Subversion: Difference between revisions

{{About|the political concept of subversion||Subversion (disambiguation)}}
{{Criminal law}}

'''Subversion''' ({{etymology|la|{{wikt-lang|la|subvertere}}|overthrow}}) refers to a process by which the [[values]] and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform[[sabotage]] the established [[social order]] and its structures of [[Power (philosophy)|power]], [[authority]], [[tradition]], [[hierarchy]], and [[social norm]]s. Subversion can be described as an attack on the public morale and, "the will to resist intervention are the products of combined political and social or class loyalties which are usually attached to national symbols. Following penetration, and parallel with the forced disintegration of political and social institutions of the state, these tendencies may be detached and transferred to the political or ideological cause of the aggressor".<ref>{{cite book |lastauthor=Paul W. Blackstock |firstauthor-link =Paul W. Blackstock|year=1964 |title=The Strategy of Subversion: Manipulating the Politics of Other Nations (Hardcover) |url=https://www.amazon.com/The-strategy-subversion-Manipulating-politics/dp/B0007DNMFK |edition=1st |location=Chicago |publisher=Quadrangle Books |page=56 |access-date=2015-03-11}}</ref> Subversion is used as a tool to achieve political goals because it generally carries less risk, cost, and difficulty as opposed to open [[belligerency]]. Furthermore, it is a relatively cheap form of [[warfare]] that does not require large amounts of training.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2412 |title=Countering Covert Aggression |last1=Hosmer |first1=Stephen T. |last2=George |first2=K. Tanham |year=1986 |location=Santa Monica, California |publisher=RAND Corporation |pages=3–4 |series=Notes}}</ref> A '''subversive''' is something or someone carrying the potential for some degree of subversion. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "[[traitor]]" with respect to (and usually by) the government in power.

Subversion is used as a tool to achieve political goals because it generally carries less risk, howevercost, and difficulty as opposed to open [[belligerency]]. Furthermore, it is a relatively cheap form of [[warfare]] that does not require large amounts of training.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2412 |title=Countering Covert Aggression |last1=Hosmer |first1=Stephen T. |last2=George |first2=K. Tanham |year=1986 |location=Santa Monica, California |publisher=RAND Corporation |pages=3–4 |series=Notes}}</ref> A '''subversive''' is something or someone carrying the potential for some degree of subversion. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "[[traitor]]" with respect to (and usually by) the government in power. Subversion is also often a goal of comedians, artists and people in those careers.<ref>{{cite book|title=Laughing in the Dark: A Decade of Subversive Comedy|first=Laurie|last=Stone|date=1 August 1997|publisher=The Ecco Press|isbn=978-0880014748|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/laughingindarkde0000ston}}</ref> In this case, being subversive can mean questioning, poking fun at, and undermining the established order in general.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scene-stealers.com/top-10s/top-10-subversive-comedies/|title=Top 10 Subversive Comedies}}</ref>

[[Terrorist]] groups generally do not employ subversion as a tool to achieve their goals. Subversion is a manpower-intensive strategy and many groups lack the manpower and political and social connections to carry out subversive activities.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/occasional_papers/OP172 |title=Subversion and Insurgency: RAND Counterinsurgency Study – Paper 2 |last=Rosenau |first=William |year=2007 |location=Santa Monica, California |publisher=RAND Corporation |page=5 |isbn=978-0-8330-4123-4 |series=Occasional Papers}}</ref> However, actions taken by terrorists may have a subversive effect on society. Subversion can imply the use of insidious, dishonest, monetary, or violent methods to bring about such change. This is in contrast to [[protest]], a [[coup d'état]], or working through traditional means in a political system to bring about change. Furthermore, external subversion is where, "the aggressor state attempts to recruit and assist indigenous political and military actors to overthrow their government by coup d’état".<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/N2412.html |title=Countering Covert Aggression |last1=Hosmer |first1=Stephen T. |last2=Tanham |first2=George K. |year=1986 |location=Santa Monica, California |publisher=RAND Corporation |page=1 |series=notes |access-date=2015-03-11}}</ref> If subversion fails in its goal of bringing about a coup it is possible that the actors and actions of the subversive group could transition to [[insurrection]], [[insurgency]], and/or [[guerillaguerrilla warfare]].<ref>Kitson, Frank, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and Peacekeeping (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1971), Pg. 6.</ref>

