What timing! I was just listening to a Jordan Peterson talk last night (who is also a big fan of Solzhenitsyn and references him regularly ). He was talking about freedom of speech which led to a dive into the adventure of your life and how one finds it. It’s simple: speak and live in truth in everything you say and do. Everything.
Now who can really know the truth so to that he recommends “at least not saying that which you know to be false.” It’s brilliant and so simple but as pointed out in this piece, not necessarily easy.
Waking up and reading this the very next morning really helps to instill the idea and I always love seeing opinions of those I respect collide.
I recently saw that JP talk too and agree completely! What strikes me as most important about acknowledging the truth, as he points out, is that it's the only way to reliably improve anything. Not only is it an individual moral choice, it's the scientific method, the foundation of Enlightenment thinking and the basis of our political system. This is a brilliant reminder that the struggle for truth requires vigilance from every generation.
What strikes me the most is that changing the world seems to always come back down to something my Dad preached to me as a child: worry about yourself.
It’s not about going out and preaching to others or starting a revolution. It’s about being true to yourself and letting the cards fall where they will.
Thank you Mr Bezmenov. I know what I am seeing too, and have not explained the truth to my family and friends who are buying into the lies, fearing they would turn away from me, think me a bomb thrower, a threat to them. But it is a betrayal of them to remain silent when the egregious is so blatant and they go along with the liars who want them to believe they are told, not what they see with their own eyes.
ShaneUp is right. The truth can be told gently, asking only for an open mind.
"Will at once walk out from a session, meeting, lecture, play, or film as soon as he hears the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel, or shameless propaganda"
A glimmer of hope, the British Prime Minister stood up and said 'A man is a man, and a woman is a woman'. Ridiculous that such a thing has to be said but nowadays 'telling the truth is a revolutionary act'. Now, will someone stand up and say 'Climate Change is Marxist bullshit'...
I like the quote by the prime minister but my understanding is that you are sooo wrong about climate change. The evidence is all around us and in the Earth's history.
Thank you for posting this essay; your highlights were perfectly selected.
I first read this essay in August 2021. It was a challenging and confronting read. At the time, I was trapped mentally and spiritually. I was both terrified of being cast out for wrongthink and raging impotently against a world determined to make me believe that 2+2=5. But I was complicit, and this essay spelled out exactly why and how.
Solzhenitsyn pointed me to personal freedom in this essay; he challenged me, and all of us, with one simple but not easy task: Live Not By Lies.
Reading it again, nearly 2 years later, his words are no longer confronting but encouraging, reminding me why choosing this path has been so rewarding and frankly, healing. I still have more to do, but no longer live in fear of what “they” will do to me. Rather, I am part of the “we” who, one brick at a time are weakening the foundation of the liars’ castle. It is starting to crumble.
It's what I try to do....starve the beast...Gillette, Bud Light, Disney, etc etc. There are hundreds more. I realize one old man changing razor brands won't make much difference but millions would and did after men were brutally insulted for their "toxic masculinity." Some men, of course, are unmitigated jerks but not all. Gillette threw all their customers in one big basket of "deplorables." Screw Gillette and any other company that sets out to deliberately insult their customers.
I figured this out a long time ago when I was stuck in a jail cell with a psychopath. Resistance strengthens the enemy.
The best we can do is to avoid every move that would strengthen the enemy. Especially avoid donating our talents and work and money to the enemy. Whenever there's a choice of spending money or volunteering or joining a chorus, just skip it. Don't be there.
Resistance = assistance. The best choice is desistance.
Oct 8, 2023·edited Oct 8, 2023Liked by Yuri Bezmenov
By 1974, most members of the Politburo knew that the Stalinist model had failed. They saw the truth in Eastern Europe where the least Stalinist countries were the most prosperous. Brezhnev had spent time with Nixon in the US and had seen American propserity (and he was well aware of our technological superiority). Very few dissidents were in the GULAG. Solzhenitsyn was exiled not shot. Kids were wearing jeans and listening to Western music. East Germans were watching West German TV. The gig was up, but we didn't see it clearly yet. Despite Suslov and Andropov, there was no going back. Historical determinism was going the other way.
