BRAINWASHING from A Psychological Viewpoint

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-02646R000100100002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 93
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 24, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 1, 1956
• Content Type: REPORT

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BRAINWASHING
from
A Psychological Viewpoint
February 1956
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The following comments will be of assistance in keeping
the contents of this volume in perspective:
1. The term brainwashing is used in a very restricted
sense. It is an unfortunate term and its uncritical use should
be discouraged.
2. The paper represents the views of one group who
consolidated two previous papers in its preparation.
3. The paper is popularly, rather than operationally
oriented. Discussion?of defensive measures has boer1 eliminated.
4+. The chapter on Communist Control Techniques repre-
sents the process as it has been found to be; the chapter, An
Analysis of Control During Brainwashing, as it might be if
appropriately managed and pushed to its final conclusion.
5a As brainwashing is practiced at present, a cap-
tive does have resources at his command to help cope with its
effects. Individuals do recover spontaneously when returned
to their normal environment. Even if brainwashing were prac-
ticed as thoroughly as it might be, there is a high probability
that such a recovery will take place.
6. A package on this topic, with an operational
orientation, will be issued in the very near future,
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"We know now that men can be made to do exactly
anything....... It's all a question of finding
the right means. If only we take enough trouble
and go sufficiently slowly, we can make him kill
his aged parents and eat them in a stew."
(Jules Romaine. VPRD . A. A. Knopf, 1939,
P. 156.)
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Page
FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
INTRODUCTION . . . . ? ? . ? . . ? ? ? ? . . . ? ? . ? ? ? . ? 3.
Scope and Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . 1
General Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
STATEMENT OF THE PROM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
COMEDNIST CONTROL TECHNIQUES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . to
The Suspect ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Accumulation of Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . 1:1
The Arrest Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Detention Prison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
The Regimen Within the Detention Prison . . . . . . . . 15
The Effects of the Regimen in the Isolation Cell . . . 18
Other Aspects of the Isolation Regimen . . . . . . . . 23
The interrogator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Interrogation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Pressures. Applied by the Interrogator . . . . . . . . . 31+
The "Friendly Approach" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . 37
The Course of the Interrogation . . . . . . . . ? . . 39
The Interrogator's Point of View and
Objectives . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . 141
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Page
The Reaction of the Prisoner to the Interrogation . . . 45
The Trial . . . - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Public Confessions . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . ? . . . 53
Punishment . . . . . .
. . . ? ? ? . . ? - . ? ? 59
Comparison of Russian and Chinese
Communist Practices . . . . 59
Conclusions . .
AN ANALYSIS OF CONTROL DURING BRAINWASHING
? . ? . . ? . . . ? . . 62
. . . . . . 0 . ? 65
A Hypothetical Schedule of Brainwashing . . . . . . . . 67
Aftermath . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . 80
MONT
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Brainwashing, as a term, was originated by a reporter
who was interviewing Chinese refugees. It has gained world-
wide currency and has been applied to a wide range of tech
niques--mass education of a C-3mmunistic country or citizens,
thought control in Soviet and satellite countries, techniques
of eliciting information, as well as the intensive indi-
vidualized re-education of beliefs of a few selected
individuals. Such uncritical use of the term has done
nothing to reduce the impact on the public and officialdom
generally of the confessions of such men as Cardinal Mindszenty
and especially of the results of treatment of prisoners-of-war
by the Chinese Communists.
The term itself is anxiety producing. Its connotation
of special oriental knowledge of drugs, hypnosis, and other
exotic and devious means of controlling human behavior creates
credulity among the uninformed. A more prosaic view isthat
the techniques used in producing confessions and "conversions"
are readily understandable in terms of ordinary psychological
principles and have been used, especially by police states,
for centuries. It is now clear that Russian methods of
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L
obtaining information and confessions have been developed by
MVID and earlier versions of this organization over the centuries,
but especially during the past 35 years of systematic effort to
elicit information or confessions. The Chinese have their own.
tradition of tolerance for brutality. They are influenced by
the Russians, but place more emphasis on converting the-prisoner
to Communistic beliefs, at times behaving as typical "eager-
beaver" revolutionaries. In sum, the methods are police methods
developed by trial. and error to suit the needs of the police
state. No scientists, no drugs, no hypnosis, no new psychological
principles have as yet been involved.
Early in the review of the diverse information catalogued
under the teams "brainwashing", even in serious scientific
articles, it became evident there was a need for better coordina-
tion of the work on this topic and more work directed at specific
problems and issues. It was, therefore, concluded that this
limited effort was best devoted to (1) clarifying the concepts
connoted by the term brainwashing; (2) relating these to such
basic psychological principles as learning, perception, and
motivation; and (3) specifically discussing the brainwashed
person as an involuntarily re-educated person.
All people are being re-educated continuously. New
information changes one's beliefs. Everyone has experienced to
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some degree the conflict that ensues when new information is
not consistent with a prior belief, especially abasic-one
concerned with such problems as religion, sex mores, and
political ideology. This is a normal experience. Most
individuals are able to resolve the conflict by one means
or another; many do so by integrating the new with the
old.
The experience of the brainwashed (in our sense)
differs in that the inconsistent information is forced
upon him under relatively controlled conditions after the
possibility of critical judgment has been reduced or
removed by such measures as production of excessive fatigue,
isolation, deprivation of, various sorts, and sometimes
physical torture. When reduced to extreme dependency and
confusion, the individual is ready to react favorably to
any person or idea which promises to end his painfully
confused state. At this point, the re-education begins,
as described in the ANALYSIS OF CONTROL PRESSURES.
How individuals will react to. attempts to elicit
information, to confess falsely, to brainwashing as we
have defined it depends on the intelligence, personality
and experience of the individual and on the knowledge and
willingness of captors to persist in techniques aimed at
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deliberately destroying the integration of a personality.
With such willingness, there appears little doubt that an
individual can be brought psychologically to the-point where
involuntary re-education will take place. Up to now, police
methods developed by trial and error have not fully exploited
the psychological basis for results thus far obtained; nor
have all restraints in treatment of prisoners been cast aside.
Note, too, that the restraints referred to need not concern
direct physical torture. It is not necessary to use direct
physical means to reduce a person to a state where involuntary
re-education can take place.
Brainwashing conceived as involuntary re-education, then,
represents one extreme of a continuum of treatment by, and
resistance to, captors. At the other end of this scale is
active voluntary collaboration with the enemy. In between
are varying degrees of brutality and subtlety of treatment
and degrees of resistance thereto. Clearly, policies
concerning treatment of repatriated captives will depend on
where the individual is placed on this scale. At one end,
there is the legal jurisdiction for treason; at the other,
psychiatric treatment.
The view presented herein has several implications.
First, the public should be given information which will
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dispel the tery whichappears to have surrounded the concept
of brainwashing.
Second, those responsible for establishing policy for-
returned prisoners have as a first problem the determination
where on the scale between involuntary re-education and
voluntary collaboration a particular individual stands.
Third, the hvma;n organism need not be a complete pawn
of his environment until extreme conditions are created. Man
is adaptive, and with some knowledge of what to expect from
his captors and an understanding of his own reactions, he can
develop means of resisting. He can be helped in this by
prior knowledge of the treatment he can expect and his own
reactions to it.
Fourth, the truly brainwashed is a psychiatric, not a
legal problem. His treatment should be therapeutic, not
punitive. Recovery can be anticipated since the brainwashed
person placed in his normal environment will tend to revert
to his prior beliefs.
Fifth, brainwashing can be successfully accomplished on
the basis of present knowledge by anyone sufficiently
interested in acquiring an understanding of the psychological
principles involved.
Sixth, it is possible that the best long range defense
MOMMENN&IMMM
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against brainwashing is to make it politically disadvantageous
for a country to permit its use.
While this paper focuses. its attention on brainwashing
as defined, the political nature of its effects wakes it
necessary to consider the effects of military and other
policy. Where certain possibilities occur naturally in
the psychological context, they are mentioned. The major
purpose, however, is to discuss 'brainwashing from a psy-
chological point of view. It is not presumed that this
view takes into account all the factors needed in determi-
ning policy.
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INTRODUCTION
Scope and Aim
The purpose of this study is to increase understanding
of the "brainwashing process".
There are probably well over 1000 classified and
unclassified documents, articles and books directly related
to Soviet and Satellite techniques of interrogation and
brainwashing. Approximately one-third of the available
classified and unclassified sources were examined to provide
the findings of this study.
By far the greatest proportion of this material has come
from prisoner-of-war sources of World War II and the Korean
conflict. Considerable additional material has come from
refugees, intelligence sources, and civilian nationals who
have been released from incarceration behind the Curtain.
A number of research studies have been completed or are
now in process by various agencies of this Government and
other friendly governments. The obtainable findings of all
research studies of immediate relevance were utilized.
A considerable body of professional research dealing
with conditions that result in changes in the perceptual and
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intellectual organization of the individual personality has
emanated from universities and other private research insti-
tutions during the past decade. Appropriate selections from
this material have been applied to understanding brainwashing.
General Orientation
This study has been written as a general analysis of the
available material. It is recognized that agencies engaged
in intelligence collection have unique operational vulner-
abilities in dealing with Soviet interrogation and brain-
washing. Individuals forced to confess to having engaged in
espionage or sabotage embarrass national policy planners.
While these problems are recognized, no attempt has been made
in this study to provide specific practical guidance.
