And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) page 13, footnote 5.
[I agree with this review on Amazon
The writing style is captivating. To some extent, it has been a series of references about how certain people or groups of people were arrested and/or executed. All too easy how people disappeared without a trace and no one even missed them and couldn’t do anything if they wanted to. And the petty, heartless, political and bureaucratic reasons people were arrested makes one closely reconsider his day-to-day activities.
Chilling, as you can see the roots of this activity growing in our country daily.
It will take a while to finish all 3 volumes, but I plan on gradually finishing. It’s hard to read too much at once as your jaw gets tired of dropping constantly and your brain can only take so much astonishment at once.
I am only about a quarter of the way through the first volume (of three) so there may be other things that strike me more profoundly. But so far it is that nearly all believed “in the system”. That once “they” got things straightened out the arrestees would be set free and they would go home. This was even in cases where the NKVD was arresting 25% of an entire town. The NKVD had quotas to meet. And there was always multiple laws they had broken and would be charged with. Just as there are in our country today.
Because of this belief in the system they not only did not resist—they cooperated. At the request of the arresting NKVD they would even tiptoe out of their apartments so as to not wake their neighbors.
I would like to believe that if a similar situation came about in our country that my only attempts to be quiet would involve the use of a sound suppressor for my firearms.—Joe]
One of my great takeaways from the series was how the Communists used the criminal class to control the non-Communists.
Note that American Progressives have always had a fascination with, and respect for, gangsters.
PLEASE take the time to watch and absorb this video;
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4
Afterward you will never be surprised or astonished, or have your jaw drop, again. It’s laid out simply and completely, from 30 years ago. You have no excuse.
It starts out slow, but that is for setting the table for what is explained in the final third of the interview.
Psychological warfare. It’s been with us almost all our lives (for those of us in our 50s) such that we have internally normalized it. Bezmenov was a KGB Psy-ops professional. He tells you in detail how it’s done, and how it’s been done in the U.S. for generations. We will be entering the “crisis” phase, as he describes it, very soon, and so it’s best you know what’s coming.
And please; let’s stop the hand-wringing and wondering “How can people be so blind and/or stupid, and how can our elected officials and media personalities all be so dense?” If you’re not understanding and predicting the next move or two, just watch the video and you’ll get it. You’ll see exactly what’s been planned for you and how it’s been set up.
We REALLY should be well past the exasperation and frustration, and understand that we’ve been in a full-scale war now for several decades (and losing, for the most part). Understand, adapt, plan, and overcome. Shock, surprise, frustration and anger, and lack of preparation only serve to fuel and support the enemy’s purpose.
When you know what’s coming, and it is coming, you won’t be the slightest bit surprised. You’ll have seen it in advance and you’ll have at least some idea of what will happen in your immediate sphere and some idea of what to do. This war has been fought over and over and over already, so you know the play-book. Stop with the surprise and see it now.
I’m not surprised at all, except that maybe I am surprised that all hell hasn’t broken loose here already. The American people have been extremely resilient so far, compared to other societies which have already been overcome, but we are falling.
Our turn is next. The pain, angst, suffering and death that is to come is what has been spoken of for years and years by Progressives as “social and economic justice” even though most of them have no idea what it means for them (the pathetic schmucks will be “squashed like cockroaches” by the very people they’ve been aiding and abetting).
Bill Whittle’s current sermon on the theme of Gaslighting would appear to be apposite.
M