How Effective is Russian Subversion?

In a 1983 lecture (transcript), Yuri Bezmenov explains how Russian propaganda typically aims to weaken opposing societies. Here I want to go through his lecture and make some notes comparing it to the situation in the West today. By the West, I mean not a geographical place, but mean the group of countries that have largely joined into the same institutions. For example, the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, England, Japan, and South Korea all belong to the West.

He starts off by explaining how most militaries spend about 85% of their money on subversion.

And unlike a dictionary of English, Oxford dictionary, subversion in Soviet terminology means always a destructive aggressive activity aimed to destroy the country, nation or geographical area of your enemy. So there's no romantics in there, absolutely. No blowing up bridges, no microfilms in Coca-Cola cans, nothing of that sort, no James Bond nonsense. Most of this activity is overt, legitimate and easily observable if you give yourself time and trouble to observe it. But according to the law and law enforcement systems of the Western civilization, it's not a crime because [it's only] misconception and manipulation of terms.

With this in mind, a Fermi estimate for the size of the Russian spending is as follows. The military budget of Russia is reported as about $75 billion (about 4% of their $2 trillion GDP). According to Bezmenov, this means that $63 billion is spent on subversion. Maybe a bit lower now that Russia has to fund their invasion of Ukraine, but at the same time not really because China, North Korea, and Iran are very much aligned with Russia so are likely helping out.

So say about $63 billion. A Russian federal employee would receive about $630 per month ($7560) per year. Say that half is spent on salary, then this means that Russia employs about 4000 employees for subversion. China meanwhile has a GDP that is 9 times as large, so the country would have about 36000 employees busy with subversion.

With this in mind, let's continue with the lecture.

The first human being who formulated the tactics of subversion was a Chinese philosopher by the name of Sun Tze 3,500 years BC. He was an advisor for several imperial courts in ancient China. And he said after long meditation that to implement state policy in a warlike manner, it's the most counterproductive, barbaric and inefficient to fight on a battlefield. [...] The highest arc of warfare is not to fight at all but to subvert anything of value in the country of your enemy until such time that the perception of reality of your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not perceive you as an enemy.

As an example of this, Germany in 2022 admitted it was a terrible mistake to be so dependent on Russian oil and gas.

Bezmenov continues with some more background about how to think about subversion:

You see, the tactic of subversion, about which I'm talking, is similar to the martial art, the Japanese martial art. If some of you are familiar with that tactic, probably you will remember that if an enemy is bigger and heavier than yourself, it would be very painful to resist his direct strike. If a heavier person wants to strike me in the face, it would be very naive and counterproductive to stop his blow. The Chinese and Japanese judo art tells us what to do. First to avoid the strike, then to grab the fist and continue his movement in the direction where it was before, until the enemy crashes in the wall. You see? So, what happens here, the target country, obviously, does something wrong. If it's a free democratic society, there are many different movements within the society. There are obviously, in every society, there are people who are against the society. There may be simple criminals, ideologically in disagreement with the state policy, conscientious enemies, simply psychotic personalities who are against anything. And finally, there are a small group of agents of a foreign nation, bought, subverted, recruited. The moment all these movements will be directed in one direction, right? This is the time to catch that movement and to continue until the movement forces the whole society into collapse, into crisis, right? So, that's exactly the martial art tactic. We don't stop an enemy. We let him go. We help him to go in the direction we want them to go.

Contemporary groups that seem like good targets for this are groups like Just Stop Oil who threw soup at paintings or Extinction Rebellion who block public roads in the Netherlands.

Demonstrations are of course important part of Western democracies, but as Bezmenov suggests they can be used against the West too. If you keep inflaming certain groups, then they will sabotage society for you.

Bezmenov continues about religions and their importance in society's self-defense:

In case of religion, destroy it, ridicule it, replace it with various sects, cults, which bring people's attention, faith, whether it is naive, primitive, doesn't really matter. As long as the basically accepted religious dogma is being slowly eroded and taken away from the supreme purpose of religion, to keep people in touch with the supreme being, that serves the purpose. Therefore, replace it, accept it, respect it, religious organizations with fake organizations, distract people's attention from the real faith, and attract them to various different faiths.

Let's see how religion is doing in the West:

Image by Pew Research Center.

Bezmenov continues:

Education, distract them from learning something which is constructive, pragmatic, efficient. Instead of mathematics, physics, foreign languages, chemistry, teach them history of urban warfare, natural food, home economy, your sexuality, anything, as long as it takes you away, okay?

This according to many people I speak to, has become a problem in at least the Netherlands for the last 20 years. We now have studies such as "vrijetijdsmanagement" (time off management), tourism management, leisure studies, science tourism, media innovation, tourism destination management, and tourism and hospitality innovations. (I didn't have to look far, these studies are all offered by Breda University of Applied Sciences.)