This study is written from the viewpoint of professional
psychology. As a systematic approach, this has not been
done before, although many previous analyses have, of course,
made some use of psychological ideas. The present approach
attempts to make full use of current psychological principles
in explaining the process of brainwashing.
It is reasonable to expect that the Soviets will continue
to refine their methods, and that we shall continue to secure
more knowledge about the subject. There should, therefore, be
periodic reappraisals of brainwashing in the future.
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STAB OF THE PROBLEM
As we shall show later in this chapter, the term-"brain-
washing" has-a very useful meaning from the standpoint of what
goes on inside the person who is brainwashed. If the process
had been viewed in this light from the beginning, no doubt we
would by now have achieved a greater and more widespread under-
standing of it. Actually, it has not been confronted in so
simple amanner as that. It has been used by the Soviets
and the Chinese on quite different kinds of people and for
quite a variety of reasons. It has had a wide range of
consequences, some intended and perhaps some unintended.
It has faced intelligence, military and political leaders
with a remarkably wide range of problems with which each. such
group bad to cope. All these variations of objectives, con-
sequences, and problems have made for confusion in our efforts
to understand what was really going on.
Western usage of the term brainwashing has caused it to
be applied from time to time to each of the following situations:
-(l) Individual or group indoctrination of the
"masses" behind the Iron Curtain.
(2) Indoctrination of key personnel inside Communist-
controlled countries to maintain their political reliability.
3
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(3) The interrogation process by which positive
information of intelligence value is obtained from
individuals.
(4+) Group indoctrination of prisoners-of-war. Besides
an attempt to obtain defections and demoralize military
personnel, this process appears to have been used as a
selective device to ascertain which "progressives" or
"opportunists" might subsequently be amenable to amore
intensive process as defined in (5) below.
(5) The intensive individual process during which
individuals are deprived of their critical faculties and
subsequently come to believe as true that which, prior to
the brainwashing, they would have designated as false.
The fact that the term "brainwashing" has been applied to
so many situations has caused a great deal of confusion In
attempting to learn more about it and in attempting to develop
sound practices and policies for coping with it. As we shall
explain more fully in this study, we find the term "brain-
?washing" to be most useful when it is applied strictly to
denote. the involuntary re-education of an individual during
erceptual and intellectual
organization of his personality so that he will:
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(1) Accept as true certain ideological principles
which he would not have accepted as true prior to the change,
and/or
(2) Admit that certain events have a true and factual
basis which he would not have admitted formerly. These
false beliefs may be transitory. In fact, there is good
reason to believe that the false beliefs resulting from
brainwashing 'will break down spontaneously when the
individual has been removed for a period of time from the
oppressive controls.
It should be noted that brainwashing, so defined, does
not emphasize what happens to the individual, but what happens
within him. The change represents a more or less complete
re-education of his value-system. This change is brought about
in a rigidly controlled environment using pressures designed
to create and sharpen internal conflict within the individual.
The individual is forced to resort to problem-solving.be-
havior, and the net effect is the brainwashed state. Two
simu],taneous processes are present. The first is characterized
by a progressive deterioration and demobilization of the
individual's critical and judging capacities. In a true sense
the individual loses all sense of perspective. The second
process is the learning of beliefs he would previously have
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rejected, as he seeks to gain some structure for his crumbling
personality. The criteria of success of brainwashing are:
(1) The observed conviction and sincerity with
which the individual expresses his changed ideology
and beliefs concerning palpable events.
(2) The length of time his changed beliefs are
maintained after the individual has been removed from
the control environment.
(3) The amount of surprise and confusion that
accompanies his "discovery" that he has been brain-
washed during his subsequent recovery.
Indoctrination, and even education, can lead to false
beliefs. These processes are most effective when the in-
dividual has gaps in his knowledge, or his understanding of
the meaning of certain events is sufficiently tenuous.that
he has little difficulty in accepting a new and different
interpretation. Brainwashing, however, involves the re-
education of well-established beliefs; and implies that the
individual resisted the re-education It is this very
resistance with its concomitant internal conflict, we main-
tain, which is the very core of brainwashing.
In the process of securing information of intelligence
value, the procedures used by the Communists, although
e x
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admittedly harsh, do not appear-to-differ substantially from
those customarily used in eliciting military information.
The systematic demoralization of captives does not appear to
be a major objective.
An understanding of brainwashing is important in several
contexts, among which are the following:
(1) Intelligence might be more fully protected if
military and other personnel subject to capture could
understand brainwashing and could be trained as well as
possible to cope with it.
(2) Dealing properly with brainwashed individuals
depends heavily on understanding their condition. For
the truly brainwashed, psychiatric treatment is in order;
for the deliberate defector, legal processes are
appropriate.
(3) The propaganda-value of false confessions has
been great, and the fear-producing impact of "brain-
washing" in the public mind is a matter worth considerable
concern. Public understanding of the process should help
considerably.
(4) A clear understanding of the process is
important if governmental agencies are to make rapid
progress toward further research and understanding, and
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to develop consistent policies to meet the problems of
brainwashing.
Each of these objectives of greater understanding is
important. The propaganda-value-of false confessions and the
public anxiety concerning brainwashing loom, however, as major
preoccupations. Statements of brainwashed individuals have
been a sharp-edked tool in the Communist propaganda kit.
Everything from the purges of the brainwashed "old revo-
lutionaries" in the late '30's to the Korean germ warfare
admissions has advanced the Soviet strategy line. Possibly
one of the greatest advantage
for the Communists in the Far
East has been to lower Caucasian prestige. Another and even
more effective propaganda goal may be the creation of a state
of fear within the populace of western-bloc nations. The
concept of brainwashing is frightening. Mothers of sans, who
go into military service against the Soviets or Chinese; must
concern themselves with the fact, not only that their sons
may be killed or wounded, but that their mental processes
may be distorted if they are captured. Just as knowledge
that the Soviets have thermonuclear weapons has dampened the
national feeling of security, so brainwashing has created
the belief that-our opponents are mysteriously formidable.
The "man-in-the-street" is not so removed from pre-scientific
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beliefs that such processes as brainwashing fail to arouse
emotions bordering on superstitious ave. .
We turn now to a more detailed explanation of just what
happens to the mind and body of the demoralized and dis-
organized person who can properly be described as brain-
washed, and to a consideration of how this state can be
brought about. We shall describe the general processes
involved in changing the behavior and the beliefs of an
individual when his environment can be fully controlled.
These processes are complex and they involve the basic
principles of learning, perception, motivation, and physio-
logical deprivation.
Implications of these findings for policy and practice
in various areas will not be spelled out in detail. Some
such implications, of course, would need to be integrated
with other considerations in arriving at a final policy.
Some, on the other hand, appear to point overwhelmingly
toward certain specific policies and practices. For example,
the treatment of brainwashed repatriates should clearly be
supportive rather than punitive. This study should provide
useful guidance and helpful points of view in a number of
important areas.
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COMMUNIST CONTROL TECHNIQUES
Understanding brainwashing as a phenomenon -- a
phenomenon which culminates in a false confession, delivered
with conviction and humility, to antisocial intent and
specific criminal acts -- requires both a knowledge of
Communist control techniques and an analysis of their impact
upon the normal personality. This section describes the
battery of pressures applied to the prisoner and his
behavioral reactions to these control pressures. In the
following section an attempt is made to analyze the psycho-
logical impact of these assaults upon the personality during
the course of the brainwashing.
The Suspect
Those who fall under the suspicion of the MVD usually
have some reason for exciting its suspicion. Although the
suspect may not know why he is suspected, the MVD has some
reason for singling him out. Because of the broad nature of
Soviet laws, and the free manner in which the MVD can
interpret these, any "suspect" has committed some "crime
against the state" as the MVD defines the term.
The implications of this statement are significant. In
a nation in which the state owns all property, where everyone
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works for the state, and where only approved opinions may be
held, a person who has accidentally broken or lost some of
the "people's property", who has made a mistake, who has not
worked hard enough, who has talked to a foreigner, or who has
merely expressed what he inferred was an innocent opinion,
may be ipso facto guilty of a "crime against the state." In
practice, this means that almost anyone within the Soviet
Union may be suspected by the MV!) at any time, and that when-
ever he is suspected the MVD is always able to assign a:
specific reason for its suspicions.
The Accumulation of Evidence
According to Communist ideology, no one may be arrested
unless there is evidence that he is a criminal.
According to the practice of the MVD this means that
when an individual falls under the suspicion of an MVD
officer, this officer must accumulate "evidence" that the
individual is a "criminal" and take this evidence to the state
prosecutor, who must then issue a warrant before the arrest
can be carried out. The investigating officer accumulates
evidence showing that the victim had a reason to be a criminal.
(i.e0, that he was a member of a suspect group) by accumulating
the statements of spies and informants with regard to him., If
this evidence is not sufficient to satisfy the officer he places
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UORPTIMITM
the suspect and his friends and associates under surveillance.
These friends and associates may be arrested and held for
interrogation in order to supply evidence against the suspect,
the reason for their arrest being that they are associates of
a suspect, and therefore suspect themselves.
Covert surveillance and the arrest of associates are
carried out carefully, but they cannot always be concealed from
the suspect. He may become aware of it or his friends may tell
him. As he becomes a marked man in the eyes of his friends,
they begin to avoid him. Their demeanor sometimes indicates to
him that he is under suspicion. The knowledge that he will be
arrested, without knowledge of when this will occur, obviously
creates anxiety in the intended victim. Although MVD officers
know about the psychological effect which surveillance has upon
suspects, and make use of it, they probably do not use it with
the calculated cunning that the victim sometimes supposes.