The problem with defining the term '''subversion''' is that there is not a single definition that is universally accepted.<ref name="Spjut" /> [[Charles Townshend]] described subversion as a term "so elastic as to be virtually devoid of meaning, and its use does little more than convey the enlarged sense of the vulnerability of modern systems to all kinds of covert assaults."<ref>Rosenau, Subversion and Insurgency, Pg. 4.</ref> What follows are some of the many attempts to define the term:

<blockquote>"'''Subversion''' is the undermining or detachment of the loyalties of significant political and social groups within the victimized state, and their transference, under ideal conditions, to the [[symbols]] and institutions of the aggressor."<ref>{{cite book |lastauthor=Paul W. Blackstock |firstauthor-link =Paul W. Blackstock |title=The Strategy of Subversion: Manipulating the Politics of Other Nations |url=https://archive.org/details/strategyofsubver00blac |url-access=registration |year=1964 |publisher=Quadrangle Books |location=Chicago |edition=1st |page=[https://archive.org/details/strategyofsubver00blac/page/56 56] |type=Hardcover}}</ref></blockquote>

Subversion can generally be broken down into internal and external subversion, but this distinction is not meant to imply that each follows a specific set of unique and separate tools and practices. Each subversive campaign is different because of the social, political, economic, cultural, and historical differences that each country has. Subversive activities are employed based upon an evaluation of these factors. This breakdown merely clarifies who the actors are. While the subversive actors may be different, the soon to be subverted targets are the same. As [[Paul W. Blackstock]] identifies, the ruling and political elites are the ultimate targets of persuasion because they control the physical instruments of state power.<ref>Blackstock, 1964, 57.</ref>

Dominique Poirier, former employee and specialist in communication warfare in the French intelligence service, [[DGSE]], describes extensively subversion in a book on the practices and methods of this agency published in 2019,<ref>Poirier, Dominique (Aug. 21, 2019). ''DGSE : The French Spy Machine''. Amazon.com Services LLC, {{ISBN|978-1687670533}}.</ref> yet he rarely uses the noun “subversion"subversion",” remarkably. While presenting and describing extensively the Russian and French methods of subversion and counter-subversion, he explains that the French intelligence community in particular uses the term {{lang|fr|guerre de l’information}}, or "information warfare". Then information warfare subsumes a number of other nouns, sometimes of Russian origin, each denoting a specific action that may actually describe an action of subversion or counter-subversion. Coming to add to the latter difference in perception of the action of subversion, he further says that information warfare in the French intelligence community is ruled itself by [[active measures]] that the DGSE, acting as leading intelligence agency in France, adopted as an “all"all-encompassing”encompassing" doctrine. Indeed, active measures in France would regulate not only all intelligence and counterintelligence activities, but also foreign affairs and diplomacy, domestic politics, and even the activities of the major industrial and business companies and groups in this country, since a period he locates between 1980 and 1982. For all the latter would be logically called to partake in a common and coherent effort in intelligence, counterintelligence, influence, and counterinfluence on the French soil as abroad. Actually, the French intelligence community, and the DGSE in particular, always use the nouns “interference”"interference" ({{lang-langx|fr|ingérence}}) and “counterinterference”"counterinterference" ({{lang|fr|contre-ingérence}}) to name “subversion”"subversion" and “counter"counter-subversion”subversion" respectively.

The DGSE and one other intelligence agency of this country at least are particularly active in subversive activities abroad, often in a joint effort with the Russian foreign intelligence service, [[SVR RF]], with a focus on the United States, Dominique Poirier specifies from firsthand knowledge and experience spanning the years 1980 to circa {{Circa|2001}}. In the latter context, the main methods of subversion he presents as “actions"actions of influence”influence" and their expected results are the followings.

Most French and Russian actions of subversion, and of domestic influence alike, actually are governed by the notion of [[minority influence]] as initially defined by social psychologist [[Serge Moscovici]]. However, the DGSE in particular designs all such actions in accordance with fundamentals of a scientific approach akin to [[behaviorism]], called “behavioral"behavioral biology”biology" ({{lang-langx|fr|biologie comportementale}}) initially established in the early 1980s by French military scientist [[Henri Laborit]]. Additionally, the narrative, or “formal"formal aims”aims" of the action of subversion — when there is one, as behavioral biology focuses on acting on the unconscious, or id, locating in the reptilian brain as defined by Paul D. MacLean — is defined in accordance with fundamentals in [[epistemology]], another Russian import in French information warfare and active measures.

