Ex-KGB Yuri Bezmenov's 1984 Warning To America Reemerges In 2020

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War released the official release trailer for the latest addition to the series on August 21. The game trailer includes footage from the 1984 interview of Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov in which he details the steps required to destroy a country from within used by the Soviet Union.

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Rod Dreher writes about the stories of Soviet-era communism oppression and the future of “soft totalitarianism” in Live Not By Lies. View the book on Amazon here.

The original trailer contained footage from Tiananmen Square, but was removed by Activision after China censored it after its release. The new trailer does not have the same footage.

In Yuri’s infamous 1984 interview he gives the four stages of Soviet-era subversion tactics that would surely destroy the country. “The danger is real”, says Yuri, who had direct experience with the propaganda methods deployed by the KGB in India in the 1960’s.

Yuri Bezmenov

To summarize Yuri Bezmenov:

Yuri Bezmenov was born in 1939 near Moscow, Russia. His was a son to a high ranking Soviet officer.
Yuri studied at Moscow University, a KGB-controlled institution. Here Yuri took an interest in the culture of India and began studying Asian languages.
After graduating Yuri was stationed in India as a translator since his education had been in Asian languages and his expertise was in India.
Yuri came back to Moscow and started working as an RIA Novasti journalist. RIA Novasti is the Soviet propaganda arm of Soviet media. He was then reassigned back to India as a KGB public relations officer. This is where he was introduced to Soviet subversion tactics.
These kind of warfare tactics became the focus of Yuri’s anti-Soviet lectures and writings in the 1980’s in America after Yuri fled to Canada.

Cold War Threats Against The USA

When Nikita Khrushchev threatened America on November 18, 1956, he said “we will bury you!”. Referring to the an alternate translation which is widely believed to be plausible is “we will outlast you”. This difference in interpretation has a significant importance on understanding Soviet tactics towards destroying the United States of America.

Such a statement given during this time of heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union was also perceived to be a possible nuclear threat. In October of the same year the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 took place. Hungarians revolted against their Soviet government, but were defeated and the rebellion quelled. The Cuban Missile Crisis would take place only six years later.

Krushchev’s threat shed light on the unique Soviet-era subversion tactics that were highly classified by the KGB, and it’s the kind of secret tactic Yuri Bezmenov spoke about in 1984.

Rather than waging direct warfare against its enemies, especially not one as equipped as the United States the Soviet mode of thinking was to instead destroy an enemy country from within. This method while certainly not expeditious, according to Yuri, is 100% successful over time.

Yuri Bezmenov’s 1984 Interview

Yuri Bezmenov decodes the four stages of Soviet “ideological subervsion” which results in the communist takeover a free country.

“Ideological subversion” is the slow process of “active measures” which is KGB-speak for mind-control. The end goal of this is to “change the active perception despite obvious facts to defend one’s self, family, and country.”