The poorly concealed surveillance and the arrest of friends
and associates, followed by an indefinite period before the
arrest of the main suspect, are not necessarily stage maneuvers
to frighten the victim. They are often evidences of rather
slow and clumsy police activities.
Members of the MVD compete with each other in trying to
turn up suspects and secure their conviction. To a certain
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extent, officers are judged by the number of arrests which they
obtain. Since Communist theory demands that no person be
arrested except when it is clear that he is a criminal, officers
who arrest men who must later be released are subject to censure.
They have made a mistake, because they have arrested a man who
is not a criminal.
The consequences are important from the point of view of
the victim. In effect, any man who is arrested is automatically
in the position of being guilty. Anyone arrested by the MVD
must know.that in the eyes of the Soviet state, and in the eyes
of those who have arrested him, he is a "criminal". The only
question to be settled after the arrest is the extent of his
criminal activity and the precise nature of his crimes. The
officers in charge of his case, both those who have made the
arrest and those who will carry out the interrogation, have
a personal interest in seeing that the arrested man makes a
prompt and extensive confession, for their on reputations are
at stake.
The Arrest Procedure
According to Communist theory, men should be arrested in
such manner as not to cause them embarrassment, and the police
should carry out arrests in a manner which does not unduly
disturb the population. For more than twenty years it has been
13
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the practice of the Russian State Police to seize their suspects
in the middle of the night. The "midnight knock on the door"
has become a standard episode in fiction about Russia. The
police are well aware of the fact that the intended victim,
forewarned by his previous surveillance and the changing attitude
of his friends, is further terrified by the thought that he may
be awakened from his sleep almost any night and taken away. It
is customary for the arresting officer to be accompanied by
several other men. He usually reads to the prisoner the arrest
warrant if there is one. It does not, of course, specify the
details of the crimes committed. The prisoner is then taken
promptly to a detention prison.
The Detention Prison
In most of the large cities of the Soviet Union the MVD
operates detention prisons. These prisons contain only persons
under "investigation", whose cases have not yet been settled.
The most modern of these prisons are separate institutions,
well built and spotlessly clean. In addition to the cells for
the prisoners, they contain offices for the MVD units, rooms in
which interrogations are carried out, and other rooms, usually
in the basement, in which prisoners are executed when. such
punishment is decided upon. There are attached medical facilities,
and rooms for the care of the sick detainees. An exercise yard is
a standard facility.
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- - --iX2ZiirRr ilir
The typical cell is a small cubicle, about 10 feet long by
6 feet wide, containing a single bunk and a slop jar. It usually
has no other furnishings. Its walls are barren, and it is
lighted by a single electric lamp in the ceiling. One wall
usually contains a small window above eye level, from which the
prisoner can see nothing of his outside environment. The door
contains a peephole through which the guard in the corridor
outside may observe the prisoner at will without the prisoner's
knowledge. Such typical cells will not, of course, be found in
all prisons and especially not in those which are old or
improvised, but the general aspect of barrenness and complete
lack of access to the outside world is characteristic.
The Regimen Within the Detention Prison
The arresting officers usually do not give the prisoner
the reason for his arrest beyond that in the warrant which they
read to him. They usually search him and also search the place
in which he lives. They then take him directly to the prison.
Here he is asked a few questions about his identity, and personal
valuables and his outer clothing are taken from him. These are
carefully catalogued and put away. He may or may not be given a
prison uniform. He is usually examined by a prison physician
shortly after his incarceration.
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The entire introduction to the detention prison is brief
and is carried on without explanation. Within a few hours after
his arrest the prisoner finds himself locked up within a cell.
Prisoners within detention cells follow a rigid regimen.
With some variations this regimen is standard throughout the
Soviet Uion, and has been adopted by nearly all Communist
countries. The rigidity of the regimen may be relaxed or
tightened by the direction of the interrogator.
An almost invariable feature of the management of any
important suspect under detention is a period of total isolation
in a detention cell. The prisoner is placed within his cell,
the door is shut, and for an indefinite period he is totally
isolated from human contact except by the specific direction of
the officer in charge of his case. He is not allowed to talk to
the guards or to communicate with other prisoners in any manner.
When he is taken from his cell for any reason he is accompanied
by a guard. If another prisoner approaches through the corridor
he turns his face to the wall until the other prisoner has
passed.
The hours and routine of the prisoner are rigidly organized.
He is awakened early in the morning and given a short period in
which to wash himself. His food is brought to him. He has a
short and fixed time in which to eat it; the standard diet is
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just adequate to maintain nutrition. He must clean himself and
police his own cell; but he is not allowed enough time to keep
it spotlessly clean. At some time in the morning he usually has
an exercise period. Typically, his exercise consists of walking
alone in the exercise yard. If he is in rigid isolation, he may
not be allowed to exercise at all. He is usually allowed a slop
jar in his cell. which he can utilize for defecation and urination,
but sometimes this is taken away. Then he must call the guard
and perhaps wait for hours to be taken to the latrine.
At all times except when he is eating, sleeping, exercising,
or being interrogated, the prisoner is left strictly alone in
his cell. He has nothing to do, nothing to read, and no one to
talk to. Under the strictest regimen he may have to sit or
stand in his cell. in a fixed position all day. He may sleep
only at hours prescribed for sleep. Then he must go to bed
promptly when told and must lie in a fixed position upon his
back with his hands outside the blanket. If he deviates from
this position, the guard outside will awaken him and make him
resume it. Me light in his cell burns constantly. He must
sleep with his face constantly toward it.
If the prisoner becomes ill, he is taken to a prison
physician by whom he is treated with the best medical care avail-
able according to the practices common to Soviet medicine. If
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necessary, he may be placed under hospital care; but as soon as
he has recovered the regimen will be resumed.
Prisoners are not allowed to commit suicide. Those who
attempt to do so are thwarted and carefully nursed until they
recover; then the regimen is resumed.
Deviations from the prescribed regimen are promptly
noticed by the guards and are punished. Disturbed behavior is
punished also. If this behavior persists and the officer in
charge of the case is convinced that the prisoner has become
mentally ill, the man may be placed under medical care until his
health has returned; then the regimen is resumed.
This regimen within the detention cell is in itself a most
potent weapon in the hands of the MVD. It has been developed
and refined over a period of many years and used on literally
thousands of prisoners. It is highly effective in "breaking the
will" of prisoners -- so much so that many MVD officers are
convinced that there is literally no man who cannot be brought
to do their bidding.
The Effects of the Regimen in the Isolation Cell
The effects of this regimen upon prisoners are striking. It
has been mentioned that the man who has been arrested by the MVD
is usually intensely apprehensive. Often he has known for weeks
that he ird & 'be a*;ste& but has. bad,-no clear knowledge of when
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or for what reason. He has been seized in the middle of the
night and taken without explanation to prison. He knows that no
friend can help him and that the MVD may do with him what they
please.
A major aspect of his prison experience is isolation. Man
is a social animal; he does not live alone. From birth to death,
he lives in the company of his fellow man. His relations with
other people and, especially with those closest to him, are
almost as important to him as food or drink. When a man is
totally isolated, he is removed from all of the interpersonal
relations which are so important to him and taken out of the
social role which sustains him. His internal as well as his
external life is disrupted. Exposed for the first time to total
isolation in an MVO prison, he develops a predictable group of
symptoms, which might almost be called a "disease syndrome".
The guards and MVD officers are quite familiar with this
syndrome. They watch each new prisoner with technical interest
as his symptoms develop.
The initial appearance of an arrested prisoner is one of
bewilderment. For a few hours, he may sit quietly in his cell
looking confused and dejected.. But within a short time most
prisoners become alert and begin to take an interest in their
environment. They react with expectancy when anyone approaches
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the door to the cell. '.They show interest and anxiety as they are
exposed to each new feature of the prison routine. They may ask
questions or begin conversations. Some make demands; they demand
to know why they are being held, and protest that they are
innocent. If they are foreign nationals, they may insist upon
seeing their consular officers. Some take a "you can't do this
to me" attitude. Some pass through a brief period of shouting,
threatening, and demanding. All of this is always sternly
repressed. If need be, the officer in charge of the case will
see the, prisoner, remind him of the routine, threaten him with
punishment, and punish him if he does not subside. During this
period the prisoner has not yet appreciated the full import of
his situation. He tries to fraternize with the guards. He
leaves part of his food if he does not like it. He tries to
speak to prisoners whom he passes in the corridors and reaches
back to close the door behind him when he is taken to the
latrine. The guards refer to this as the period of getting
"acclimatized" to the prison routine.
After a few days it becomes apparent to the prisoner that
his activity avai7,s him nothing and that he will be punished or
reprimanded for even the smallest breaches of the routine. He
wonders when he will be released or questioned. His requests
have been listened to but never acted upon. He becomes
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"221"T T
increasingly anxious and restless and his sleep is disturbed.
He begins to look up alertly when anyone passes in the corridor.
He jumps when the guard comes to the door. He becomes adjusted
to the routine in his cell and goes through it punctiliously but
he still leaves some of his food and occasionally reveals by
small gestures his lack of complete submission to his environ-
ment.
