaganda Group”, under Valeri Neyev (KGB)
– Collected intelligence on target country military, politicians,
journalists, public figures, businessmen, professors, students,
etc.
– Epiphany: 1968: Battle of Hue, South Vietnam

• Yuri Bezmenov’s Epiphany
– 1968: Battle of Hue, South Vietnam
• Communist Forces overran Hue, South Vietnam in 1968
• One month later, US Forces retook the city.
• In one month, the communists executed 4800+/- military, politicians,
journalists, public figures, businessmen, professors, students, etc in
targeted killings.
• Bezmenov realized that his KGB counterparts responsible for South
Vietnam intelligence collection accumulated the same personal data
intel he had been collecting, but on South Vietnamese.
• That information was used to kill the residents of Hue

• Yuri Bezmenov Defects to Canada
– Obtains job with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as an
announcer for “Radio-Canada International” (similar to Voice of
America).
– Complaint by USSR Ambassador gets Bezmenov “Cancelled”
• In 1984, he wrote “Love Letter to America” under the
name Tomas Shuman, outlining the subversion process
that is in play today.

You are at war.
• You may not know it
• But your opponents know it and want to keep you
sleeping.
• The driving force is: Ideology
• The key process is Ideological Subversion
– The process of changing the perception of reality in the
mind of the population

All warfare is based primarily on deception of an
enemy. Fighting on a battlefield is the most primitive
way of making war. There is no art higher than to
destroy your enemy without a fight – by subverting
anything of value in the enemy’s country.
Sun-Tzu
500 B.C.

Sun Tzu’s principles of subversion
- Cover with ridicule all of the valid traditions in your
opponent’s country.
- Implicate their leaders in criminal affairs and turn them
over to the scorn of their populace at the right time.
- Disrupt the work of their government by every means.
- Do not shun the aid of the lowest and most despicable
individual of your enemy’s country.

Sun Tzu’s principles of subversion
- Spread disunity and dispute among the citizens
- Turn the young against the old
- Be generous with promises and rewards to collaborators
and accomplices
Echoed in COMINTERNs Rules of Revolution

COMINTERNs Rules of Revolution
• Corrupt the young; get them interested in sex, take them
away from religion. Make them superficial and enfeebled
• Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly
harping on controversial issues of no importance
• Destroy people’s faith in their national leaders by holding
them up for contempt, ridicule, and disgrace
• Always preach democracy, but seize power fast and
ruthlessly

COMINTERNs Rules of Revolution
• Encourage government extravagances, destroy its
credit, produce years of inflation with rising prices and
taxation.
• Incite unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage
civil disorders, and foster a lenient and soft attitude on
the part of the government towards such disorders.
• Cause breakdown of the old moral values; honesty,
sobriety, self restraint, faith in the pledged word

COMINTERNs Rules of Revolution are incorporated into
modern Russian influence operations

To attack a free nation,
corrupt their precepts and values
• Case Example: Change “equal opportunity” to “equality”.
– This sets in motion the taking from one group and giving to
another group: property, money
– Creates increasing demands on the part of the “takers” and
the State (government, political party) becomes the arbitrator.
– Undermines individual and national character
(Ask College students to do with their grades.)

Movement from an open to a closed society
Open Society
Egalitarianism
Expectations up
Aspirations vs. Reality
Discontent
Productivity Down
Inflation and Unemployment = Recession
Social Unrest
Instability
Radicalism
Power Struggle
Civil War, Revolution, Invasion
Closed Society

Active Measures – May be taken by lone individuals or groups
• Turn Reality Upside Down
– Victims being sued, punished; offenders coddled
• Use Double Standards against the target
– Ok for Our President/Party; not OK for your President/Party
• Overt and covert information programs
– Disinformation pushed to and by uncritical or partisan media
– Fake Media reporting
– Outright lying (Shifts the burden to the target to prove his innocence)

Active Measures
• Agents of Influence (Influencers - Talk Shows)
• Deceptive “International Forums” to encircle the target
and berateing the target.
• Provoking and manipulating mass demonstrations
– Provide controllers and administrators for demonstration.
– Provide weapons (e.g. Pre-position bats, pallets of bricks)

Active Measures
• Spread rumors and “reliable information” impugning
target officials
• Plant phony stories in local media
• Create/Control local – national media and slant their
stories.
• Shape the debate to focus on trivial or non-essential
stories to induce delay and failure.