Okay, the natural bodies of administration, which are traditionally either elected by people at large or appointed by elected leaders of society, are being actively substituted by artificial bodies. The bodies of people, groups of people, who nobody elected, never, as a matter of fact, most of the people don't like them at all, and yet they exist. One of such group is media. Who elected them? How come they have so much power, almost monopolistic power on your mind? [...] The level of mediocrity in a big establishment like New York Times, Los Angeles Times, major television network, you don't have to be an excellent journalist. You have to be exactly a mediocre journalist. That's easier to survive. There's no competition anymore. You have your good, nice income, $100,000 a year. That's it. Whether you're better or worse, it doesn't really matter anymore. As soon as you're smiling to the camera and do your job, that's it.

Let's continue.

Together with that, there's another process. Law enforcement, law and order, organization and structure is being eroded. [...] A policeman is a pig, rude policeman. He abuses his power. No?

We have seen this extensively in the last years with terms like "ACAB" becoming more and more common. I wasn't able to find much data on it, but here is one study from London that seems to confirm a lower confidence/trust in the police, according to Bradford and Jackson (2024):

Next, Bezmenov talks about equality.

we would snowplow editorial offices, student organizations, religious groups with literature of class struggle. If not directly Marxism and his propaganda, then a propaganda of a legitimate aspirations of working class, betterment of life, equality, equality, mind you. President Kennedy once said, we will make America to believe that people are born equal. Are people born equal? Is there any mentioning in the Bible or any other holy scripture in any religion, any religion? If you don't believe me, go to library and check it. There is not a single word about equality, just the opposite. By your deeds, God will judge you. What you do is important. The merit of your personality. You cannot legislate equality if you want to be equal. You have to be equal. You have to deserve it. And yet we build our society on the principle of equality. We say people are equal. We know it is false. It's a lie.

If we make them equal by force, if we put the principle of equality in the basis of our social political structure, it's the same thing as building a house on sand. Sooner or later, it will collapse. And that's exactly what happens. And we as Soviet propaganda makers are trying to push you in the direction which you go yourself. Equality. Yes, equality. People are equal. Land of equal opportunities. Is it true or not? Think about it. Equal opportunities. Should there be equal opportunities? For me and for a lazy bastard who comes here from some other country and immediately registers as a welfare recipient benefits.

So why should we have equal opportunities? Why? Equal opportunity to excel. Equal opportunity in equal circumstances. Yes, but we know people are different. To excel, yes. Provided we reach the same level of excellency, perfection, which is hypothetical distant future. Yes, maybe. But we know perfectly well that even with the best intentions, people could not be equal.

And yet we repeat as parents, equality, equality, equality. And the Soviet propaganda system helps us to believe that equality is something which is desirable. Democracy, as it was established by fathers of this country, of this system in the last century, is not equality. It's the system where different people, unequal people, have a chance to survive and help each other in constant competition, in constant perfection, not inequality, which is superimposed from a godfather or a nice person in Washington, D.C. And the absolute equality exists in Soviet Union, "equality". Everybody is equally in the dirt, except some people are more equal than the others in Politburo. So the moment you bring a country to the point of almost total demoralization, when nothing works anymore, when you are not sure if it is right or wrong, good and bad, but there's no division between evil and good, when even the leaders of church sometimes say, well, violence for the sake of justice, especially social justice, is justified in the countries like Nicaragua, El Salvador, well, maybe Rhodesia, and we listen to them and say, yeah, probably it's true. Is it true? No, it is not true. Violence is not justified, especially for the sake of "social justice" introduced by Marxist-Leninist, that is my former colleague from Novosti Press Agency.

I have nothing to add.

Economy. The radicalization of bargaining process. [...] It's impossible to reach a compromise, constructive compromise, between neighbors. Some people say, I don't like you to work during your lawn at that time, because exactly at that time I'm walking my dog and he's getting nervous. He cannot pass his bowels, you know. So they cannot compromise. They go to a civil court or something like that. Radicalization of human relations. No more compromise. Fight, fight, fight. The normal, traditionally accepted relations are destabilized. [...] Law and order now also is pushed into the area where previously people settled their differences peacefully and legitimately. Now we are getting with this court cases in the smallest irrelevant cases. We cannot solve our problems anymore. The society at large becomes more and more antagonistic between individuals, between groups of individuals and the society at large.

In a talk in 2017, Jan Terlouw told that in the past there used to be a lot more trust between Dutch companies. Most deals could be made with the shaking of a hand or just on one's word. In 2017, it was often necessary to come up with multi-page contracts for every deal. Trust has gone down.

On that stage, you remember I was talking a couple of hours ago about the sleepers. [...] The sleepers go up. They slept for 15 to 20 years. Now they become leaders of groups, preachers, I don't know, public figures. Prominently, they actively include themselves in the political process. All of a sudden, we see a homosexual. 15 years ago, he did his thing and nobody cared. Now he makes it a political issue, a political issue. He demands recognition, respect, human rights. [...] And there are violent clashes between him and police, his group and ordinary people, no matter what.

"violent clashes between him and the police" are very common nowadays at, for example, universities. Here in Groningen for example there are nowadays permanent security guards whereas they used to not be necessary a few years ago.