The period of anxiety, hyperactivity and apparent adjust-
ment to the isolation routine usually continues from one to three
weeks. As it continues, the prisoner becomes increasingly
dejected and dependent. He gradually gives up all spontaneous
activity within his cell and loses all care about his personal
appearance and actions. Finally, he sits and stares with a
vacant expression, perhaps endlessly twisting a button on his
coat. He allows himself to become dirty and disheveled. When
food is presented to him, he no longer bothers with the niceties
of eating but he eats it all. He may mix it into a mush and
stuff it into his mouth like an animal. He goes through the
motions of his prison routine automatically as if he were in a
daze. The slop jar is no longer offensive to him. At this
point, the prisoner seems to lose many restraints of ordinary
behavior. He may soil himself, he weeps, mutters and prays
aloud to himself. He follows the orders of the guard with the
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Q It
docility of a trained animal. Indeed, the guards say that
prisoners are "reduced to animals". It is estimated that in
the average case it takes from four to six weeks of rigid, total
isolation to produce this phenomenon.
The man who first experiences isolation in prison is, of
course, experiencing far more than simple isolation. He usually
feels profoundly anxious, helpless, frustrated, dejected, and
entirely uncertain about his future. His first reaction to the
isolation procedure is indeed one of bewilderment and some
numbness at the calamity which has befallen him. This is
followed by a period of interest and apprehension about every
detail of the prison regimen, accompanied by hope that he can
explain everything as soon as he gets a chance, or an expecta-
tion that he will be released when the proper authorities hear
about his plight. Such hopes last but a few days, but they keep
him alert and interested during that time.
As hope disappears, a reaction of anxious waiting super-
venes. In this period, the profound boredom and complete
loneliness of his situation gradually overwhelm the prisoner.
There is nothing for him to do except ruminate. Because he has
so much to worry about, his ruminationsare seldom pleasant.
Frequently, they take the form of going over and over all the
possible causes for his arrest. His mood becomes one of
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dejection. His sleep is disturbed by nightmares. He ultimately
reaches a stage of depression in which he ceases to care about
his personal appearance and behavior and pays little attention to
his surroundings. In this stage the prisoner may have illusory
experiences. A distant sound in the corridor sounds like someone
calling his name. The rattle of a footstep may be interpreted
as a key in the lock opening the cell. God may seem to speak to
him in his prayers. He may see his wife standing beside him. His
need for human companionship and his desire to talk to anyone
about anything becomes a.gnawing appetite like the hunger of a
starving man.
Other Aspects of the Isolation Regimen
Not all of the reaction to this imprisonment experience can
be attributed to isolation alone. Other potent forces are acting
upon the newly imprisoned man. The prisoner's anxiety about
himself is compounded by worry about what may happen to his
friends and associates, and, in the case of those who possess
information which they wish to hide, apprehension about how much
the MVD knows or will find out. Even in the absence of isolation
profound and uncontrolled anxiety is disorganizing. Uncertainty
adds to his anxiety. The newly arrested prisoner does not know
how long he will be confined, how he will be punished, or with
what he will be charged. He does know that his punishment may
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be anything up to death or permanent imprisonment. Many
prisoners say that uncertainty is the most unbearable aspect of
the whole experience. 'Sleep disturbances and nightmares lead to
further fear and fatigue.
The effects of isolation, uncertainty and anxiety are
usually sufficient to slake them eager to talk to their interro-
gator, to seek some method of escape from a situation which has
beoome intolerable. If these alone are not enough to produce
the desired effects, the officer in charge has additional
#Imple and highly effective ways of applying pressure. Two of
the most effective of these are creating fatigue and preventing
the prisoner adequate sleep. The constant light In the cell and
the necessity of maintaining a rigid position in bed produce
sleep disturbances; and the guards can awaken the prisoner at
Dtervals.. This is especially effective if the prisoner is
#wakened just as he drops off to sleep. Continued loss of
sleep produces clouding of consciousness and a loss of alert-
ness, both of which impair the victim's ability to sustain
isolation.
Another simple and effective type of pressure is that of
maintaining the temperature of the cell at a level which is.
either too hot or too cold for comfort. Continuous beat, at a
level at which constant sweating is necessary in order to maintain
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flea= -
body temperature, is enervating and fatigue producing. Sustained
cold is uncomfortable and poorly tolerated.
Stiff.]. another pressure is to reduce the food ration to the
point to which the prisoner experiences constant hunger.
Deprivation of food produces lassitude, loss of general interest
and some breakdown of courage. There is usually a loss of weight,
often associated with weakness and asthenia. Some individuals
become profoundly depressed when deprived of food.. Both in
prison carps and in human experiments, it has been observed that
chronically hungry people can be induced to break down their
culture bound inhibitions and carry out antisocial acts in order
to relieve their hunger.
The effects of isolation, anxiety, fatigue, lack of sleep,
uncomfortable temperatures, and chronic hunger produce disturb-
ances of mood, attitudes, and behavior in nearly all prisoners.
The living organism cannot entirely withstand such assaults.
The Communists do not look upon these assaults as
"torture". Undoubtedly, they use the methods which they do in
order to conform, in a typical legalistic manner, to Communist
theory which demands that "no force or torture be used in
extracting information from prisoners." But these methods do
constitute torture and physical coercion and should never be
considered otherwise. All of them lead to serious disturbances
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of many bodily processes and to demobilization of the
personality.
The Interrogator.
The MVD officer who has charge of a case, during the period
of suspicion, surveillance and arrest is now supplanted by
another officer who is charged with the interrogation of the
prisoner and the preparation of the deposition. Within the
MVD, assignments to interrogation,, are. not highly regarded.
Such work is. not looked upon as glamorous or exciting. Very
often it involves assignment to. outlying and relatively dull
regions of the Soviet Union, and usually it is hard and thankless.
The interrogation of prisoners is a tiring.and an emotionally
trying procedure. It can be assumed that a majority of those
involved in the investigation and interrogation of unimportant
prisoners are men of average ability with no great enthusiasm
for their job. However, the MVD does. also possess highly
skilled, well-educated,, extremely knowledgeable, experienced and.
able interrogators who are devoted to their profession and proud
of their abilities. The interrogator assigned to an important
prisoner can be expected to be a man of such high caliber.
Some of those who go into political police activity receive
only a sort of "on-the-job" training under the guidance of more
senior and experienced men; but a fair proportion of these police
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officers are especially trained at an MO school near Moscow.
This school has been in existence for at least 15 years. It
gives a course of two years duration. Trainees are allowed
to observe a demonstration interrogation but do not actually
conduct interrogations themselves. No formal training in
psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology or physiology is included
in the curriculum. There are no representatives of any of these
sciences on the faculty and, as far as can be ascertained, there
never have been. Trainees do receive information from experi-
enced police officers on how to prepare a dossier, how to
?size-up" a man, and how to estimate what sort of methods to
use in "breaking" him; but the instructors draw entirely upon
police experience. They have a contempt for theoretical
psychiatry and psychology.
Interrogation
When the prisoner has been arrested and incarcerated in his
cell the officer in charge of his case submits to his superiors
a plan for the interrogation of the prisoner. This plan is
drawn up on the basis of what is already knownabout the
prisoner. It describes the methods to be used upon him, the
attitudes to be taken toward him, the type of information which it
is expected that he will. reveal., and the type of crimes which he
is believed to have committed and the assumed motivation for them.
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The purpose of this plan appears to be primarily that of making
the interrogator approach the prisoner with a definite conception
of what he wants to do, and how he is going to proceed in doing
it.
Soviet law specifies that, if a man is detained on suspicion,
the first protocol of his interrogation must be given to the state
prosecutor within ten days so that an arrest warrant may be issued,
or the man may be released. In general, interrogators are con-
strained to comply with this regulation, and they try to produce
enough evidence to obtain an arrest within ten days. Because
they have little except suspicion to guide their questioning,
they are necessarily vague in describing the prisoner's crimes to
him. They must be cautious lest the prisoner get wind of what they
want him to say and refuse to say it. It is probably this more
than any calculated cunning which causes them to make to the
prisoner such enigmatic statements as:"It is not up to me to tell
you what your crimes are; it is up to you to tell me" -- statements
which lead the perplexed prisoner to rack his brain for an answer.
The prosecutor is not hard to satisfy, and the interrogator nearly
always obtains enough evidence to make an "arrest". If not, he
can apply for an extension of the detention period. The law
provides no real protection for the prisoner. It has been
estimated that more than 99% of those who are seized are ultimately
convicted and punished.
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Int-errogations, once begun, are continued: until the case is
complete, but in some circumstances they are-intentionally delayed.
It appears that this-delay is imposed when the-prisoner is defiant,
when he is thought to be withholding information, when the MVD is
seeking a confession to crimes other than those for which it has
evidence, and especially when it wants to use the prisoner for a
public trial orrto obtain a propaganda confession from him. In
such cases, the interrogation begins when the officer in charge
feels that the prisoner is ripe for it. This is usually when he
observes that the prisoner has become docile and compliant and
shows evidence of deterioration in his mood and personal appearance.
Interrogations are almost uniformly carried out at night. It
is said that this practice of night interrogation originated not
from any preconceived idea of its effectiveness, but because the
early Chekists were so overburdened with police duties during the
day that they could find time for interrogations only at night.
For one reason or another, it has become standard procedure,
possibly because the physical and psychological effect of night
interrogations produces added pressure upon the prisoner. He is
deprived of sleep and placed in a state of added uncertainty by
never knowing when he will be awakened and questioned.
