Adam Sharp

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The KGB Spy Who Predicted Our Future

My dear friends, I think you are in very big trouble. Whether you believe it or not, YOU ARE AT WAR. And you may lose this war very soon together with all your affluence and freedoms unless you start defending yourselves.

–Yuri Bezmenov, 1984

In 1970, a Soviet KGB agent named Yuri Bezmenov defected to the West. His story is fascinating. Yuri shared key details on how USSR propaganda and subversion worked.

But first we need to discover why Yuri came over to the West…

Since the 1960s, Yuri had been stationed in India. His cover assignment was as a journalist for the Novosti Press Agency.

But his real job as a KGB agent was to influence policymakers, academics, and journalists. Yuri’s mission was to infect these targets with Marxist-Leninist ideology.

He planted stories about how benevolent and fair the USSR was. He charmed diplomats and politicians with vodka (and less tasteful means). He planted stories to discredit the United States.

He built relationships with influential Indians with a goal of shaping the narrative around the Soviet Union. He worked with students, recruiting future Indian leaders to study in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

His job was to corrupt both individuals and institutions.

Eventually Yuri became disillusioned with his work. He realized that his efforts were actively harming the Indian people, whom he had become quite attached to.

So he decided to defect to the West. He disguised himself as an American hippie, and joined one of the wandering groups of backpackers which frequented India at the time.

Yuri slipped his Soviet handlers and made his way to the American embassy. They granted him asylum, and he was debriefed by the CIA and FBI.

Lessons in Ideological Subversion

Once in North America, Yuri Bezmenov changed his name to Tomas Schuman and worked as a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CGC). Ironically, part of his job was now to target Russian-speaking countries with Western views.

Yuri wrote books and lectured all over North America, warning that if the United States didn’t guard its values closely, they would be overwhelmed by the same type of social warfare he used in India.

Bezmenov described this process as “ideological subversion”. He claimed that 85% of the KGB counterintelligence budget was used to subvert countries. Less than 15% of KGB spending was on the cloak-and-dagger stuff we see in movies.

The USSR ran the same playbook in countless countries, and Yuri warned Americans that we were now the primary target.

He explained that ideological subversion generally has 4 stages.

  • Demoralization (15-20 year process) – begin to undermine a society’s values, religion, and institutions.
  • Destabilization (2-5 years) – encourage political polarization, unrest, inflation.
  • Crisis (sudden but with lasting effects) – enacting change by taking advantage of a major destabilizing event such as war or economic crisis.
  • Normalization (indefinite) – The now authoritarian and demoralized society becomes normal to citizens, and they barely notice its negative aspects.

Yuri said that it takes 15-20 years to demoralize a nation because that’s how long it takes to propagandize one generation with socialist ideals.

Bezmenov also said that once someone is subverted, it is extremely difficult to reverse the process. You can show them all the factual information you want, but it won’t change their views. They have become completely demoralized.

I would argue that America’s crisis stage was 9/11. It was a war combined with an economic collapse. Interestingly, this date also coincides with America’s declining religiosity. In 2000, 68% of Americans reported belonging to a church, synagogue, temple, or mosque. Today it’s just 45%.

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Source: Gallup

Americans of all religions have been losing faith. Yuri predicted this. Disrupting a country’s religious values is a key part of the subversion playbook. However, we’re beginning to see signs of a religious reawakening. Many of my kids’ friends have actually encouraged their parents to join a church, which is a positive sign.

If you can’t guess, we are still in the midst of the normalization stage. However, Americans do finally appear to be waking up.

The only thing that will wake fully demoralized people from their slumber is a “kick in the balls” as Yuri said. In other words, conditions have to get bad before the brainwashed population wakes up. We’re reaching that stage now and I suspect we’ll hit the tipping point over the next decade.

Set in Motion Long Ago

To be clear, modern Russia is not actively subverting America. This plan was set in motion many decades ago during the peak of the cold war with the USSR.

Subversion is a “set it and forget it” type of operation. Once you influence one generation, the effect is self-perpetuating (up to a point).

It’s a disturbingly brilliant form of warfare. Silent, effective, and cheap.

Fortunately, there is a way out of demoralization. Yuri encouraged Americans to vote conservative, and basically said the only way out is through strong right-wing leaders. We have that in Donald Trump, and his return to the Presidency is a good sign for the country.

The left tried everything to prevent the re-election of Donald J. Trump. Fake criminal charges, lawsuits, slander, and more. Yet Americans saw through the lies. This is encouraging.

Additionally, young Americans are increasingly conservative. The old demoralized political left is withering away. Their appeal amongst young voters has plummeted, and the DNC is rudderless.

Our country will get out of this demoralized phase in time. We’ve already made good progress over the past decade and this should continue.

For those who wish to learn more, here are my favorite interviews, books, and lectures featuring Yuri Bezmenov:

The Daily Reckoning