Your timeline makes little sense. Stalin died in 1953 and his model was denounced by Khrushchev. If anything, Khrushchev policy abolished all remaining small-scale private enterprises and established state-run organizations through entire economical hierarchy.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned us in 1974: "But if we shrink away... Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered." prophetic of nearly where the United States finds itself today:
A few years ago, 2007, I got into long conversations with a retired Soviet submariner living in Madrid with his doctor daughter. We met up regularly to play chess. He was brilliant and we communicated in Spanish because he did not speak English and I did not speak Russian. The subject of Solzhenitsyn came up and he laughed. He said that the reason Solzhenitsyn was deported from the USSR was because he was regarded as a propagandist for the USA. Apparently his descriptions of life in USSR were extremist, defamatory and, above all, lies.
Even his positive comments about Czechoslovakia are inaccurate. That country has suffered immensely but not at the hands of the USSR. The balkanisation techniques of NATO have old origins and the Czech Republic is now a shadow of its former self.
I don't know about the Czech Republic today, but Solzhenitsyn was referring to the Prague Spring of 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in to put down the reforms and people stood up to them.
Why is this piece not studied in schools and universities? Its universal message speaks to all. Maybe in another universe… thank you for bringing it to our attention.
What timing! I was just listening to a Jordan Peterson talk last night (who is also a big fan of Solzhenitsyn and references him regularly ). He was talking about freedom of speech which led to a dive into the adventure of your life and how one finds it. It’s simple: speak and live in truth in everything you say and do. Everything.
Now who can really know the truth so to that he recommends “at least not saying that which you know to be false.” It’s brilliant and so simple but as pointed out in this piece, not necessarily easy.
Waking up and reading this the very next morning really helps to instill the idea and I always love seeing opinions of those I respect collide.
Thanks!
I recently saw that JP talk too and agree completely! What strikes me as most important about acknowledging the truth, as he points out, is that it's the only way to reliably improve anything. Not only is it an individual moral choice, it's the scientific method, the foundation of Enlightenment thinking and the basis of our political system. This is a brilliant reminder that the struggle for truth requires vigilance from every generation.
JP is the voice of the true north strong and free!
What strikes me the most is that changing the world seems to always come back down to something my Dad preached to me as a child: worry about yourself.
It’s not about going out and preaching to others or starting a revolution. It’s about being true to yourself and letting the cards fall where they will.
True!
The struggle is enjoined and in our homes, families, congregations, conventicles, in our forests and our hearts we are already victorious.
To battle!
Thank you Mr Bezmenov. I know what I am seeing too, and have not explained the truth to my family and friends who are buying into the lies, fearing they would turn away from me, think me a bomb thrower, a threat to them. But it is a betrayal of them to remain silent when the egregious is so blatant and they go along with the liars who want them to believe they are told, not what they see with their own eyes.
ShaneUp is right. The truth can be told gently, asking only for an open mind.
Thank you both.
"Will at once walk out from a session, meeting, lecture, play, or film as soon as he hears the speaker utter a lie, ideological drivel, or shameless propaganda"
I like that one.
A glimmer of hope, the British Prime Minister stood up and said 'A man is a man, and a woman is a woman'. Ridiculous that such a thing has to be said but nowadays 'telling the truth is a revolutionary act'. Now, will someone stand up and say 'Climate Change is Marxist bullshit'...
I like the quote by the prime minister but my understanding is that you are sooo wrong about climate change. The evidence is all around us and in the Earth's history.
Yeah they’ve been saying that since the 60s. The sky is falling, better run and hide.
Thank you for posting this essay; your highlights were perfectly selected.
I first read this essay in August 2021. It was a challenging and confronting read. At the time, I was trapped mentally and spiritually. I was both terrified of being cast out for wrongthink and raging impotently against a world determined to make me believe that 2+2=5. But I was complicit, and this essay spelled out exactly why and how.