Typically, he will be awakened suddenly by the guard shortly
after he has dropped off to sleep. Without explanation he is
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taken from-his cell and down several corridors to a small and
barren interrogation room equipped with ,a desk and chair for the
interrogator and a stool for the prisoner. The lighting is
arranged so that the prisoner can be placed in a bright light
while the interrogator sits in relative darkness. Sometimes a
stenographer is present in one corner of the room to take notes.
More often the interrogator makes his own notes, writing as the
prisoner speaks. Usually only one interrogator is present but
occasionally other officers are introduced. Sometimes interro-
gators alternate, for psychological reasons, one being "friendly"
and the other "hostile". If his work is successful, the
original interrogator may carry the case through to a conclusion,
but if be does not achieve the desired goal, he may be replaced.
The atmosphere of the interrogation room generally has some
degree of formality about it. The interrogator may be dressed
in full uniform. If he wishes to impress the prisoner, he may
take out a pistol, cock it, and lay it on the desk before him;
but this psychological gambit does not seem to be a required part
of the protocol.
The interrogator adjusts his attitude toward the prisoner
according to his estimate of the kind of man he is facing. If the
dossier indicates that the prisoner is a timid and fearful man,
the interrogator may adopt a fierce and threatening demeanor. .If
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the prisoner is thought to be proud and sensitive, the
interrogator m)ay be insulting and degrading. If the prisoner has
been a man of prestige and importance in private life, the
interrogator may call him by his first name, treat him as an
inferior and remind him that he has lost all rank and privilege.
If it is known that the prisoner has been unfaithful to his wife
or has committed some crime such as embezzlement, the interrogator
may blackmail him by threatening exposure or punishment unless he
cooperates. All these and many other tricks may be employed.
They are not based upon a scientific theory of human behavior;
they are tricks of the trade, so to speak, developed out of police
experience and applied on a "rule of thumb", common sense basis.
Almost invariably the interrogator takes the attitude that
the prisoner is guilty and acts as though all of his crimes are
known. Almost invariably he points out to the prisoner that he
is completely helpless,, and that there is no hope for him unless
he cooperates fully and confesses his crimes completely. Almost
never does the interrogator state specifically what the prisoner's
crimes actually are. This is left up to the prisoner who is told,
in effect, that he knows the extent of his own crimes, and need
only to make a complete statement of them. Almost invariably the
interrogator does not accept the early statements of the prisoner.
No matter what crimes he confesses, the interrogator forces the
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prisoner to repeat his statements again and again, and to elaborate
on them endlessly. Almost always he uses any discrepancies as
indications of lying and questions the prisoner at length about
them.
The first interrogation sessions are nearly always concerned
with a complete review of the entire life experience of the
prisoner. The interrogator wishes to know about the prisoner's
background, his class origin, his parents, brothers and sisters,
his friends and associates and everything that he has done
throughout his life. If the case is of any importance, no detail
is overlooked, and every period of the prisoner's life must be
accounted for.
This review of the prisoner's life may occupy several
interrogation sessions. It has several purposes. Its first
purpose is to complete the prisoner's dossier. It gives the
interrogator a thorough picture of the type of man he is dealing
with and further guides him to the man's weaknesses which can be
exploited. Furthermore, requiring a man to account for every
detail of his life produces such a voluminous and involved story
that the prisoner can scarcely avoid being trapped into inconsist-
encies if he is concealing anything. The information obtained
from the life history can also be compared with that already in
the police files, which is usually extensive. From the police
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point of view, it is also important to know the associates of the
prisoner because this may reveal his "accomplices", who then
become suspects and can be interrogated. Most important, it
reveals many "criminal" features of the prisoner such as reaction-
ary class origin, membership in reactionary organizations and
association with enemies of the state which are by Communist
definition "crimes" no matter how long ago they were committed
The prisoner, taken from his cell after a long period of
isolation, anxiety and despair, usually looks upon the first
interrogation as a welcome break. The mere opportunity to.talk
to someone is intensely gratifying. Many prisoners have reported
that after long periods of isolation they eagerly anticipate
interrogation sessions and try to prolong them simply for the
companionship which they afford. Not infrequently, the prisoner
also regards interrogation as an opportunity to justify himself
and feels false assurance that he can explain everything if given
a chance.
Usually he is much taken aback by the fact that his crimes
are not specified, and that his guilt is assumed. He is further
distressed when his protestations of innocence are greeted as lies.
But the opportunity to talk about his life experiences is generally
looked upon, especially by a person from Western society, as an
opportunity to justify his behavior. Many men willingly divulge
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1FflTAT
all they can remember about themselves because they feel quite sure
that they have done nothing which may be-regarded as criminal.
They are unaware that, from the point of view of Communist theory
and of the MVD, much of their past behavior undoubtedly will be
construed as "criminal". If the interrogator offers them the
opportunity to have paper and pencil in their cells and to write
out their biographies, they seize upon this avidly as a means of
relieving the boredom of the tedious, lonely routine to which they
are exposed.
Pressures Applied by the Interrogator
As the interrogation proceeds, the interrogator changes his
behavior according to his previous plan and the development of
the case. If the prisoner is cooperating and talking freely, the
interrogator continues to show a relatively friendly attitude.
But sooner or later he invariably expresses dissatisfaction with
the information which the prisoner has given, no matter how
complete it may be. He demands new details, and shows an
especially great interest in the accomplices of the prisoner and
the "organization" to which he is supposed. to have been attached.
When the prisoner protests that he has told all, and denies any
other crimes or accomplices, the interrogator becomes hostile and
begins to apply pressure.
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Some of the pressures which can be applied simply by altering
the routine within the cell have been described. The interrogator
has many others at his command. Continuous and repetitive
interrogation is an effective and very common form of pressure.
Another which is widely used is that of requiring the.prisoner to
stand throughout the interrogation session or to maintain some
other physical position which becomes painful. This, like other
features of the MVD procedure, is a form of physical torture, in
spite of the fact that the prisoners and MVD officers alike do
not ordinarily perceive it as such. Any fixed position which is
maintained over a long period of time ultimately produces
excruciating pain. Certain positions, of which the standing-
position is one, also produce impairment of the circulation.
Many men can withstand the pain of long standing, but
sooner or later all men succumb to the circulatory failure it
produces. After 18 to 24 hours of continuous standing, there is
an accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the legs. This
dependent "edema" is produced by the extravasation of fluid from
the blood vessels. The ankles and feet of the prisoner swell to
twice their normal circumference. The edema may rise up the legs
as high as the middle of the thighs. The skin becomes tense and
intensely painful. Large blisters develop which break and exude
watery serum. The accumulation of the body fluid in the legs
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produces an impairment of the circulation. The heart rate
increases and fainting may occur. Eventually there is a renal
shutdown, and urine production ceases. Urea and other metabolites
accumulate in the blood. The prisoner becomes thirsty, and may
drink a good deal of water, which is not excreted, but adds to the
edema of his legs. Men have been known to remain standing for
periods as long as several days. Ultimately they usually develop
a delirious state, characterized by disorientation, fear,
delusions, and visual hallucinations. This psychosis is produced
by a combination of circulatory impairment, lack of sleep, and
uremia.
Periods of long standing are usually interrupted from time to
time by interrogation periods during which the interrogator
demands and threatens, while pointing out to the prisoner that it
would be--easy-for him to-end his misery merely by cooperating.
The MVD hardly ever uses manacles or chains, and rarely
resorts to physical beatings. The actual physical beating is, of
course, contrary to MVD regulations. The ostensible reason for
these regulations is that they are contrary to Communist theory.
The practical reason for them is the fact that the MVD looks upon
direct physical brutality as an ineffective method of obtaining the
compliance of the prisoner. Its opinion in this regard is shared
by police in other parts of the world. In general, direct physical
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brutality creates only resentment, hostility and further defiance.
It is a general policy that the interrogator must obtain the
written permission of his superiors before using extreme
coercive measures of any sort upon prisoners. In actual practice
such permission is sought only if the officer in charge of a case
feels that there is a need for a direct brutal assault. The MVD
recognizes that some men who are intensely afraid of physical
assault may break down if beaten once or twice, and it does use
this procedure deliberately, though uncommonly. Generally
speaking, when an interrogator strikes a prisoner in anger he does
so "unofficially". The act is usually an expression of his
exasperation and evidence that he, himself, is under emotional
strain.
It can be taken for granted that some period of intense
pressure and coercion will be applied to every prisoner, no
matter how cooperative he tries to be at first. This period of
pressure will be accompanied by expressions of displeasure and
hostility from the interrogator, and sometimes from the guards
also.
The"Friendly Approach"
The interrogator will continue this pressure until he feels
that the prisoner is nearly at the end of his rope. At this point
he introduces a psychological gambit which is probably the most
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successful of any of the tricks at his coam-and. He suddenly
changes his demeanor. The prisoner, returned once again to an
interrogation session that he expects will be a repetition of
torture and vilification, suddenly finds that the entire scene
has changed. The interrogation room is brightly lighted. The
interrogator is seated behind his desk, relaxed and smiling.
Tea and cigarettes are waiting on the table. He is ushered to
a comfortable chair. The guard is sent away and sometimes the
secretary also. The interrogator remarks about his appearance.
