First orange
Before the Ministry of State Security of the GDR (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, unofficially abbreviated Stasi), formed on 8 February 1950, rose to its feet and later grew into one of the most effective intelligence services in the world, the burden of responsibility for public safety in East Germany lay on the USSR, and in particular on the command of the Western Group of Forces. The Cold War began, let me remind you, in 1946, but even before that it was not calm. If it was clear with armed protests and direct provocations (suppress quickly and harshly), then what to do with peaceful protests?
Everyone has the right to express their opinion. But we live in a complex world where our aspirations can be shamelessly used by people hungry for power, able to manipulate others. This has been the case, probably, since the emergence of the first states, 6 thousand years ago.
In public politics, protest actions are not only a designation of one's position, a demonstration of a flag, a means of raising spirits or a distraction from other problems, but also a call to all kinds of like-minded people, a gathering point. And here it is very important not to miss the moment when the consolidating masses, inflamed by agitators and provocateurs, will come to the point of no return in their rejection of the opposing side.
The fact that the situation in East Germany was much worse than Ukraine in 2013-2014 was shown by the events of June 17, 1953. It smelled like a new big war. This is well described in the material by Alexander Furs "Orange Summer 1953" (https://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1184220300). Here are some excerpts.
By the summer of 1953, an explosive situation had developed in the GDR, the reason for this was economic problems and a split in the leadership of the ruling party, and the enemy was not asleep. By that time, the FRG had the largest propaganda centers, the headquarters of intelligence services and subversive organizations. In addition to collecting information, they created clandestine armed groups for operations on the territory of the GDR. Direct preparations for the "X-Day" began in the spring of 1953 immediately after the Bundestag ratified the treaty on the FRG's entry into NATO.
On the night of June 16-17, the RIAS radio station began broadcasting calls for a general strike in the GDR. The FRG border guard was put on high alert. American tank units occupied the original areas in Bavaria along the entire border with the GDR. A large number of intelligence officers, including armed ones, were brought into the territory of the GDR.
On June 17, 1953, in Berlin and other cities, many industrial enterprises stopped working. Street demonstrations began. The West German authorities provided transport for the transfer of the demonstrators. They entered the territory of East Berlin in columns of up to 500-600 people. Even special American military sound broadcasting machines were used.
During the demonstrations, specially trained groups, which were operatively controlled from West Berlin, were especially active. Pogroms of party institutions were organized. The crowd cracked down on some functionaries of the party and state apparatus, activists of the labor movement. During the riots, arson and looting took place, as well as attacks on police stations and prisons.
As a result, from June 09 to June 29, over 430 thousand people went on strike in the GDR. In the conditions of the then still weakness of the Stasi and the position of the SED in the country, the decisive role in disrupting the June putsch was played by the firm position of the Soviet Union, as well as the swift and decisive actions of the command of Soviet troops in Germany, headed by the commander-in-chief, General of the Army A. A. Grechko.
The organizers of the June speech failed to achieve the main goal - the strikes and demonstrations did not escalate into an uprising against the ruling regime. The bulk of the population distanced itself from political slogans, putting forward only economic demands (lower prices and labor standards). During the riots, according to official data, 40 (according to other sources, 55) people were killed. 11 police officers and party activists of the GDR were killed. 400 people were injured.
These figures can be considered the minimum for unrest of this magnitude, already in Hungary in October-November 1956. the situation was different and only the losses of the Soviet army as a result of large-scale battles, according to official data, amounted to 669 people killed, 51 missing. Here I would like to draw your attention to the following words of Alexander Furs: Did it work the famous German love of order - Ordnung, was the memory of defeat in the war too close, or were there other reasons that we have no idea about, but only the tension SUDDENLY began to subside …
CIA Director A. Dulles, Special Adviser to the US Secretary of State for West Berlin E. Lansing-Dulles, Chief of Staff of the US Army General Ridgway, Minister for Internal German Problems J. Kaiser, Chairman of the CDU / CSU faction in the Bundestag H. von Brentano and SPD Chairman E. Ollenhauer prepared so much and even specially came together to lead the "workers'" uprising, and then take SUDDENLY and ease the tension. They knew very well that at that moment the GDR was the weakest link among the countries of the "people's democracies". Subsequent events in Hungary in 1956 showed that the memory of defeat in the recent war is also not the reason, although of course the Hungarians are not Germans.
There were other reasons. I will repeat myself. You see, it was not enough to block the border with Soviet troops, it was not enough to set up checkpoints on the roads and tanks at the crossroads of cities, it was imperative to stop the still peaceful protests in a short time, in the conditions of the then weakness of the special services and the absence of such attributes of our modernity as water cannons and a teardrop gas. At the same time, it was necessary to be completely insane in order to fulfill the instructions of Lavrenty Beria, to shoot to kill unarmed people. According to the memoirs of High Commissioner Semyonov, he personally replaced Beria's order to shoot twelve instigators with an order “to shoot over the heads of the demonstrators”. Our generals and officers felt with their skin how this could turn out in a country that had recently been at war. The mistakes of economists and politicians had to be cleared up by the Soviet soldiers, and they … coped! An ordinary, as it was more than once in our history, Russian miracle happened.