The expression “awareness"awareness raising”raising" “was"was a Soviet import that occurred in France during the preparatory stage of the riots and general strikes of May 1968. It happened in the early months of the latter year, first as a sophisticated technique in [[agitprop]] known in the Soviet [[KGB]] under the name {{lang|ru|сенсибилизация}} ({{lang|ru-Latn|siencibilizatz’iya}}), otherwise used in the other field of epistemology in Soviet Union. In France, the latter Russian word was given definitively the translation 'sensibilisation' (without equivalent in English) circa March 1968, as this word, sounding similar, already existed with other meanings in this country. The latter facts explain why sensibilisation / 'awareness raising' is the same in its principle as the other method of 'minority influence' in agitprop.”"<ref>Poirier, Dominique (Aug. 21, 2019). ''DGSE : The French Spy Machine''. Amazon.com Services LLC, {{ISBN|978-1687670533}}, p. 47.</ref> “An"An action of ''awareness raising'' in active measures may aim to influence the opinion of the public in one’sone's own country or that of a foreign country or both, and its goal is to make masses of people receptive to a concern that may be either true and founded, or false and ill-founded in reality, or neither entirely true and founded nor entirely false and ill-founded but “somewhere"somewhere between these two absolutes.”" The latter hypothesis, which often is expected in active measures, is explained and ruled by the disciplines of [[fuzzy logic]] and [[chaos theory]], and generally aims to breed doubt, confusion, or inhibition, and then angst, discontent, or fear in the minds of people.<ref>Poirier, Dominique (Aug. 21, 2019). ''DGSE : The French Spy Machine''. Amazon.com Services LLC, {{ISBN|978-1687670533}}, Chapt. 12. “The"The All-encompassing Active Measures”Measures".</ref>

Remarkably, French experts in domestic influence and subversion use colloquially the noun “sleepwalkers”"sleepwalkers" ({{lang-langx|fr|somnanbules}}) to call “all"all ordinary people composing the masses. The reason justifying the choice of this noun, pejorative in a sense, is that an overwhelming majority of ʻordinary peopleʼ are unable to tell the difference between neutral, objective information (news) and propaganda intended to influence. As seen from the viewpoint of specialists, the whole population behaves as millions of 'sleepwalkers' ready to believe anything the media, authors, and agents of influence tell and write, indifferently. The reason explaining the naïveté is that people tend to believe at its face value everything is formally published and broadcast, by wrongly attributing some official and unanimously approved virtue to media such as print and audiovisual periodical publications, books, and similar. Then the greater the number of people truly or apparently involved in the publishing / broadcasting of a fact or fallacy is, the truer it seems to be in the understanding of the masses. Additionally, the greater the known number of people who watched, listened, or read the fact or fallacy is, the greater the probability is that ʻit is true indeed,ʼ still in the understanding of the masses. ... Moreover, in France, specialists in influence and counter-influence are tasked to prevent the masses of people / 'sleepwalkers' from “waking"waking up”up" and understanding that they actually are thus fooled permanently, and by which methods and tricks they are so, since their own country fabricates and spreads fallacies for them either. In other words, about the latter explanation, teaching the masses on methods and techniques in foreign influence would be effective and salutary, doubtless, but at the same time it would reveal to them the influence and propaganda that their own government tailors and spreads for them. ... In the DGSE, a rule alluding colloquially to this particular definition of sleepwalker says, {{lang|fr|Ils dorment&thinsp;; ne les réveillez pas}} ('They [the masses] sleep, don’tdon't wake them up'). [[Edgar Morin]], French communist philosopher, sociologist, intelligence officer, and founder of modern methods and techniques of mass influence and manipulation is at the origin of this particular use of the word sleepwalker. Morin often said, “"{{lang|fr|Eveillés, ils dorment}}”" ('Awaken, they sleep'), quoting his own way Greek philosopher [[Heraclitus]]. Thus, Morin implied that, as taken collectively, ordinary people who constitute the masses are too stupid to make the difference between the truth, influence, propaganda, and disinformation. For the record, the exact and complete English translation of Morin's quote above is, “All"All men do walk in sleep, and all have faith in that they dream: for all things are as they seem to all, and all things flow like a stream.”"<ref>G.T.W. Patrick (Aug. 21, 2019). ''The Fragments of the work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature''. N. Murray pub., Baltimore, 1889.</ref><ref>Poirier, Dominique (Aug. 21, 2019). ''DGSE : The French Spy Machine''. Amazon.com Services LLC, {{ISBN|978-1687670533}}, pp. 50-51.</ref>