He is sympathetic about the discomfort which he has been
suffering. He is sorry that the prisoner has had such a diffi-
cult time. The interrogator himself would not have wished to
?
do this to the prisoner -- it is only that the prison regula-
tions require this treatment, because of the prisoner's own
stubbornness. "But let us relax and be friends. Let us not
talk any more about crimes. Tell me about your family" -- and
so on. The usual line is to the effect that, "After all, I am
a reasonable man. I want to get this business over as much as
you do. This is as tiresome to me as it is to you. We already
know about your crimes; it is a mere formality for you to write
out your confession. Why don't we get it over with so that
everything can be settled and you can be released?"
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Prisoners find this sudden friendship and release of pressure
almost irresistible. Nearly all of them avidly seize the oppor-
tunity to talk about themselves and their feelings, and then go on
to talk about their families. Most of them proceed from this
almost automatically to giving the information which the interro-
gator seeks. Even if they do not provide everything the interro-
gator wants at this time, he may continue his friendly demeanor
and the relaxation of pressure for several more sessions before
resuming the old regimen of torture. But if the prisoner does
reveal significant information and cooperates fully, the rewards
are prompt and gratifying. The interrogator smiles and congratu-
lates him. Cigarettes are forthcoming. There is a large meal,
often excellently prepared and served; and after this the
prisoner returns to his cell and sleeps as long as he likes, in
any position that he chooses.
The Course of the Interrogation
Such friendly and rewarding behavior will continue for
several days -- usually as long as the interrogator feels that a
significant amount of new information is being produced. At this
point the prisoner may conclude that his ordeal is over; but
invariably he is disappointed. For as soon as the interrogator
decides that no new information is being yielded, the regimen of
constant pressure and hostile interrogation is resumed. Again it
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is carried to the point at which the prisoner is near breakdown.
Again it is relaxed, and again the prisoner is rewarded if he
cooperates. In this manner, proceeding with regular steps,
alternating-punishment with reward, the prisoner is constantly
pressed to revise and rewrite the protocol until it contains all
the statements which the interrogator desires, and is in a final
form which meets with his approval. When it has at last been
agreed upon and signed, the pressure is relaxed "for good", but
the prisoner continues to live in his cell and continues under
the threat of renewed pressure until such time as he has been
taken before a court, has confessed, and has been sentenced.
Throughout the entire interrogation period, the prisoner is
under some form of medical surveillance. Prison physicians are
familiar with all the effects produced by MVD procedures, and
evidently they are skilled at judging just how far the various
procedures can be carried without killing or permanently
damaging the prisoner. Prisoners who have been beaten have their
wounds carefully dressed. Those who are forced to stand for long
periods of time are examined periodically during the procedure.
Sometimes the physician intervenes to call a halt if he feels the
prisoner is in danger. The unintended death of a prisoner during
the interrogation procedure is regarded as a serious error on the
pp.rt of the prison officials.
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The Interrogator-es Point of View and Objectives-
It has been said that the interrogator approaches the
prisoner with the assumrtion that he-is guilty. It is important-
that we define- this statement precisely. It does not mean that
the.interrogator is not aware of the."true facts" of the situa-
tion but. that he interprets them in the light- of Communist
ideology, The officer is a Communist., He has selected this
prisoner from one of the groups of suspects described earlier.
The man was arrested: because the M, which represents the
Co ?ist State.,. regarded him as a menace to the Party or.its
program. Anyone who is a menace to.the Party is, by definition,
guilty of threatening the; security of the.Cormw ist State. Ergo,,
from the Communist point of view, the man is "guilty". In other
words, the'1 has. decided that this man must be dealt with in
some manner, "for the good of the State." Once the man bas been
arrested this point is no longer open to question.. This is the
true though esoteric meaning of the freently repeated. Communist
statement. that, "In a~Com anist state, innocent people are never
arrested." If one accepts their definition of ";Milt".mod
"innocence"}.-this' s indeed a fact..
However, the interrogator does not know just what specific
"crime" the, ian-.aday have committed. In fact, it is quite clear
that most of the people arrested by the' XVD have not really
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committed any specific serious crimes at all. But the police do
know that the prisoner has committed some acts which are contrary
to the broad Soviet laws against political crimes, as well as
minor "actual" crimes. Furthermore, experience has taught them
that if they put enough pressure upon the prisoner, sooner or
later they will get him to confess to acts which can be inter-
preted as a "major crime". Once this confession has been obtained,
the MVD can demand from the court a punishment equivalent to that
which it intended that the prisoner should receive when it
arrested him.
Much of the activity of the interrogator can be looked upon
as a process of persuasion. The primary work of an interrogator
is to convince the prisoners that what they did was a crime.
Having gotten evidence from his informers and from the prisoner,
it is up to the interrogator to persuade the prisoner that certain
actions which he has carried out constitute a crime. The
prisoner is visually prepared to admit that the acts have been
carried out. Often as not, he revealed them freely because he did
not consider them to be criminal. It is up to the interrogator
to make the prisoner see that these acts do constitute a serious
crime, and acknowledge this by signing a deposition and making a
confession in court if necessary. The Communist legal system
requires that this be done before a case can be settled.
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The fact that the interrogator is a dedicated Comm mist makes
his task of persuasion somewhat easier. The interrogator approaches
the prisoner with the knowledge that the man is actually a criminal
by Communist definition; and he has a large body of convenient
Communist definitions and rationalizations to help him in con-
vincing his victim of this. For example, according to Communist
theory, acts are judged by their "objective effects" rather than
by the motives of those who committed them. Thus, if a prisoner,
through an honest mistake, has damaged a piece of machinery
belonging to the State, he is a "wrecker". Objectively, he has
wrecked an important piece of property belonging to the State.
The fact that he did this with innocent motives is not a considera-
tion. Thus a "mistake", and "accident" and a "crime" all become
the same thing.
Likewise, according to Communist theory, a man's acts and
thoughts are judged "consequentially". Thus, if a prisoner is
known to have said that the MVO was too powerful, the fact that
he has said this may make him a "traitor" and "saboteur". The
Communist reasoning is that a man who says that the MVD is too
powerful, believes that it is too powerful and will ultimately
act upon this belief. This ultimate act will constitute sabotage
and treason; therefore, the man is a saboteur and a traitor.
Similarly, a man who has friendly association with foreign
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nationals moist have some friendly feeling toward them; foreign
governments are capitalist and imperialist; a man who is friendly
to foreign nationals is giving help to the agents of capitalist
imperialism; therefore, the man is a spy whether he realizes it
or not.
Such peculiar twists of Communist logic are difficult for
Western prisoners to accept at first. Usually they object
strenuously to these definitions of "treason", "wrecking", and
"sabotage"; but ultimately, under constant pressure and persua-
sion, a prisoner usually agrees to some statement to the effect
that, "By;Communist laws I am a spy." Thereafter, there follows
further argument and persuasion to the effect that a person is
judged by the laws of the country in which the crimes are
committed. Ultimately the qualifying phrase is omitted, and
the final deposition contains the simple statement, "I am a spy."
Many MVD officers impress the prisoner by the sincerity of
their dedication to Communism and its ostensible ideals. The
interrogator often displays a patient sympathy which becomes
apparent to the prisoner. His attitude that, "This is something
we must go through with and neither you nor I can stop until you
have cooperated and signed a proper confession", is to some
extent a genuine attitude. The MVD system allows of no other
solution from the interrogator's point of view. It is in fact
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true that the interrogations will have to go on until a proper
deposition has been signed. The prisoner often comes to recognize
this sincerity. Many see that indeed the interrogator must follow
the system, and there is nothing which he can do about it. Thus,
the prisoner, in his need for companionship, may displace his
hostility from the interrogator to the "system". Many interro-
gators genuinely plead with the prisoner to learn to see the truth,
to think correctly, and to cooperate.
The Reaction of the Prisoner to the Interrogation
The way in which a prisoner reacts to the whole process of
interrogation is to a great extent dependent upon the manner of
men he is, his pre-existing attitudes and beliefs, and the
circumstances surrounding his arrest and imprisonment. All
prisoners have this in common: They have been isolated and have
been under unremitting pressure in an atmosphere of hostility and
uncertainty. They all find themselves in a dilemma at the time
that the interrogation begins. The regimen of pressure and
isolation has created an overall discomfort which is well nigh
intolerable. The prisoner invariably feels that something must
be done to find a way out. Death is denied him. Ultimately, he
finds himself faced with the choice of continuing interminably
under the intolerable pressures of his captors or accepting the
way out which the interrogator offers. The way out is a
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rationalization. It allows the prisoner to meet the demands of
his interrogator by degrees, while at the some time retaining
within himself some shred of belief that by his own standards he
has not capitulated. The rationalization may be -- and very often
is -- so patently absurd and untrue that the victim, in his "right
mind", would be utterly incapable of accepting it. But he is not
in his right mind. Eis capacity to distinguish true from false,
or good from bad, has been deliberately undermined. With rare
exceptions prisoners accept this way out, provided the pressures
are prolonged and intense and the interrogator can effectively
adjust his persuasiveness.
Various categories of prisoners respond to different types of
persuasion. Persons who have been lifelong members of the Communist
party are familiar with the Communist concept of "crime" and the
functions of the MVD. Furthermore, they have all been trained in
the ritual of self-criticism, confession, punishment and rehabili-
tation which has been part of Communist procedure since before the
revolution. Many Communists can rationalize a belief that they
are actually criminals as specified by the MVD and come to see
their punishment as necessary for the good of the State and the
Party. To the true Party member, such martyrdom carries with it
an air of triumph.
