Subversive actions can generally be grouped into three interrelated categories: • Establishing
front groups and penetrating and manipulating existing political parties • Infiltrating the
armed forces, the
police, and other institutions of the state, as well as important
non-government organizations • Generating civil unrest through demonstrations, strikes, and
boycotts. Other factors, while not specifically falling into these categories, may also be useful to subversive dissidents. Additionally, many tools may overlap into other groups of tools as well. As an example, subversives may infiltrate an organization for cultural subversion more so than for control. Civil unrest may be used to provoke the government into a violent response.
Infiltration and establishing front groups In order for a group to be successful in subverting a government, the group itself and its ideas must be seen as an acceptable alternative to the status quo. However, groups that work toward subverting a government, in many cases, follow ideas and promote goals that on their surface would not receive the support of the population. Therefore, "to gain public credibility, attract new supporters, generate revenue, and acquire other resources, groups need to undertake political activities that are entirely separate, or appear separate, from the overtly violent activities of those groups. Sometimes this is achieved by infiltrating political parties,
labor unions, community groups, and
charitable organizations." Furthermore, in addition to gaining possible legitimacy for its ideas the infiltration of these groups can "bolster political allies, attack government policies, and attract international support." If some organizations are too difficult to infiltrate, it may be necessary to create new organizations that appear to be independent but are actually under the direction of the subversive group. The infiltration of state organizations can provide subversive groups the opportunity to do many things to achieve their goals. The infiltration of security forces can provide information about the government's capabilities and how they plan to address the group's activities. Infiltration also provides the opportunity to plant false information, lead the government to misallocate resources, to steal funds, weapons, equipment, and other resources, and ultimately aid in weakening and delegitimizing the government. The targets of infiltration are not limited to the groups and institutions mentioned above. Economic industries and universities have also been the target for infiltration. In the case of universities, the
liberal arts departments are more prone to subversion than the hard sciences.
Russian and French methods 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, yet he rarely uses the noun "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 , 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-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" () and "counterinterference" () to name "subversion" and "counter-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 . In the latter context, the main methods of subversion he presents as "actions of 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 biology" () initially established in the early 1980s by French military scientist
Henri Laborit. Additionally, the narrative, or "formal 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 raising" "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 (), 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." "An action of
awareness raising in active measures may aim to influence the opinion of the public in one'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 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. Remarkably, French experts in domestic influence and subversion use colloquially the noun "sleepwalkers" () to call "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 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, ('They [the masses] sleep, don'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, "" ('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 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."
Economics Economics can be both a tool of the internal and external subversive. For the external subversive simply cutting off credit can cause severe economic problems for a country. An example of this is the United States' relations with
Chile in the early 1970s. In an attempt to get
Salvador Allende removed from office, the United States tried to weaken the Chilean economy. Chile received little foreign investments and the loss of credit prevented Chile from purchasing vital imports. An economic pressure of this kind prevents an economy from functioning and reduces a country's standard of living. If the reduction is too great, the people may become willing to support a change in the government's leadership. The main objective of economic pressures is to make it difficult for the country to fulfill its basic obligations to the citizenry either by cutting off trade or by depriving it of resources. 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' Strike during the 1970s. The strike prevented the transport of food staples and forced nearly 50% of the national economy to cease production. Activities of these kinds create human, economic, and political problems that, if not addressed, can challenge the competency of the government.
Agitation and civil unrest As defined by Laurence Beilenson, agitation is "subversive propaganda by action such as mass demonstrations or the political strike, that is, a strike not intended to benefit the union or workers in the ordinary sense, but intended instead against the government." Furthermore, propaganda and agitation, even when they are legal forms of freedom of speech, press, and assembly can still be classified as subversive activity. These tools further demonstrate the need to determine intent of those taking action to identify subversive activities. Civil unrest creates many of the problems that an
insurgency campaign does. First of all it is an affront to government authority, and if the government is unable to quell the unrest it leads to an erosion of state power. This loss of power stems from the people's lack of trust in the government to maintain law and order. In turn, the people begin to question whether or not new leadership is needed. Discrediting, disarming, and
demoralizing the government is the goal of these activities and the cause of the government's loss of power. Civil unrest depletes resources as the government is forced to spend more money on additional police. Additionally, civil unrest may be used to provoke a response from the government. In the 1940s, during strikes against the
Marshall Plan, communists in France would "deliberately provoke the police and gendarmerie into acts of repressive violence in order to exploit the resulting 'martyrs to the cause' for propaganda purposes." These
martyrs and subsequent propaganda can be useful in turning political and social groups against each other. The less violent forms of unrest, "such as worker absenteeism, passive resistance, boycotts, and deliberate attempts to cripple government agencies by 'overloading the system' with false reports, can have powerfully disruptive effects, both economically and politically."
Offensive terror Offensive terror can be defined as the killing of people, destruction of property, kidnapping, etc. It is usually a minor part of subversion and "is used not to exert force in the transfer of state power, but is meant to cower the people or ruler." Additionally, much like civil unrest and agitation, it raises the question of whether or not the state can provide security for the population. Terror also provides a practical motivation of physically removing political opponents. The assassination of an organization's leader may open the door to a successor that is more friendly to the subversives position or possibly someone that has successfully infiltrated the organization and is in fact one of the subversives.
Bribery Bribery is one of the most common tools of subversion. Most societies see bribery as a form of
corruption, and it used as a subversive tool because it "implies the undermining of existing rules of political or moral conduct." It can also be one of the less reliable tools as well. Bribed officials are only useful if they take action. However, actions taken over a period of time draw suspicion from the public. The official must be able to carefully conceal their actions or perform only key functions and action. For these reasons, bribed officials are most effective when they are asked to take immediate action. In the case of external subversion, bribery is usually used for influence rather than for actions. ==Subverting cultural hegemony==