KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov 1985 Interview. Explains KGB Manipulation of US Public Opinion — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Well, you spoke several times before
2. 0:02about ideological subversion. That is a
3. 0:04phrase that uh I'm afraid some Americans
4. 0:06don't fully understand. When uh the
5. 0:09Soviets use the phrase ideological
6. 0:12subversion, what do they mean by it?
7. 0:14Ideological subversion is is the process
8. 0:18which is legitimate,
9. 0:20over and open. You you can see it with
10. 0:23your own eyes. All all you have to do,
11. 0:25all American mass media has to do is to
12. 0:27unplug their bananas from their ears,
13. 0:30open up their eyes, and they can see it.
14. 0:32There is no mystery. There's nothing to
15. 0:34do with espionage. I know that espionage
16. 0:37intelligence gathering looks more
17. 0:38romantic. It sells more deodorants
18. 0:41through the advertising probably. That's
19. 0:43why your Hollywood producers are so
20. 0:45crazy about James Bond type of of
21. 0:48thrillers. But in reality, the main
22. 0:51emphasis of the KGB is not in the area
23. 0:54of it intelligence at all. According to
24. 0:57my opinion and opinion of many defectors
25. 1:00of my caliber, only about 15% of time,
26. 1:03money and manpower is spent on espionage
27. 1:07as such. The other 85% is a slow process
28. 1:11which we call either ideological
29. 1:14subversion or active measures actively
30. 1:18in the language of of the KGB or
31. 1:20psychological warfare. What it basically
32. 1:22means is to change the perception of
33. 1:25reality of every
34. 1:27American to such an extent that despite
35. 1:30of the abundance of
36. 1:32information, no one is able to come to
37. 1:35sensible conclusions in the interests of
38. 1:38defending themselves, their families,
39. 1:40their community and their country.
40. 1:43It's a great brainwashing uh process
41. 1:47which goes very slow and it's divided in
42. 1:49in four basic
43. 1:51stages. Uh the first one being
44. 1:54demoralization. It takes from 15 to 20
45. 1:56years to demoralize a nation. Why that
46. 1:59many years? because this is the minimum
47. 2:02number of years which requires to
48. 2:04educate one generation of students in
49. 2:07the country of of of your enemy exposed
50. 2:11to the ideology of the enemy. In other
51. 2:14words, Marxism Leninism ideology is
52. 2:17being pumped into the soft heads of of
53. 2:18of at least three generations of
54. 2:20American students without being
55. 2:22challenged or counterbalanced by the
56. 2:24basic values of Americanism, American
57. 2:27patriotism. The result, the result you
58. 2:30can see most of the people who graduated
59. 2:32in 60s, dropouts or half-baked
60. 2:35intellectuals are now occupying the
61. 2:37positions of power in the government,
62. 2:39civil service, business, mass media,
63. 2:42educational system. You are stuck with
64. 2:44them. You cannot get rid of them. They
65. 2:46are contaminated. They are programmed to
66. 2:49think and react to certain stimuli in a
67. 2:51certain pattern. You cannot change their
68. 2:54mind. Even if you if you expose them to
69. 2:57authentic information, even if you prove
70. 2:59that white is white and black is is
71. 3:01black, you still cannot change the basic
72. 3:04perception and the logic of behavior. In
73. 3:07other words, these people uh uh the
74. 3:10process of demoralization is complete
75. 3:12and irreversible. to get rid society of
76. 3:15these people. You have you need another
77. 3:1820 or or or 15 years to educate a new
78. 3:22generation of patriotically minded and
79. 3:24and and uh common common sense people
80. 3:28who would be acting in favor and in the
81. 3:32interests of of the of United States
82. 3:35society. And yet these people who've
83. 3:37been programmed and as you say in place
84. 3:39and who are favorable to an opening with
85. 3:42the Soviet concept, these are the very
86. 3:44people who would be marked for
87. 3:45extermination in this country. Most of
88. 3:47them. Yes. Simply because the
89. 3:50psychological shock when when they will
90. 3:53see in future what the what the
91. 3:55beautiful society of equality and social
92. 3:57justice means in practice. Obviously
93. 4:00they will revolt. they they they will
94. 4:03they will be very unhappy, frustrated
95. 4:05people and the Marxist Leninist regime
96. 4:08does not tolerate these people. Uh they
97. 4:11obviously they will join the links of
98. 4:13dissenters, dissident. Yes. Uh unlike in
99. 4:17present United States, there will be no
100. 4:20place for descent in in future Marxist
101. 4:22Leninist America. Uh here you can you
102. 4:25can get uh popular like Daniel Ellsburg
103. 4:29and filthy rich like Jane Fonda for
104. 4:32being dissident for criticizing your
105. 4:34Pentagon. In future these people will be
106. 4:36simply squashed like cockroaches. Nobody
107. 4:40is going to pay them nothing for their
108. 4:42beautiful noble ideas of equality. This
109. 4:44they don't understand and uh it will be
110. 4:47greatest shock for them. Of course, the
111. 4:50demoralization process in the United
112. 4:52States is basically completed already uh
113. 4:55for the last 25 years. Actually, it's
114. 4:58overfulfilled because demoralization now
115. 5:00reaches such areas where previously not
116. 5:03even comrade Andropov and and all his
117. 5:06experts would would even dream of such a
118. 5:09tremendous success. Most of it is done
119. 5:12by Americans to Americans thanks to lack
120. 5:15of moral standards. As I mentioned
121. 5:17before, uh exposure to true information
122. 5:21does not matter anymore. A person who
123. 5:24was
124. 5:25demoralized is unable to assess true
125. 5:28information, the facts tell nothing to
126. 5:30him. Uh, even if I shower him with
127. 5:33information, with with authentic proof,
128. 5:35with documents, with
129. 5:37pictures, even if I take him by force to
130. 5:40the Soviet Union and show him
131. 5:41concentration camp, he will refuse to
132. 5:44believe it until he he's going to
133. 5:47receive a kick in the in his fat bottom.