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Non-Communist prisohers of idealistic beliefs or socialist
sympathies apparently make ready targets for the logic of the
interrogator. Such persons are usually compelled to agree that
the ostensible and idealistic motives of the Communist Party are
"good", and that those who oppose these ideals are "bad". The
rationalization in this case takes the form of getting the
prisoner to say that the Communist Party has the same value
system that he does; something which the prisoner agrees is "bad"
by his own definition. From this point the prisoner proceeds
through the usual steps to the ultimate signing of the deposition.
Persons who carry with them strong feelings of guilt
associated with highly organized systems of moral values likewise
become ready targets for the persuasion of the interrogator. Very
few people are entirely free of guilt feelings, but, inappropriate
as it seems, such feelings often are found in the highest degree
in those whose objectives and behavior are beyond reproach. For
example, many strongly religious people have a profound sense of
sin. They feel guilty of shortcomings of their own which are
much smaller than those found in most of their fellow men. They
constantly see themselves as transgressing their own moral code
and in the need of forgiveness for doing so. Skilled interro-
gators make use of this.
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Individuals with so-called sociopathic or psychopathic
personalities who have few moral scruples are vulnerable beeause
they can be bribed, in a sense, to take the easy way out.
obviously, individuals actually "caught with the goods" receive
short shrift at the hands of the MVVD interrogator.
The maze in which any prisoner-finds himself has so many
ramifications that it is almost impossible for him: to escape from
it without signing a protocol and being convicted. Anything he
has done may be a crime. He has been adjudged guilty before his
arrest. He is put in a situation of intolerable pressure. It
is made clear to him that his only way out of this situation is
to cooperate with the interrogator. He is offered a reasonable
rationalization for doing so. Sooner or later, under these
circumstances, the prisoner and the interrogator almost inevitably
come to an agreement upon a deposition which satisfies both of
them.
The Trial
When the prisoner has finally reached the point of admitting
his crimes and he and the interrogator have agreed upon a protocol
satisfactory to both of them, he experiences a profound sense of
relief. Even though his crimes may be serious and the punishment
for them severe, he welcomes a surcease from the unrelenting
pressures and miseries of the interrogation procedure. Whatever
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the future may hold for him, he has for the moment found a way out
of an intolerable situation.
When a satisfactory deposition has been prepared and signed,
the pressures upon the prisoner are customarily relaxed. He is
allowed to sleep as long as he wishes; he may have reading and
writing material in his room. Sometimes he can join with other
prisoners in periods of exercise. His meals improve and his
guards become friendly or even solicitous. This easy treatment
is continued until he is thoroughly rested and his health has
been restored. Then, in most cases, he is taken before the court.
The state prosecutor presents the court with the signed protocol
and questions the prisoner about his crimes. Sometimes a defense
attorney is assigned; this man invariably limits himself to
requesting leniency from the court. The whole procedure. is
usually brief and formal. There are no verdicts of "not guilty".
The function of the judge is solely that of presiding over the
trial and passing upon the prisoner a sentence which has usually
been agreed upon beforehand by the prosecutor and the MVD officer
in charge of the case.
It is this aspect of the proceedings which is most bewilder-
ing to Western observers. It is easy to understand how prisoners
can be tortured into signing confessions of crimes which they did
not commit, but it is difficult to understand why the prisoners
do not renounce these confessions later at the public trials.
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Beginning with the Purge Trials of the 1930's, the NKVD and
its successors and offspring in Russia, the Eastern European
satellites, and China have presented the world with a series of
public trials at which the prisoners calmly and seemingly without
coercion make outrageous confessions of unbelievable crimes, praise
their captors, and ask for the most severe punishment for themselves.
These prisoners have included important Communist officials,
former NKVD officers, non-Communist citizens of various categories,
and foreigners of the most diverse backgrounds. All of these
prisoners apparently were innocent; some faced certain death; and
many were profoundly anti-Communist. Men of the highest- caliber
and integrity like Cardinal Mindszenty seemed to have the strongest
possible motivations to resist; but none of them stood up in court
and denounced the confession and his captors. This phenomenon
demands an explanation.
The explanation is available but it is not simple. It is
necessary to examine the proposition in detail in order to view it
in its proper light.
First, it is by no means true that "all prisoners confess
freely at a public trial." Only a very small minority of
prisoners of the Communist state police ever appear at a public
trial. The proportion of those tried publicly is exceedingly
small. The MVD will not expose a prisoner to a public trial
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unless it is convinced that he will go through with his confession
as planned. If there is any doubt about this, no public trial is
held. But even with this precaution the MVD is not infallible.
At the Purge Trials several of the prisoner tried to recant parts
of their confessions. When a prisoner tried to recant, the
prosecutor halted the examination of that person. Usually, when
he returned from his cell several days later he was again docile
and cooperative. Some of the so-called "public trials" have not
actually been public. They have been carried out in the presence
of a select audience while movies and recordings are made of the
prisoner's words which are later transmitted to the public.
The majority of prisoners do come to trial, but these trials
are not public. They are held in camera. The state police are
concerned only with political crimes and espionage. Their
prisoners are tried before "Military Tribunals", which are not
public courts. Those present are only the interrogator, the
state prosecutor, the prisoner, the judges, a few stenographers,
and perhaps a few officers of the court. At such a trial there
is no opportunity for public protest, and any protest which is
made can be readily expunged from the record. So far as the
prisoner is concerned, this so-called trial appears as nothing
more than the next step in his process of imprisonment. He has
remained entirely in the hands of his interrogators and guards
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da
with access to no one else. When he finally coma-before the
court he sees no one new except the state prosecutor, the judge?,
and the court officials. The defense attorney, if one is assigned,
shows not the slightest interest in refuting any of the evidence
in the confession or in establishing a plea of "not guilty". He
never questions the fact that the prisoner is guilty as charged.
Sometimes he asks the judge for lenience; but not infrequently he
informs the court that he is convinced the prisoner is just as big
a monster as the prosecution says he is and that he cannot bring
himself to ask the court for leniency. The judge likewise shows
no interest in the question of guilt or innocence. He limits
himself to maintaining order in the court and passing sentence.
If the prisoner has any illusions that the prosecutor, the Judge,
and the defense attorney are going to allow him any opportunity
to dispute the facts in the case these are soon dispelled.
By no means do all prisoners receive a trial of any sort.
Those who are stubborn or repeatedly recant their confessions
during the interrogation procedure will not be trusted even at
private trials. Uncooperative and stubborn prisoners and those
who might make embarrassing statements are "dealt with
administratively." For many years the state police have had the
right to carry out administrative trials for any prisoners whom
they do not wish to expose to the usual trial procedure. These
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administrative trials-consist of simply presenting the prisoner
to a group of three senior police officers (the "Troika") who pass
sentence immediately and have it carried out forthwith. These
administrative trials take place within the detention prison.
Sometimes the prisoner is not even present at them; sentence is
passed by the Troika merely upon the basis of the signed protocol.
Sometimes the alleged records of these trials have been made
public, but generally the fact that such a trial had taken place
is never revealed. For every Soviet citizen who has appeared at
a public trial there have been thousands who have been tried only
at private trials by military tribunals or have been dealt with
administratively by the police themselves. Thus, a great number
of high Communist officials, captured German officers, and
similar prisoners who fell into the hands of the Russian secret
police were not tried at all. So far as the public was concerned,
they merely disappeared.
It is said that since the death of Beria and the dissolution
of the MGB, the right of administrative trial has been withdrawn
from the MVD. The history of past attempts to reform the secret
police suggest that it will be quietly restored within a few
years, if it has not been already.
Public Confessions
If we exclude from consideration all those prisoners who are
dealt with administratively, two questions remain: Why do all of
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those prisoners who are tried in private confess almost without
exception? Why do some prisoners confess at public trials where
there is actually some opportunity to make an open denial of
guilt?
In response to the question of why prisoners at private trials
confess almost without exception the following answers can be given:
(1) The setting of the private trial as we have just
described it makes it apparent to the prisoner that any
attempt at recantation is useless.
(2) The prisoner at a private trial is always under
actual threat by the MV. The officer in charge of his case
has clearly indicated to him that any attempt to alter or
recant any part of his confession will lead to an immediate
resumption of the interrogation-torture regimen. This threat
is as poignant as a cocked pistol.
(3) Warm and positive feelings between prisoners and
their interrogating officers often develop during the
interrogation process, and many prisoners come to trial with
the feeling that, if they attempt to alter their testimony,
they will be dishonoring an agreement with their interrogators.
(4) Finally, it is to be emphasized that in spite of all
of these deterrents, some prisoners do recant at their private
trials. The court then decides that these prisoners have not
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yet reached a full awareness of their crimes. They are sent
back to the detention prison, and once again put through the
torture-interrogation regimen. Sooner or later, they learn
that pleas of "not guilty" are not acceptable in Soviet
courts, and that they must behave themselves at their trials.
Otherwise, they are indefinitely detained or executed.
In answering the question of why some prisoners confess
publicly when there is some opportunity for them to renounce their
confessions and thereby embarrass their captors, one must consider
the various categories of those who have been tried in public.
Widely publicized trials are staged by the Communists only under
exceptional circumstances and always for propaganda purposes.
They are carefully managed "set pieces" in which every performer
must play his role exactly as prescribed. The MVD and other
Communist police organizations select the prisoners for these
shows with great care.
