“How can human behavior be controlled?” This question was posed by Vladimir Lenin to Ivan Pavlov in 1919.

I’ve spent numerous years reading and studying Soviet tactics and methodologies in Russia leading up to and following the 1917 Revolution. My interest focuses on the anti-religious methods and propaganda used by the Soviets.

Over time, I began to understand that Soviet Russia was neither a unique nor a specifically anti-western phenomenon, rather it was the result of various “Western” (European) ideologies. Ideologies that were formulated in the age of “enlightenment and reason.” The foundational ideology of Marxism, and subsequent Bolshevism, is a distinctly “Western” ideology. Tsarist Russia was a guinea pig. Ultimately, the ideologies that were applied and tested in Russia were neither “Western” nor “Eastern,” for they may simply and ultimately be summed up as anti-Christ.

Once I became Orthodox in the early 2000’s I encountered various teachings and ideas, most of which can be summed up in the well-known statement from Elder Ignatii of Harbin, “What began in Russia will be finished in the West.”

This served to reinforce my already existing conviction that it is important to be aware, at least somewhat, of the methods used in Russia and elsewhere. The techniques used by the “godless Soviets” were indeed preliminary tests, although the initial implementation there could be qualified as somewhat crude. Since then they have been refined. Technological advancements have doubtlessly played a vital role in its refinement. Nonetheless, the fundamental tactics and goals remain until our day.

In this post, I want to share a few observations from one of the many books I’ve read on the above-mentioned subject. My observations, which I believe can be applied to current situations that surround us, are based on a chapter from “The White Nights,” by Boris Sokoloff. The chapter is called “Individualism versus Standardization.” The book is a firsthand account of the time of the Provisional Government in Russia and the subsequent Communist Revolution.

Mr. Sokoloff begins by noting, “As I look back on my university days and try to understand the birth and phenomenal success of communism in Russia, I cannot but feel that a contributing factor was the mechanistic trend in the universities of my time. In almost every natural-science course I took, I felt this undercurrent of materialistic philosophy.”

The telos, the end purpose, of the materialistic mindset applied in real time to humanity becomes quite frightening. From such a philosophy comes the idea of people as “the masses.” Humanity is depersonalized and conglomerated into a giant grey mass of units that must be controlled. It professes that nature can be manipulated to the will of the evolving man-gods, including humanity. And only a select few have been “chosen” to “lead” the “masses.”

Man is just a material, a biological, machine. Study him and you can then manipulate his functions. “By studying the higher nervous activity in man, we will gradually come to know everything about his so-called psychology,” states Pavlov. The psyche is one of the primary governing forces in a person, thus if one can manipulate and direct the psyche, then the reigns of the person are held by another governing power. This manipulation must be performed in a way that is not obviously visible to the person, it must be present as if the manipulation is a natural movement and desire of the person himself. 

Once the Bolsheviks began consolidating power in Russia, they turned their minds to the very important subject of “controlling the masses.” At the center of Marxism, and such ideologies, is the primary goal of mass, or population, control. 

In October 1919, Lenin met with Ivan Pavlov. The goal was to use Pavlov’s research to better control the people, the masses.

A foremost question of the Soviet government was – How can we control people? The goal was not a general control of people but a detailed one, one which intrudes into the very thought process of humanity. 

“We are building a new world,” Lenin boldly proclaims. In this “new world,” the unit of the person must perform according to the desire of the masters and overlords of the collective. 

One may wonder why we keep hearing similar ideas right now. The current threat of a virus is being used as a cover to build a new world, which in current times is being called, “a new normal.” It should cause pause when anti-humanitarians such as Bill Gates, state that the current “pandemic” will “define” this “era” in a manner similar to World War II.

Lenin outlines his goals, “I want the masses of Russia to follow a pattern of thinking and reacting, along the Communist pattern. All of them.” 

The goal is to use external situations to train people to follow a preconceived pattern – a pattern of thinking and reacting that would be orchestrated and fed to them from above, from the self-chosen leaders of the Proletariat Paradise, or whatever supposed “paradise” is being built. Yet on a certain level, the political leaders of the Soviet times were not the true ultimate powers, they were funded and encouraged by powers above them. Although the distinctly Soviet Russian manifestation has passed away, neither the greater controlling powers nor the principles of control have passed away.

He continues, “Man can be made what we want him to be.”

Such men and their ideologies have no value for humanity and its authentic well-being. Humanity must be whatever they want it to be, that is its only value. Personal freedom, in the philosophical sense, has no place in modern systems such as Marxism. The value of the “unit” is to serve the “collective.” Ultimately, the “collective” simply becomes the interests of an elite few. These elite ones believe they have a god-like prerogative to make the “mass man” into whatever they want him to be.

Pavlov asks, “Do you mean that you would like to standardize the population of Russia? Make them all behave in the same way?”

