Revisiting the Ongoing Cultural War: Lessons From a Soviet Defector

As a young man in the 1960s, I worked with others of my generation to enhance American democracy. Back then we engaged in nonviolent actions to end racial segregation in America. These activities included sit-ins to integrate public facilities, freedom rides to desegregate public transportation, and voter registration drives to end disenfranchisement. 

In the process, we willingly and peacefully accepted punishment for breaking existing laws with which we disagreed—laws that typically authorized segregation. Many of us were trained in methods of nonviolent resistance, both physically and psychologically. Subsequently we worked to change the very laws we opposed, either through litigation or legislatively, thereby assuring equal opportunities for all. 

By contrast, the agitators of the last decade want only to destroy property, hurt people, and seek to dismantle government itself. As an example, these agitators converted peaceful protests about George Floyd’s death (protected by the First Amendment) into acts of violence through vandalism, riots, and looting. Instead of peacefully submitting to law enforcement for their law-breaking actions, these trespassers resisted police, demanded their defunding, and appeared determined to tear down the essential fabric of America’s institutions. Rather than nonviolence being their guide star, they foment anarchy. 

As a mature person in 2025, I and others of my generation recognize how these efforts by so-called “progressives” (more appropriately called radical leftists) destabilize American democracy. We are heartened, however, by the Trump administration’s executive orders, administrative responses, and legal actions. They seek to restore traditional American values and overcome so called “wokeism” within our culture.

Regrettably, governmental supporters (mayors, governors, and local legislative bodies) in so-called “progressive cities and states,” as well as the majority of the mainstream media, either tacitly endorse or explicitly approve such destructive non-peaceful actions. They excuse or coddle these lawbreakers and embolden them. Numerous local governments order law enforcement agencies to stand idle and avoid engaging these forces of destruction. The net effect permits these cancel culture warriors to create a situation of domestic terror as they loot stores, obliterate historical statues, burn our flag, destroy buildings, and attack churches and synagogues.

These officials submit to a rule by mob rather than uphold the rule of law because they either are unaware of the radical elements embedded within these protests or simply don’t care. 

Thankfully, today’s federal government takes a different view toward those engaging in acts of violence. President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and federal law enforcement agencies are committed to prosecuting violators. For example, 10 people were charged in July for organizing an attack on unarmed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and local police after engaging in a military-style ambush. 

On July 19, the FBI arrested a Cincinnati man after he allegedly made online threats to shoot and kill ICE officers. Among his several posts, he articulated a desire to “#Destroy ICE they’re rabid dogs that need to be put down. …” and made clear that he is “shooting for the kill” because “#RevolutionIsTheSolution.” 

This attitude, reflective of hundreds of similar statements by radical leftists, reflects a previously discredited Marxist-Leninist ideology. We were warned however by someone in a position to know how such thinking could ultimately infiltrate America. 

In a TV interview 40 years ago, former KGB agent Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov (who had earlier defected to the West), explained the plan of committed Marxists-Leninists to gradually subvert America’s political system. 

Prior thereto, Nikita Krushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and its premier from 1958 to 1964, prophesied that communism would eventually take over America without firing a shot. How? By pitting us against one another, that is, blue states against red states, blacks against whites, poor against rich, and the nonreligious against the religious.

Again quoting Krushchev, “We can’t expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism until they awaken one day to find they have communism.” In other words, to have America enter a doom spiral, destroying itself “from within.” 

Bezmenov’s TV interview elaborated on Krushchev’s prophesy by setting forth four basic stages of ideological subversion and brainwashing. 

The first stage, “demoralization” is a process of reeducating generations of students to change their way of thinking. He believed this development would successfully occur in the USA when the 1960s and 70s student radicals came to power and assumed roles as educators and business leaders. According to Bezmenov, these individuals would throw out classical education and weaken belief in traditional Judeo-Christian moral values. They would indoctrinate future students (i.e. future leaders) with Marxist-Leninists values (such as destroying free speech and replacing it with politically-correct speech codes.) 

The truth of this prophecy is evidenced by simply witnessing (1) what passes for education today in our high schools and colleges, where virulent anti-Americanism has become embedded both within the educational system and in students’ values; and (2) the infusions of cash by major business entities and foundations to leftist social-political movements such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa. 

Referring to such people, and in turn the future generations of students they would lead astray, Bezmenov explains, “Exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess authentic information. The facts tell nothing to him.” 

Continuing, he said, “They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind even if you expose them to authentic information. Even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of their behavior.” 

Stage two, “destabilization” is a process of weakening the essential structural elements of a nation by targeting changes in the economy and international relations such as infusing diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of the fabric of society or by providing billions of dollars to foreign adversaries such as Iran and Afghanistan. 

The third stage utilizes “crisis” to achieve the ends of the revolution, whether it be a pandemic or the killing of an unarmed black man. During this time, “a violent change of power, structure, and the economy” takes hold. It also accelerates the process of redistributing wealth. 

And finally, Bezmenov referred to stage four as “normalization” or what we may call the new normal. By this time, America has basically been taken over and lives under a new ideology and reality. 

He warned us this is what will happen to America unless it guards against people who desire to bring on times of crisis. “If people will fail to grasp the impending danger of that development, nothing can help the United States. You may kiss goodbye to your freedom.” 

The approach of those who have incorporated Marxist-Leninist values into their behavior patterns radically differs from the approach of my generation to highlighting societal ills such as racial injustice through peaceful nonviolent means. Our actions, premised in large part by a commitment to religious moral values, succeeded in dramatically impacting societal norms. 

Unfortunately, many of today’s radical leftists, indoctrinated by Marxist-Leninist values, choose to ignore the religious commandments that guided our activism and what President Ronald Reagan referred to as the shared bonds of “faith, family, and patriotism.” Instead, they focus on grievances and resentments. In doing so, they are eroding our national confidence and self-respect while proving the validity of Bezmenov’s thesis concerning the gradual subversion of America’s political system. 

Today we are in a fight for the heart and soul of our nation. The Trump administration and conservative governors grasp the impending danger posed by adherents of the radical left. They’ve taken to heart the importance of acting upon the words of Reagan in his farewell address: “If we lose our values, we lose America. The good news is that it is not too late … to restore a sense of national pride and return to embracing the core values that our Founders instilled in the fabric of America.” 

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