THERE WERE OTHER REASONS. In whose golden head the intuitive decision came, as always in such cases, we will probably never know. If only he knew that he saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives by this. At the same time, it turned out to be very simple and effective, like everything ingenious. A bold order was given (a risk, but it worked against the Germans) - unarmed Soviet soldiers, without the use of any violence, to evenly disperse among the demonstrators and German demonstrators. As a result, the antagonism of the components instantly fragmented the crowds, deprived them of their integrity, and, as practice showed, made street demonstrations meaningless. This is an excellent example of the use of psychological weapons, since simple intimidation, like shooting over heads, did not solve the PROBLEM of CONSOLIDATION of the opposing masses (quite the opposite). It was the peaceful dispersal of the children bound by the oath in the crowd, many of whom their fathers died in the recent war, that killed the morale of the crowds completely, eliminating the recurrence of such actions. This well refreshed the half-forgotten fear, did not allow one to distance oneself from it. And the provocateurs began to get muteness and diarrhea.
From the outside it looked even funny, albeit nervous. Let people speak different languages, when they joke at you, this is understandable. The soldier approaches Frau: "Can't you hold the poster, darling?"
Or the burgher, angry and displeased, spits. And in response to him Sergeant Berdyev: "Eh, the action is peaceful, wherever I want, I stand there."
Or a group of guys shouting slogans. Private Petrov and Sidorov came up to them: “Let's shout together? Ivan, get out of here! Home, home! Ivan, went home!"
But the demobels really want to go home, but here such a mess is brewed up, and in fact they will shout.
- Listen, Petrov, why are we alone yelling? Where are the Germans?
And the Germans are already gone.
Elements of this tactic were later used by the KGB against the actions of dissidents, when, according to undercover information, a quarter, half an hour before the start of the flash mob, a completely different mass action began in a designated place, for example, a rally "For peace in the whole world!" …
This is how the CIA Director Alain Dulles "broke off" in 1953. And, probably, he considered himself a very cool specialist, in any case, Hollywood succeeded in varnishing its men.
Conclusions. The mere collection of the available facts of the intuitive resolution of crisis situations provides the most valuable material for analysis. The fact that this precious experience and knowledge is ignored, lost and forgotten makes me indignant. I hope I have succeeded (once again) in showing how effective the means of psychological influence can be.
Afterword to the chapter. Many thanks to Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Lisin for his help in preparing this material. He was serving in Germany at that time. Besides the fact that he witnessed the use of spraying tactics by our servicemen, as he said, “let the soldiers into the Germans”, he also happened to be a participant in the famous spy operation “Berlin Tunnel” in 1956. At the head of the material, I placed a photo with a diagram of this tunnel. Hopefully he will tell this story too. If anyone is interested, you can go to the page:
The nature of information stuffing
A very interesting topic for study is the mechanisms of information dissemination in human society. All these rag phones, rumors, gossip, and journalism is fed up with it.
There are a lot of examples, I don't want to get into politics, it's a dirty and thankless business. We will not remember Joseph Overton, we will rather consider something neutral. And here is at least a short anecdote. Taken from the resource
38 years later, at a meeting of classmates, you can immediately see who studied how and who achieved what!
Losers have 2 things: an apartment and a car.
The C grade student has 3 things: an apartment, a car and a summer cottage.
The excellent student has 5 things: glasses, debts, bald head, headache and a gold medal in stainless steel!
Some strange anecdote, not funny, but the theme sounding in it is amazingly tenacious in everyday life. It is possible, and not uncommon, to hear referring to authoritative sources: "Why are there excellent students with their formalized consciousness." Let's start parsing.
1. Lies are a destructive weapon; sooner or later they betray themselves and those who use them. With the external strength of the formulations, informational stuffing with logic is not on friendly terms. Just think, the number of C-students in nature is much higher than the number of excellent students, they simply take in bulk, if you take and calculate the percentage of successful people who have emerged from the ranks of excellent students and C-students, for each group separately, then, unfortunately, it turns out that the formalization of consciousness is well nothing to do with it. And if you count how many drank in both groups during the specified time, then I'm afraid there will be many questions to the author of this speech. Another thing is that the failure of a gold medalist in life is more noticeable to those around him, because no one pinned special hopes on the C grade.
2. Then, naturally, the question arises, if illogicality is a working characteristic of information stuffing, one might say, a corporate stamp that is almost impossible to hide, then why does it live and roll over our heads?
Informational stuffing is always focused either on the interests of a certain group, or addressed to the most common fears and expectations of the maximum number of people. Emotions and feelings are the driving force behind rumors and gossip from person to person, encoded in words. In which words of this "anecdote" do you hear more hatred, in the word "bald head" or "stainless steel gold medal"? Alas, the information injection primarily exploits the elements of intraspecific human competition, when the real truth is not needed by anyone, "OWN TRUTH" is more convenient. Convenient truth, starting with an attempt to justify one's actions by an individual, can grow to the dimensions of an ideology. This is a flag, a call, a gathering of allies, a gang, if you like (does it look like anything?), Sounding the soil.
A stuffing-in is a means of information warfare, when military actions are conducted indirectly, through the sensations of other people who think in the same way as the author of the stuffing-in.
Means of protection against information stuffing
It's simple. I will answer with parables.
Once a man came to Socrates and said:
- Do you know what your friend says about you?
Socrates answered him:
- Before you tell me this news, sift it through three sieves. The first is the sieve of truth. Are you sure what you are going to tell me now is true?
- Well, I heard it from others.
“You see, you're not sure. Second sieve of good. Will this news be helpful?
- Not at all.
- And, finally, the third sieve is a sieve of good. Will this news please me, will it please me?
- I doubt.
- You see, you want to tell me the news, in which there is no truth and goodness, moreover, it is useless. Why tell her then?
These are the three filters in which order you should use them. If people did not forget about the filter of goodness not only in relation to themselves, but also to others, honestly, the world would become a better place.