Next Bezmenov talks about how artificial bodies, such as non-elected committees, are injected into society next. For example, "social workers who are not elected by people."

I've seen an example of this recently in Brisbane, Australia. There, "Billboard Chris" received a $806 dollar fine for having conversations from someone who was not a police officer. He could be a social worker but it's unclear what he is exactly.

Bezmenov continues that if the situation escalates further, it will result in civil war or invasion. The solution:

Stabilize the country. Don't let the crisis develop into civil war or invasion.

Restriction of some liberties for small groups which are self-declared enemies of the society.

Do not allow them to take political force. Do not elect them to the seats of power, whether it is municipality level, state level, or federal level. It has to be bitten in the heads of American voters, that the person like that in the seats of power is an enemy. Do not be afraid of this word. It is an enemy.

Related to this, the municipality of Amsterdam yesterday put a vacancy online (web archive) which included (English below):

De gemeente heeft een voorkeursbeleid vanaf schaal 15. Dit betekent dat voor alle functies vanaf schaal 15 bij gelijke geschiktheid de voorkeur uitgaat naar kandidaten van buiten Europese herkomst.

The municipality has a preferential policy from scale 15. This means that for all positions from scale 15, preference is given to candidates from non-European origin if they are equally suitable.

Not only is this discrimination, it also is exactly what Russian subversion would like to achieve.

Another counter according to Bezmenov is to introduce self-restrain:

This stabilization process could be easily overcome if, as I say, the society, by its own will or after persuasion by the leaders, will come to the idea of self-restrain. It's so hard we want to consume more, but you have to, unless you will come to this stage, when, as we say in Russia, if the Sahara desert ever becomes a communist state, there will be shortage of sand.

As I understand, the point he tries to make here is what Stephen Kotkin mentioned recently that "the appetite grows in the eating". What this means is that the whole process of radicalization and extremism can be turned around my self-restrain. By discipline is, I think, what he is saying. Jocko Willink, for example, wrote a book arguing that Discipline Equals Freedom. My interpretation of the book is that the more discipline you have in doing the things you need to do, the more freedom you have to do other things. In the case of societies, this could be interpreted as: the more discipline you have in standing up to opponents of society, the more freedom you have to achieve what you as a society want to achieve.

Bezmenov also argues against the import of propaganda:

First of all, by restricting import of propaganda, the easiest thing to do, unlimited, unrestrained import of Soviet literature, Soviet journalists, giving Soviet propaganda and ideological agitators equal time on American TV network. It has to be stopped. And it's easy. They won't be offended, mind you. As a matter of fact, they will respect America more. But then my former colleague Vladimir Pozner appears on Nightline and Ted Kofil asks him, well, Vladimir, what do you think about this? And what can he think? He is an instrument of propaganda. He thinks what comrade Andropov tells him to think. He has just a nice, articulate mouthpiece of the Soviet subversion system. And Ted Kofil makes you believe that my friend Vladimir Pozner thinks.

And argues in favor of the importance of domestic manufacturing:

The process of demoralization may not have started at all if at that point the country, which is a recipient of subversion, actively, not violently, but actively prevents importation of foreign ideology. I don't want America to follow the pattern of ancient Japan. You don't have to shoot every foreigner when it approaches the sacred borders of the United States. But when he offers you a junk in the disguise of very shiny something, you have to tell him: No, we have our own junk.

If at that point the society is strong, brave, and conscientious enough to stop importation of ideas which are foreign, then the whole chain of events could be prevented.

Interestingly, Bezmenov also argues that religion is the way to solve subversion:

So the process of demoralization could be stopped right here, both as an expert and as an import. And that takes one step, one very important thing to do. You don't have to expel all the KGB agents from Washington DC. The most difficult and at the same time the simplest answer to the subversion is to start it here and even before. By bringing back the society to religion, something that you cannot touch and eat and put on yourself, but something that rules society and makes it move and preserve it. A Soviet scientist Shafarevich, who has nothing to do with religion, he is a computer scientist, did a very intensive research on the history of socialist countries. He calls socialist or communist any country with a centralized economy and the pyramidal style of power structure. And he discovered, actually he didn't discover it, he just brought to attention of his readers, that civilizations like Mahanjodaro in the river Hindu's area, like Egypt, like Maya, Incas, like Babylonian culture, collapsed and disappeared from the surface of earth. The moment they lost religion, as simple as that, they disintegrated. Nobody remembers about them anymore. Well, distantly. So the ideas are moving society and keeping mankind as a society of human beings, intelligent, moral agents of God.

Bezmenov concludes:

So the answer to ideological subversion, strangely enough, is very simple. You don't have to shoot people. You don't have to aim missiles and Pershing's and Cruz missiles at Andropov's headquarters. You simply have to have faith and prevent subversion. In other words, not to be a victim of subversion. Don't try to be a person who in Zudor is trying to smash your enemy and being caught by your hand. Don't strike like that. Strike with the power of your spirit and moral superiority. If you don't have that power, it's high time to develop it. And that's the only answer. Thank you.