134. 5:50When a military boot crashes his then he
135. 5:53will understand, but not before that.
136. 5:55That's the tragic of the situation of
137. 5:57demoralization. So basically America is
138. 6:00stuck with with demoralization. And
139. 6:02unless even if if you start right now
140. 6:04here this minute you start educating new
141. 6:07generation of American it will still
142. 6:08take you 15 to 20 years to turn the tide
143. 6:12of uh of ideological perception of
144. 6:15reality uh back to normal normaly and
145. 6:18and
146. 6:20patriotism. The next stage is
147. 6:22destabilization.
148. 6:24This time subverter does not care about
149. 6:26your ideas and the patterns of your
150. 6:28consumption. Whether you eat junk food
151. 6:30and get fat and flab, it doesn't matter
152. 6:32anymore. This time and it takes only
153. 6:35from 2 to 5 years to destabilize a
154. 6:37nation. Uh it's what what matters is
155. 6:40essentials, economy, foreign relations,
156. 6:43defense systems.
157. 6:46uh and you can see it quite clearly that
158. 6:48in some areas uh in such sensitive areas
159. 6:51as as uh defense and economy the
160. 6:56influence of Marxist Leninist ideas in
161. 6:58the United States is absolutely
162. 7:00fantastic. I I could never believe it 14
163. 7:03years ago when I landed uh in this part
164. 7:05of the world that the process will go
165. 7:07that
166. 7:08fast. Uh the next stage of course is
167. 7:11crisis. It it it may take only up to six
168. 7:13weeks to to bring a country to the verge
169. 7:16of crisis. You can see it in in Central
170. 7:18America now. And after crisis with a
171. 7:21violent change of of power, structure
172. 7:23and economy, you have so-called the
173. 7:25period of normalization. It may last
174. 7:28indefinitely. Normalization is a cynical
175. 7:31expression borrowed from Soviet
176. 7:32propaganda. When the Soviet tanks moved
177. 7:35into Czechoslovakia in ' 68, comrade
178. 7:37Breiv said now the situation in
179. 7:40brotherly Czechoslovakia is normalized.
180. 7:43This is what will happen in United
181. 7:44States if you allow all these schmucks
182. 7:46to bring the country to
183. 7:48crisis to promise people all kind of
184. 7:51goodies and the paradise on earth. uh to
185. 7:54to destabilize your uh economy, to
186. 7:57eliminate the principle of free market
187. 7:59competition and to put a big brother
188. 8:02government in Washington DC with the
189. 8:06benevolent dictators like Walter
190. 8:08Montdale who will promise lots of thing
191. 8:11never mind whether the promises are
192. 8:13fulfillable or not. He will go to Moscow
193. 8:15to kiss the bottoms of of new generation
194. 8:18of Soviet assassins. Never mind. He will
195. 8:21create false illusions that the
196. 8:23situation is under control. Situation is
197. 8:26not under control. Situation is
198. 8:28disgustingly out of control. Most of the
199. 8:31American politicians, media and
200. 8:33educational system trains another
201. 8:36generation of people who think they are
202. 8:38living at a peace time. False. United
203. 8:42States is in the state of war.