“Exactly …” is Lenin’s response.

Education is one of the important tools by which to control human behavior. Education takes on various forms, be it in institutions such as schools and universities, or through various forms of media, news, movies, and such. The end goal is the formation and standardization of the masses so that they think and react uniformly; the Borg has spoken!

Pavlov promoted “neurism.” In basic, it views man as a materialistic machine to be programmed and via this programming, controlled. The primary organ in man that must be controlled is the mind or brain. In such a view, if one could program the minds – the thoughts – of men then, one could conceivably control the lives of men.

In neurism, “The nervous system has a predominant, almost exclusive, role in all that man does, both voluntary or involuntary. The brain, and the brain alone, serves as the essential substratum for higher nervous activity … To adherents of neurism, the personality of man, his pattern of acting and reacting, is merely the product of individual experience during life.

Control the atmosphere of experience and you can shape and control humanity. This observation does hold a certain amount of reality because environment influences people and their development. Yet such a view, since it is based only upon a Dawinistic evolutionary view of humanity, fails to consider that human persons have a spiritual existence. 

The explanation continues, “It is the end result of man’s adaptation to environment. The experience is based on the formation of conditioned reflexes, and the association of these reflexes in the brain.”

Ultimately such a philosophy believed that “conditioned reflexes can abolish unconditioned reflexes, or, as they are called, natural instinct.”

Vital to the group conditioning is “external stimulus.” Such stimulus is essential to forming the new desired “conditioned reflex.” Once established the “same conditioned reflex can be induced and formed in humans of very different personalities.”

Control all the “stimulus,” that is, the environment, and you can control the people. 

This basic proposition became a bedrock in “The Soviet government’s gigantic project of controlling human behavior, of standardizing the personality patterns of the Russian people.”

This research was so vital to the Soviet cause that, “Pavlov’s laboratory was turned into an oasis ‘untouchable’ by the Soviet Cheka” (the early KGB, my note).

At the center of this experiment, which seems to be continuing in variant forms, is this assumption, “If man’s behavior can be reduced to a chain of conditioned reflexes, the behavior of the population can be standardized.”

The final goal is to “promote a scientifically elaborated control of human behavior.”

A simplified and extreme form of Pavlov’s theories became an essential foundation for the Soviet experimentation in controlling the masses.

Mr. Sokoloff summarizes it like this, “The behavior of man is the product of his environment. Man can transcend his heredity and transform his environment. That is, although he is controlled by his environment, he can rise above it and alter it, an absolute contradiction. And since man’s thoughts and ideas are nothing but a chain of conditioned reflexes, elaborated during childhood and adult life, man’s personality and behavior can be controlled by proper education. By conditioning his reflexes, man can be ‘standardized,’ can be made to think and act according to the pattern required by the Soviet government. Thus, the whole population of Soviet Russia and, in fact, of the whole world can gradually be transformed into ‘standardized’ masses, thinking and behaving in complete uniformity.”

The experiment’s goal was to see if millions could be “transformed into robotlike men, educated in the same pattern of reflexology and deprived of all individuality, men who would follow the Communist theories without protest, fight or question …”

The goal of programming people to accept ideas and circumstances without protest, fight, or question remains paramount today in controlling the masses. This is one of the reasons that mainstream media and “news” (sic) report on various events in an almost scripted manner and seek to silence dissenting voices. Yes, one of the important goals of the powers that be is to establish a controllable “group-think” for the masses but in a way that the masses think such ideas are their own.

Although this may be a recount of the “crude” and early forms of control utilized by the Soviets, it does remain one of the primary goals of elitist powers. These early attempts of population control still form much of the foundation for the modern agenda. Communism is a form of elite rule.

Thus we should be aware that for years now, various situations have been created in which certain reflexes are sought. The secular worldview still considers humanity as an organic machine that is but a freak chance of nature and with mentalities that are the result of his surroundings. This is reflected in the current mentalities which have made such radical claims that even gender (male and female) is but a construct of society, that is, is simply an idea taken from outside environments.

It is vital to the powers that be to create situations that will move people in a pre-planned direction. It is important to understand that the use of crisis is well within that scope; in fact, in some ways, crises are more effective at accelerating desired changes.

It is in this context that we can understand the use of certain phrases right now in the media, such as the “new normal.” Some are even calling it the “next normal” and a “new reality.”

As we hear a unified, it would seem scripted, message calling upon the “masses” to simply accept a “new reality,” we should be soberly asking ourselves, What is the purpose of this “new” work being done?

Is the threat of a virus being used to further standardize the “masses”? I think, it seems, it is. What are we being standardized to accept? This should be the foremost question in our minds. As I’ve stated elsewhere, we are not being prepared by secular powers to receive the Lord Jesus Christ.

Our docility in accepting this “new reality” will not save us, in fact, it may just be that we are collaborating with our own demise on both the physical and spiritual planes.