Ideological Subversion
In an interview dating back 38 years, defected KGB spy, Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, made a very sobering prediction about the United States. He warned that America could be defeated through an incremental process of ideological subversion. He defined it this way. “What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country.” It would take years to achieve this result and he spoke of four basic stages that would unfold in the process: demoralization, destabilization, crisis and normalization.
The demoralization stage is a stage of bewilderment or discouragement and is basically implemented by separating people from God, who is the sole arbiter of right and wrong – commonly called morality. Once separated from God, people are left solely to their own devices to plot a course through life, which, apart from God, never works. “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). Plenty of solutions may be sought that seem right to a man, but they end in death or a worsening of conditions. According to Bezmenov, “Exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information.” According to scripture this is true as well. “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:28).
Destabilization is the second stage in which the essential structural elements of a nation are targeted: defense, economy and international relations. As we look at these elements in our country today, we are certainly in a destabilized and weakened condition — not just in our own eyes, but in the eyes of all around us. Jeremiah wrote, “Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backslidings will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and the fear of Me is not in you,” says the Lord God of hosts” (Jeremiah 2:19). Apart from the arbiter of truth, there can only be instability.
The next stage, according to Bezmenov, is crisis. It is recognized as “a violent change of power, structure and economy.” This is what happens when God is forgotten. Though it is speculatory, we are perhaps right on the cusp of the crisis stage. God warned of coming to this stage long, long ago. “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me” (Deuteronomy 28:20).
The final stage would then be normalization. That would mean that our previous national sovereignty and independence would be gone. The new reality will be national captivity and slavery. “Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. ‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘That I will break his yoke from your neck, and will burst your bonds; Foreigners shall no more enslave them” (Jeremiah 30:7-8). It will be a deeply humbling process for the nations of Israel. Ultimately, God will deliver them from their captors after they whole heartedly return to Him.
So, was Bezmenov a prophet? Certainly not. He simply saw the danger in the ideological subversion being directed at modern day Israel – the United States and Britain. The author of the tactics being used was and is the god of this present evil world – Satan the devil.
Marshall Stiver