204. 8:45undeclared total war against the basic
205. 8:48principles and the foundations of of
206. 8:51this system and and the initiator of
207. 8:54this war is not comrade androp of course
208. 8:58uh it's it's the
209. 9:00system however ridiculous it may sound
210. 9:03the world communist system or the world
211. 9:05communist conspiracy whether I scare
212. 9:07some people or not I don't give a hoot
213. 9:10uh if if you are not scared by now
214. 9:12nothing can scare
215. 9:14But you don't have to be paranoid about
216. 9:16it. What what actually happens now that
217. 9:20unlike myself, you have literally
218. 9:24several years to live on unless United
219. 9:27States wake up. The the time bomb is
220. 9:29ticking with every second. The disaster
221. 9:32is coming closer and closer. Unlike
222. 9:35myself, you will have nowhere to defect
223. 9:38to unless you want to live in Antarctica
224. 9:40with penguins. This is it. This is the
225. 9:43last country of freedom and and
226. 9:45possibility. Okay. So, what do we do?
227. 9:47What is your recommendation to the
228. 9:49American people? Well, uh the the um the
229. 9:53immediate thing that comes to my mind is
230. 9:56of course there must be a very strong
231. 9:59national effort to educate people in in
232. 10:02in the spirit of real patriotism. Number
233. 10:05one. Number two, to to explain them the
234. 10:08real danger of socialist, communist,
235. 10:10whatever welfare state, big brother
236. 10:13government. If people will fail to grasp
237. 10:16the impending danger of that
238. 10:19development, nothing ever can help
239. 10:21United States. You may kiss goodbye to
240. 10:23your freedom, including freedoms to to
241. 10:25homosexuals, to prison inmate. All these
242. 10:29freedoms will vanish, evaporating in
243. 10:31five seconds, including your precious
244. 10:33lives.
245. 10:34Um the second thing I the moment at
246. 10:38least part of United States population
247. 10:41is convinced that the danger is real
248. 10:44they have to force their government and
249. 10:46I'm not talking about sending letters
250. 10:48signing petitions and all this beautiful
251. 10:50noble activity. I'm talking about
252. 10:52forcing United States government to stop
253. 10:56aiding
254. 10:57communism because there is no other
255. 10:59problem more burning and and urgent than
256. 11:02to stop the Soviet military-industrial
257. 11:04complex from destroying what is whatever
258. 11:07is left of the free world and it is very
259. 11:10easy to do. No credits, no technology,
260. 11:13no money, no political or diplomatic
261. 11:16recognition and of course no such idiocy
262. 11:18as grand deals to USSR.
263. 11:20The Soviet people, 270 millions of of
264. 11:23Soviets will be eternally thankful to
265. 11:26you if you stop aiding a bunch of
266. 11:29murderers who sit now in Kremlin and
267. 11:31whom President Reagan respectfully calls
268. 11:34government. They do not govern anything.
269. 11:36List of all such complexity as the
270. 11:38Soviet economy. So basic two two very
271. 11:42simple maybe two simplistic answers or
272. 11:45solutions but never nevertheless they
273. 11:47are the only solutions. Educate
274. 11:49yourself, understand what's going on
275. 11:51around you. You are not living at the
276. 11:53time of peace. You are in a state of war
277. 11:56and you have precious little time to
278. 11:59save yourself. Um, you don't have much
279. 12:02time especially if you are talking about
280. 12:04young generation. There's not much time
281. 12:06left for
282. 12:10convulsions to the beautiful uh disco
283. 12:13music. very soon it will go just just
284. 12:17overnight. If we are talking about
285. 12:19capitalists or or or wealthy
286. 12:22businessmen, they I think they are
287. 12:24selling the rope on which they will hang
288. 12:26very soon. If they don't stop, if they
289. 12:28cannot curb their unsettled desire for
290. 12:32profit and if they keep on trading with
291. 12:34the monster of the Soviet
292. 12:36communism, they are going to hang very
293. 12:39soon. And it they will pray to be killed
294. 12:42but unfortunately they will be sent to
295. 12:43Alaska probably to manage industry of
296. 12:47slaves. It's it's simplistic. I know it
297. 12:50sounds unpleasant. I know Americans
298. 12:52don't like to listen to things which are
299. 12:54unpleasant. But I have defected not to
300. 12:56tell you the stories about such idiocies
301. 12:59as microfilm James Bond type espionage.
302. 13:03This is garbage. Uh you don't need any
303. 13:06espionage anymore. I have come to talk
304. 13:09about survival. It's a question of
305. 13:11survival of this
306. 13:13system. You may ask me what is it in for
307. 13:16me? Survival obviously because unlike I
308. 13:19as I said I am now in your boat if if we
309. 13:24sing together we will sing beautifully
310. 13:26together. There is no other place on
311. 13:28this planet to defect to.
312. 13:32[Music]