Active Measures
• Sabotage of agendas, meetings, events, search results
• Acts of violence to induce intellectual and emotional
paralysis

Demoralization
• Aimed at
– Ideas
– Structure
– Life

Demoralization
• Ideas
– One way street
• Target nation must be the target of the ideas of the subverter
• Democracies are recipients and repositories of ideas, good and bad
• Instill bad ideas
• It takes time (decades) to recognize and repudiate bad ideas,
creating a window for action for the subverter.
• Use committed or sympathetic unwitting politicians, educators,
activists, & influencers to delay recognition & response to bad ideas

Demoralization
• Ideas
– Label, demean and cancel those who argue against “bad
ideas”
– Bypass their arguments and attack them on a personal level
• Everyone has a secret that can be exploited
• If one is not found, make it up
• Shift the burden of proof and bury them.

Demoralization
• Ideas
– RELIGION: Politicize, demean, restrict
– EDUCATION : Re-educate teachers. Revise history; accentuate the
negative
– MEDIA: Monopolize (concentrate into a few holders), manipulate, focus
on trivia and non-issues; reduce the public’s strategic thinking
– CULTURE : Replace historical figures, accentuate their shortcomings;
replace with false heroes and role models; aggravate differences in
multicultural societies

Demoralization
• Ideas - Education
– International Student and Educator exchanges where leftist ideas are uncritically
accepted and implemented in the US Classroom with no debate.
– Flooding campus bookstores with leftist literature while restricting/ depleting
literature supporting the United States as a Nation
– College Speaker programs favoring the left but restricting the center and right.
– Permitting Leftist campus clubs and newspapers while restricting alternative
clubs and papers
– Banning, cancelling conservative voices

Demoralization
• Ideas –
– CULTURE : Replace historical figures, accentuate their shortcomings;
replace with false heroes and role models; aggravate differences in
multicultural societies
– Test:
• Ask your child or nieces and nephews to show you their school
history book and look up the summaries of the Founding Fathers.

Demoralization
• Structure (Socio-Political set up of a nation)
– JUDICIAL, LAW ENFORCEMENT
– SOCIAL RELATIONS
– SECURITY
– INTERNAL POLITICS
– FOREIGN RELATIONS

Demoralization
• Induce mistrust of legal system by politicizing decisions.
• Emphasize individual “rights” over “responsibilities” and
“obligations”.
• National Lawyers Guild
https://tennesseestar.com/2020/03/10/commentary-antifas-most-
important-enabler-is-its-legal-arm-the-national-lawyers-guild/

Demoralization
• Undermine the police.
– Stage multi-year campaigns and themes of discreditation and
“investigations of wrongdoing of the police.”
– Pass legislation to reduce power of law enforcement.

Demoralization
– SOCIAL RELATIONS
• Emphasize “rights” over “responsibility”
• Create a sense of entitlement
• Media, influencers, advocates aggravate cultural divisions to attack others
• Divert from critical issues to frivolous issues
• Develop a sense of outrage over any issue to alarm, intimidate, and subdue
the target.
• Instill a sense of guilt, helplessness or isolation in the target

Demoralization
– SECURITY (INTELLIGENCE, POLICE, MILITARY –
PROTECTIVE SERVICES)
• Reduce prestige
• Reduce funding
• Over extend capabilities, personnel, budget
• Highlight mistakes and excesses
• Misapply efforts to target against citizens while ignoring
intended threats.

Demoralization
– INTERNAL POLITICS
• Cultivate sympathetic politicians
• Accentuate division
• Accentuate the negative (Media role)
• Decry at loud volume innocuous differences
• Criminalize differences – Use security services

Demoralization – Case Example
• Cultivate sympathetic
politicians

Demoralization – Case Example - Cultivate sympathetic
politicians
Mayor Bernie Sanders
Wed, Nov 4, 1987 – Page 1 · The Burlington Free Press (Burlington, Vermont) Newspapers.com

Demoralization
• Use treaties to
– Restrict US options
– Increase US burdens and expenses
– Subordinate US interests to the interests of others
– Use half measures (not completely defeating the enemy)

Demoralization
• Cultivate cadres of Academics hostile to US values,
history and traditions and use them as teachers /policy
advisors.

Demoralization
• Life (Life, health services, race relations, population
control, labor relations)
– Separate child’s loyalty from family and country, but cultivate
loyalty to party and party philosophy
– Erase National history (classes, icons [statues, parks, monuments])
– Modify history /government classes to accentuate the negative.
– Develop welfare state where the takers out number the providers
– Aggravate race relations and suppress/criminalize criticism of
troublemakers

Demoralization
– Supplement birth rate with immigration to stress the underlying
economic system
– Use immigration to increase division and induce costs on the target
– Abolish freely competing small food companies that cater to
individuals
– Monopolize, control and politicize food producers

Demoralization
– Aggravate labor relations with Management to control production
and worker independence.
– Use resulting power for political, not labor, purposes.
– Use political power to supplement others initiatives in non-labor
arenas

Demoralization
– Aggravate race relations by accentuating the negative
– Stress “Equality” over “equal opportunity” to force performers to
subsidize low and non-performers
– Supplant National values and holidays with parochial values and
holidays to undermine National solidarity
– Take away private lands and property; convert to community
property and public housing.