Solzhenitsyn pointed me to personal freedom in this essay; he challenged me, and all of us, with one simple but not easy task: Live Not By Lies.
Reading it again, nearly 2 years later, his words are no longer confronting but encouraging, reminding me why choosing this path has been so rewarding and frankly, healing. I still have more to do, but no longer live in fear of what “they” will do to me. Rather, I am part of the “we” who, one brick at a time are weakening the foundation of the liars’ castle. It is starting to crumble.
It's what I try to do....starve the beast...Gillette, Bud Light, Disney, etc etc. There are hundreds more. I realize one old man changing razor brands won't make much difference but millions would and did after men were brutally insulted for their "toxic masculinity." Some men, of course, are unmitigated jerks but not all. Gillette threw all their customers in one big basket of "deplorables." Screw Gillette and any other company that sets out to deliberately insult their customers.
What happened with Gillette? Missed this.
I figured this out a long time ago when I was stuck in a jail cell with a psychopath. Resistance strengthens the enemy.
The best we can do is to avoid every move that would strengthen the enemy. Especially avoid donating our talents and work and money to the enemy. Whenever there's a choice of spending money or volunteering or joining a chorus, just skip it. Don't be there.
Resistance = assistance. The best choice is desistance.
Like Atlas Shrugged. Refuse to add your skills to the system propping up the madness and, eventually, the wheels fall off their clown car.
This is a treasure.
By 1974, most members of the Politburo knew that the Stalinist model had failed. They saw the truth in Eastern Europe where the least Stalinist countries were the most prosperous. Brezhnev had spent time with Nixon in the US and had seen American propserity (and he was well aware of our technological superiority). Very few dissidents were in the GULAG. Solzhenitsyn was exiled not shot. Kids were wearing jeans and listening to Western music. East Germans were watching West German TV. The gig was up, but we didn't see it clearly yet. Despite Suslov and Andropov, there was no going back. Historical determinism was going the other way.
Your timeline makes little sense. Stalin died in 1953 and his model was denounced by Khrushchev. If anything, Khrushchev policy abolished all remaining small-scale private enterprises and established state-run organizations through entire economical hierarchy.
Thank-you so much for this post.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn warned us in 1974: "But if we shrink away... Let us then cower and hunker down, while our comrades the biologists bring closer the day when our thoughts can be read and our genes altered." prophetic of nearly where the United States finds itself today:
A few years ago, 2007, I got into long conversations with a retired Soviet submariner living in Madrid with his doctor daughter. We met up regularly to play chess. He was brilliant and we communicated in Spanish because he did not speak English and I did not speak Russian. The subject of Solzhenitsyn came up and he laughed. He said that the reason Solzhenitsyn was deported from the USSR was because he was regarded as a propagandist for the USA. Apparently his descriptions of life in USSR were extremist, defamatory and, above all, lies.
Even his positive comments about Czechoslovakia are inaccurate. That country has suffered immensely but not at the hands of the USSR. The balkanisation techniques of NATO have old origins and the Czech Republic is now a shadow of its former self.
I don't know about the Czech Republic today, but Solzhenitsyn was referring to the Prague Spring of 1968, when Soviet tanks rolled in to put down the reforms and people stood up to them.
Why is this piece not studied in schools and universities? Its universal message speaks to all. Maybe in another universe… thank you for bringing it to our attention.
Those living without a moral compass lose their ability to distinguish between lies and the truth.
Those who don't respect others, have no respect left for themselves, for which they tend to compensate with a sense of superiority.
What's the point in telling the truth, when nobody listens?
What's the point in listening, when one cannot change a thing?
It is going around. Lies beget more lies. Be true, Be honest.
https://williamhunterduncan.substack.com/p/lying-multiplies
Well done. Your essay was the point I was looking for to end mine👍
https://wholeamericancatalog.substack.com/p/elderly-woman-escapes-nursing-home