Thought Control
(propaganda, language, indoctrination, revisionist history, etc.)

Propaganda / Mass Psychology Classics
Lessons from Religious Cult Literature
  • Let Our Children Go! Co-authored by Ted Patrick (the ‘father of deprogramming’), this short book describes how brainwashed young adults have been extracted from religious cults.  The book is filled with numerous insights that can be applied to people who have been brainwashed by the Left.  Key lesson for breaking through: get people to think for themselves again.

Myth-making
  • The Pavlik Morozov Story - “We, as Young Pioneers in Czechoslovakia, often included a poem in Pavlik’s honor at our meetings. He was our hero, a young martyr, our example.” Pavlik’s school became a shrine, visited by schoolchildren from all over the Soviet Union.
    But was the Pavlik story true? Read on to find out:
    Pavlik Morozov: The Soviet Child-Hero Who Denounced His Parents

Controlling Media
  • Radio - In this short video, Klara Sever from Czechoslovakia discusses the perils of radio broadcasting under communist rule, where everything is censored and even a simple children’s fairy tale can get you in trouble.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9DcjPmGlH4  

Controlling Education
Enlisting the People in Thought Control
  • A standard communist technique is the block committee, which spies on all citizens of each city block.  Dossiers are compiled on each citizen detailing his or her movements and the visitors they receive.  Block committees also enforce compulsory “voluntary” work for days off and organize attendance at compulsory pro-government rallies.  Communists also employ another technique – “Acts of Repudiation” - designed to silence, intimidate and terrorize the citizens.  From Agustin Blazquez, a Cuban refugee:
         The first acts of repudiation in Cuba were done in 1959.   These acts are mainly organized by the government and if you talk to people from Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia; Poland, East Germany, Bulgaria, Rumania, Albania, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Venezuela, they will tell you they had it in their countries too.  Here is a link to a clip from a documentary I did on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB16zN2OiQA
 
Exercises
  • Analyze Soviet, Maoist, and other communist propaganda using the frameworks in the classic works on propaganda and mass psychology listed herein.
  • Socialism cannot succeed without making its ideas ubiquitous.  Write a paper on how the American Left attempts to thrust its ideas at you at every turn and to shut down alternative voices.
  • Examine in more detail a disinformation operation in the “Soviet Active Measures” film or Pacepa book in the Resources below.
  • Design a disinformation campaign using techniques described in the “Soviet Active Measures” film in the Resources below.
  • Compare and contrast Soviet education with American schools regarding the propagation of cultural norms (New Soviet Man v. Barack Obama’s ‘fundamental transformation of the United States’)
  • Write a paper on how Soviet preschools were hugely important in beginning communist indoctrination early in life.
  • Study self-criticism as a means of thought control under communism.  These materials will get you started.
    •  Wikipedia page
    • Abstract discussion:
           ... a confessional exercise called criticism and self-criticism to cure “false consciousness,” inculcate doctrinal conformity, and enhance understanding of and allegiance to “the plan.”   
    • Bitter Winds: A Memoir of My Years in China's Gulag by Harry Wu and Carolyn Wakeman – Harry Wu’s 19-year imprisonment in China’s laogai forced labor camps stemmed from communist China’s purge of class enemies (Wu’s father was a banker).  Wu was forced to denounce his own upbringing and himself in front of a group in self-criticism sessions. 
  • In November 2018, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s home was attacked by communist-tied Antifa Marxist radicals.  Compare and contrast the attack with communist ‘Acts of Repudiation’ described here.  Was the attack on Carlson’s home an ‘Act of Repudiation’?
  • What, if anything, can a person living under a totalitarian system do to fight thought control?  See Václav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless” in the Resources below.

Resources
  • Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Chapter 11, Part I: Totalitarian Propaganda 
  • Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, Chapter 6 “Culture as Propaganda”
  • Utopia and Terror in the 20th Century
    Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius Ph.D.
    University of Tennessee
    http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/utopia-and-terror-in-the-20th-century.html     http://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Terror-Century-Gabriel-Liulevicius/dp/B00E87DB0M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418752895&sr=8-2&keywords=utopia+and+terror
    Covers such topics as the media (radio, film, and television were used to rewrite history) and The Big Lie (deliberate distortions of the truth).
  • Václav Havel, “The Power of the Powerless”.  From the Wikipedia page: “An individual living within such a system must live a lie, to hide that which he truly believes and desires, and to do that which he must do to be left in peace and to survive.”
         ...they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.
  • Olga Semyochovna Khanova, English Language Textbook for the Third Grade. Published in the USSR in 1961, this textbook has grammar and vocabulary lessons with communist indoctrination throughout. Many of the English reading exercises describe how great it is to go to the Lenin Museum or how important it is to teach one's parents about the goals of communism.  This link is to her book for the 4th grade - http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_1589904 
  • John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World - shows how propaganda played a role in the West to distort what was actually taking place in the early days of the Soviet Union after the October 1917 revolution 
  • Soviet Active Measures (1984 film – 23 mins) – describes and gives real-world examples of disinformation techniques, including spreading rumors, forging documents, planting stories and paying journalists, establishing phony front groups, and deploying agents of influence (e.g., assistant to German head of state Willy Brandt). While any one disinformation operation may not make much difference, the cumulative effect of such operations over many years can be considerable.
  • Disinformation Campaigns - Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa &  Ronald Rychlak, Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism. From the Amazon review: “Pacepa, along with his co-author, historian and law professor Ronald Rychlak, expose some of the most consequential yet largely unknown disinformation campaigns of our lifetime. Here the reader will discover answers to many crucial questions of the modern era: Why, during the last two generations, has so much of the Western world turned against its founding faith, Christianity? Why have radical Islam, jihad and terrorism burst aflame after a long period of apparent quiescence? Why is naked Marxism increasingly manifesting in America and its NATO allies? … How supposedly respectable institutions like the World Council of Churches have long been infiltrated and controlled by Russian intelligence….”  Includes case studies, e.g., the successful but fabricated ‘Nazi Pope’ campaign.
  • James Clavell, The Children’s Story
    “The new teacher has been trained in propaganda techniques, and is responsible for re-educating the children to be supportive of their occupiers. During the course of the story, the children are persuaded to abandon their religion and national loyalty.” (Wikipedia page)
    Full Text - YouTube     
  • Authoritarians merely want you to obey, but ideological totalitarians want you both to obey AND to believe what they believe.  You WILL learn to love Big Brother (reference to George Orwell’s novel 1984)
    http://thefederalist.com/2015/07/06/the-new-totalitarians-are-here/
 
Contemporary Scene