The internal subversive can also use economics to put pressure on the government through use of the strike. An example of this is the Chilean Truckers’Truckers' Strike during the 1970s. The strike prevented the transport of food staples and forced nearly 50% of the national economy to cease production.<ref>Sigmund, Paul. The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile, 1964–1976. (Pittsburg: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), Pg. 228.</ref> Activities of these kinds create human, economic, and political problems that, if not addressed, can challenge the competency of the government.

Recent writers, in the [[Postmodernism|post-modern]] and [[Post-structuralism|post-structuralist]] traditions (including, particularly, [[environmentalist]] and [[feminist]] writers) have prescribed a very broad form of subversion. It is not directly the parliamentary government which should be subverted in their view, but the dominant cultural forces, such as [[patriarchy]], [[individualism]], and [[scientism]]. This broadening of the target of subversion owes much to the ideas of [[Antonio Gramsci]], who stressed that [[communist revolution]] required the erosion of the particular form of '[[cultural hegemony]]' within [[society]].{{Page needed|date=September 2010}}

'''Subversive activity''' is the lending of aid, comfort, and moral support to individuals, groups, or organizations that advocate the overthrow of incumbent governments by force and violence. All willful acts that are intended to be detrimental to the best interests of the government and that do not fall into the categories of [[treason]], [[sedition]], [[Decoy|diversion]], [[sabotage]], or [[espionage]] are placed in the category of subversive activity.

Subversion was criminalised in [[Hong Kong]] on 30 June 2020 by [[2020 Hong Kong national security law|Hong Kong national security law]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kuo |first1=Lily |last2=Yu |first2=Verna |title=China passes controversial Hong Kong national security law |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/30/china-passes-controversial-hong-kong-national-security-law |access-date=10 July 2020 |work=the Guardian |date=30 June 2020}}</ref>

Subversion is a crime in Italy (''{{lang|it|[[:it:Attentato alla Costituzione|Attentato alla Costituzione]]''}}) under Article 283 of Italian criminal law (''{{lang|it|[[:it:Codice penale italiano|Codice penale italiano]]}})'' and ''{{lang|it|[[:it:Associazione sovversiva|Associazione sovversiva]]''}} under Articles 270 and 270-{{lang|it|bis}}.

There is no crime defined as "subversion" (as opposed to [[treason]]) in [[British constitutional law]]. Attempts have been made to introduce definitions but there is no general consensus among political and legal theorists.<ref name="Spjut">{{cite journal |last1=Spjut |first1=R. J. |year=1979 |title=Defining Subversion |journal=British Journal of Law and Society |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=254–261|jstor=1409771 |doi=10.2307/1409771 }}</ref><ref>Gill, Peter (1994). [https://books.google.com/books?id=j-Ywhx-JoakC&pg=RA1-PA119&lpg=RA1-PA119&dq=%22no+legal+definition%22+subversive&sourcepg=web&ots=aK4jpTvoe7&sig=5KGnJcALyGZmvCbkZ5sdxdti02c&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=resultRA1-PA119 Policing politics: security intelligence and the liberal democratic state]. Routledge. p. 119. {{ISBN|978-0-7146-3490-6}}</ref>

Subversion ([[Persian language{{langx|fa|Persian]]: براندازی ; [[Romanization]] : ''|barandāzi''}}) is a crime in Iran. The government of [[Iran|Islamic Republic of Iran]] prosecutes subversives under Articles 498 through 500, 507 and 508 of Iran's criminal laws.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&docid=52b812384|title=Iran: Islamic Penal Code (PDF File)}}</ref>

*[http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/index.php/teacherlore/C163/P15/ "Address before the National Association of Manufacturers" on the Soviet military and political threat] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429052256/http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/index.php/teacherlore/C163/P15/ |date=2014-04-29 }} by [[Allen Welsh Dulles]] (1959) – ''lower-middle portion of web page''