In 1949, mainland China fell under the oppression of the communists. To obtain not merely the compliance, but rather the willing support of the population, the communists actively applied techniques which are sometimes termed ‘mind control.’
In 1950, when both mainland China and the USSR were assisting North Korea in attacking South Korea, Chinese military officers used ‘thought control’ techniques on soldiers and officers who had been taken captive by the North Koreans.
The startling effectiveness of these techniques have since attracted the attention of psychologists like Steven Hassan and Robert Lifton. In China, formerly free people were ‘rewired’ to embrace Mao’s dictatorship and publicly confess their previously-held affection for liberty as a crime.
The power of ‘thought control’ techniques ‘programmed’ POWs to appeared in propaganda films, praising China and North Korea. The POWs also confessed, apparently sincerely, to nonexistent war crimes.
Louis West, Harry Harlow, and I.E. Farber wrote:
Few aspects of Communism have been more puzzling and disturbing to the Western world than the widely publicized collaboration, conversion, and self-denunciation in individuals - communist and noncommunist, innocent and guilty alike - who have suffered Communist imprisonment. Such behavior in persons whose intelligence, integrity, or patriotism can scarcely be doubted has suggested to many a mysterious power or knowledge that enables Communists to manipulate the thoughts and actions of others in a manner ordinarily reserved to characters in the more lurid sorts of science fiction. Accordingly, such terms as “brainwashing,” “thought control,” “menticide,” and so on, have been applied to the process or product of this manipulation.
The ‘mind control’ techniques developed by the Chinese in the late 1940s and early 1950s became the foundation for further advances in this field, now often called ‘undue influence’ or ‘unethical influence.’
The ability of the international communist conspiracy to ‘turn’ or ‘flip’ a person’s mind in a relatively short period of time meant that individuals who had previously opposed communism could be made, against their wills, to support, and act on behalf of, the global communist movement.
At that time, the communist conspiracy was not a political movement, aimed at changing opinions. It was a terrorist organization and an espionage network. It worked to foment ‘violent’ revolution - it explicitly used that word in its documents. The communists were stealing military secrets from various nations around the world, and infiltrating governments to plant pro-communist advisors among the world’s leaders.
Some of this spy work was carried out by people who were under a form of mind control, acting involuntarily against their own wills. They were under the control of a false persona which had been installed inside their minds.
In later decades, these psychological techniques would be employed not only by communist governments, but also by ‘cults’ - groups like the Scientology movement and the ‘moonies’ of the Unification Church.