Demoralization
– Use labor unions to stifle individuals and innovation; extract money
from members for political purposes.
– Use strikes and slowdowns to leverage political issues that are
outside normal labor issues.
– Accentuate the negative (Media).
– Create a sense of victimization (Media).
– Calls by pressure and watch dog groups for re-education programs

Destablization
• Power Struggle
– Offer job security, free social services, other “pleasure strokes”
from the Government at the expense of individual responsibility.
– Weaken traditional national institutions and induce the people to
shift to charismatic politicians who offer free government services.
– Use “mob-ocracy” to advance the agenda.
– Focus on short term solutions that are quick fixes in the public eye.
– Supplant free bargaining/free enterprise with “planned economy”
and “centralization” shifting power to the new political center

Destablization
• Power Struggle
– Cripple the division of power (Executive, Legislative, Judicial)
• Restriction on Executive power, packing the supreme court, criminalizing
differences in the legislature
• Undermine faith in the institutions
– Eliminate the Electoral College that protects the rural against the
overpopulated urban centers (Cities).
– Control the Urban centers (cities) to control the Rural areas

Destablization
• Economy
– Consolodate power into as few as possible. Media, food production,
technology should not be diversified.
• Diversified ownership caters to the needs of the customer.
• Concentrated ownership caters to the needs of the similarly
powerful.
– Establish philosophical control over these few remaining entities.
– Use their combined power to shape public views and policy.

Destablization
• Society (Basic fabric of Society and Law)
– Undermine traditional family values replacing them with political
values and themes.
– Replace individual values of self reliance and initiative with
hesitation and doubt.
– Criticize/criminalize initiative, independence, free thinking.
– Place legal obstacles in front of free market initiatives.
– Replace God with the State.
– Suppress religious activity but promote political protest

Destablization
• Foreign Relations
– Stress isolation and defeatism
– Criticize decisive action protecting America’s interests
– Subordinate American interests to others
– Subsidize others at the expense of America and
Americans
– Weaken the military (Over extension, underfunding).

Crisis (Stage Three)
• Under the guise of social unrest
– Mobilize agents and influencers
– Accentuate the negative
– Suppress news of successes
– Blackmail / indict weak leaders forcing them from office
– Replace with strong leaders and afford them sweeping
powers that exceed the limits of the law
– Redouble the processes discussed above

Normalization (Stage Four)
• Under new administration or power structure
– Replace previous laws, policies and practices
– Eliminate/re-educate resistance
– Erase history: Icons, monuments, historical buildings,
grave sites, art, literature
– Consolidate power
– Advance the new agenda

Besmenov’s 1984 Comments
• “You can easily observe this vicious chain of events by simply reading your newspapers
regularly or even watching the TV” p. 19.
• “The American media is a willing recipient of (Russian) subversion. I Know this because I
worked with American Journalists and correspondents in Moscow while on the Soviet side and
after my defection to the West” p. 30.
• “One of the most devastating methods of subversion in American Media is discrediting authors
and the information and opinions of those who come up with clear evidence…” p. 33.
• “To demoralize America’s protective forces it is enough to make your kids call the police ‘pigs’
and ‘fascists’ for a decade, disband police agencies watching over the subverters and radical,
by calling them spies, stage campaign after campaign of discreditation and ‘investigation” of
the “wrongdoings of the police” p. 36.

Recommended reading:
• Adamo, C. G. (2019). Rules for Defeating Radical: Countering the Alinsky Strategy in Politics
and Culture. Christopher Adamo Publishers, ISBN-13: 978-1733218207
• Bray, M. (2017). ANTIFA: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Melville House. ISBN-13: 978-1612197036
• Chamberlain, C. (2019). Rules for Deplorables: A Primer for Fighting Radical Socialism. Cathi-
the-Contractor LLC, Publishers ISBN-13: 978-0692170984
• Gordon, T. J., & Gordon, D. R. (2020). Rules for Retrogrades: Forty Tactics to Defeat the Radical
Left. Tan Books. ISBN-13: 978-1505115932
• Master, M. C. (2012). Rules for Conservatives: A response to Rules for Radicals. Durham Books.
ISBN-13: 978-0983745686

The subversion process

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