The first category of those who have made public confessions
are prominent Bolsheviks who have fallen from grace; Zinoviev,
Kamenev, Rykov, Btkharin, Radek and their associates at the time
of the great purges;. more recently, Luse, Rajk in Hungary, Traicko
Kostov in Bulgaria, Slansky, Clementis, and others in Czechoslovakia,
China, etc. The list is extensive, but not nearly so extensive as
the list of prominent Communist officials who were liquidated
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administratively; probably because they could not be trusted at a
public trial.
But why did these confess, who did so? The old Bolsheviks
"confessed" primarily because they were lifelong, dedicated
Communists. They had committed their lives to the belief that
nothing is sacred but the Party, and the Party is always right.
If there is a central point in theConmunist creed, it is this.
These men all subscribed to the belief that opposition to the Party
line, as expressed by the Party leaders, is a crime. Whatever else
they were, they were "chronic oppositionists", and knew themselves
to be so. They all subscribed to the Communist ritual of public
self-criticism and punishment. Nearly all of them had at one time
or another publicly criticized themselves and had been punished.
Several had been expelled from the Party, not once but several
times. They all knew themselves to be in opposition to the Party
leadership, and they all felt guilty about this. In spite of this,
they still considered themselves to be Bolsheviks and were pre-
pared in principle to accept any demand which the Party might
make upon them, even to the point of death.
Another category of those who have confessed publicly is that
group of intellectually or idealistically motivated people who
were thought to be opposed to Communism, or at least to be non-
Communist, prior to their arrest. Most prominent in this group is
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Cardinal Mindszenty; also included in this are other Roman
Catholic priests from the satellite countries such as Bishop Cruszi.
Still another category of those who-have confessed publicly
are various foreign businessmen, newspapermen and military men who
were arrested or captured in the course of their routine duties;
Robert Vogeler in Hungary and William Oatis in Czechoslovakia are
examples. In all of these cases, the following factors are
evident:
(1) The confessions made by the prisoners were
"actually true" in the sense that the specific acts described
in the confessions actually occurred.
(2) The interpretation put upon these acts was the
Communist interpretation.
(3) The prisoner had been brought to agree that in the
country in which he was arrested the Communist laws applied
and, therefore, these acts constituted a crime. The prisoner,
therefore, pleaded.guilty to "crimes" which were "crimes" by
Communist definition, but which he had not intended as crimes
or considered to be crimes at the time that he carried them
out. This qualification, however, was missing from the state-
ments made by the prisoners at the trials.
(1+) All of these prisoners were under the threat of
renewed torture-interrogation regimen if they recanted or
changed their confessions.
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(5) Many of them had the actual or implied promise as
well as-the firm belief that they would be released if they
cooperated iaiith the police.
(6) Furthermore, all of them were able to rationalize
that their confessions would not be believed by outsiders in
any case. This rationalization was in part a correct one --
their confessions were widely disbelieved in the United States;
but in some other areas of the world their confessions are
accepted as factual.
(7) Finally, it must be emphasized that in all these
cases, though probably to varying degrees, the brainwashing
process -- the disintegration of personality accompanied by
some shift in value-system-- had taken place. In the case
of devoted Communists, it is possible that fanatic loyalty to
the Party played a large part in bringing about the confes-
sions, without the necessity of extensive brainwashing. On
the other hand, major shifts in their thinking processes
must have influenced the public confessions of Cardinal
Mindszenty, Vogeler and Oatis. When absurd events and
incredible logic are apparent in convincingly sincere state-
ments by men of such intelligence, no other explanation is
sufficient. These men were reduced to a state in which their
conceptual processes were no longer encumbered by processes of
critical judgment.
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Punishment
The period of interrogation and detention, no matter how long
and terrible it may be, is not considered imprisonment. The
punishment begins only after the sentence has been passed. Some-
times a lenient judge will allow the prisoner to count his period
of detention as a part of a prison sentence, but often this period
is'discounted altogether. According to Communist theory, the
purpose of prison systems is to rehabilitate criminals through
wholesome work, productive activity, and education. For this
purpose prisoners are transported to Siberia.or the Arctic where
most of them spend their terms working in mines and construction
projects under brutal and primitive conditions. Those who are
fortunate enough to receive any education during this procedure
are educated by further indoctrination with Communist ideas.
Comparison of Russian and Chinese Communist Practices
From the standpoint of understanding the techniques of
brainwashing, the practices of the Chinese add little to the
Russian proceduresjust described. There are, however, some
general differences, a few of which may be mentioned.
(1) In China, at the moment at least, the period of
detention is greatly prolonged. Whereas in the Soviet Union
trial and sentencing take place fairly soon after the comple-
tion of the interrogation and the preparation of a suitable
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protocol, in China the preparation of a first confession is
only a prelude to a long period of indoctrination and
re-education, which may go on for years. It is not terminated
until those in charge of the prisoner believe that he has
finally adopted a "correct" attitude and behavior. It is only
then that the trial, the sentencing and the formal term of
imprisonment or other punishment begins.
(2) Unlike the MVD, the Chinese make extensive use of
group interaction among prisoners,. in obtaining information,
in applying pressures, and. in. carrying out indoctrination.
(3) The goal of the MVD detention and interrogation
procedure is the preparation of a protocol upon which a
suitable punishment can be based, so that the MVD can then
deal with the prisoner according to its preconceived idea
of what must be done for the good of the Party and the
Soviet State. In a minority of cases, this includes a
public trial for propaganda purposes. The MVD does not
appear to be greatly concerned about the future attitudes
and behavior of the prisoner, so long as he behaves properly
during the period of trial and sentencing. The goal of the
Chinese detention and interrogation procedure, on the other
hand, is primarily that of insuring that the prisoner will
develop a relatively long lasting change in his attitudes
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and overt behavior that will be sustained after his release,
so that he will not again constitute a danger to the
Communist state. The securing of information by interroga-
tion, the preparation of proper protocols and "confessions",
and the participation of the prisoners in public propaganda
trials, are secondary to this primary goal.
(4) Whereas in the Soviet Union and the satellites the
ritual of public self-criticism, confession, self-degradation,
punishment, and rehabilitation is a party procedure confined
to Communists, the Chinese have extended this practice to
the non-party population, and to the prison population in
particular, and have made it an important feature of their
indoctrination procedure.
(5) Physical torture of the traditional sort is more
common. Manacles and leg chains are frequently used.
(6) Procedures are less standardized.
(7) Detention facilities are more primitive.
The essential differences appear to be in those of emphasis
and objective, as indicated in (1) through (4) above. The Soviet
objective is one of securing a confession in a relatively short
time. The Chinese objective is that of indoctrination, of con-
verting the victim to Communism; and the process may be prolonged
for years. Brainwashing is but one of many techniques used.
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Frequent lectures and constant and intensive social pressures are
also prominent elements.
Some persons who have emerged from Chinese prisons have been
characterized by amazingly altered political beliefs and immediate
loyalty to Communism. They have, indeed, been described as the
most thoroughly brainwashed of all! While the story of Chinese
indoctrination is an interesting and impressive one, we believe
that it is in the interest of clear thinking to confine our use
of the term "brainwashing" to that systematic breakdown of the
personality which is deliberately brought about for the purpose
of securing false confessions.
Conclusions
From this general description it is possible to draw two
general conclusions about Communist control techniques. First,
there is little that is new in their repertoire of controls.
A few pages of Malleus Maleficarum*, for example, will convince
any reader of the amazing similarity between present-day
Communist brainwashing methods and those used, for obtaining
confessions of witchcraft three and four centuries ago.
Communist control of the individual and the masses is little
different from controls exercised by virtually all absolute forms
St S, M. Malleus Maleficarum. London
Pushkin Press, 1948. 278 pp.
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of government, past and present. What is new with the Communists
is the extent of application and the unsurpassed organization in
administration of control techniques.
The second general conclusion is that the Communists have
developed a highly systematic use of techniques for controlling
the individual. This systemization apparently has been developed
pragmatically by trial and error, rather than from the best
available theoretical principles. There is evidence that no
scientists have participated in'the actual brainwashing process.
And considering what is known of the brainwashing process, more
systematic application of established psychological principles
could probably increase the efficacy of brainwashing.
Both the Soviets and Chinese are flexible in developing
"tailor-made" control pressures for specific individuals. This
tailoring of treatment is dependent upon some ability to diagnose
what combination of pressures will be most effective in
manipulating a particular personality.
Finally, it may be worth re-emphasizing at this point that
many kinds of people who have been in the hands of the Communists
have done many different things for many different reasons -- to
all of which the term "brainwashing" has at some time been
applied. Loyal Communists have confessed falsely "for the good
of the Party", no doubt in some cases with little immediate.
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coercion. Some uneducated or rootless persons have been easy
marks for conversion to Communism. It seems wise, however, to
reserve the terms "brainwashing" for that assault on the person-
ality which is a clear and prominent result of the Soviet regimen
just described. It is that assault on the personality to which
we shall now turn our attention.
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AN ANALYSIS OF CONTROL DURING BRAINWASHING
Having gotten the "feel" of the Communist prison and
interrogation procedures which culminate in the false
confession, we should now organize our thinking with respect
to just what is accomplished and how this objective is
brought about.
The objective is to procure a plausible, detailed,
reasonably consistent confession of crimes. A major
characteristic of this confession is that nearly all of it
is false. Some of the specific acts or utterances ascribed-
to the victim may, to be sure, be true. But the criminal
meaning of the acts, the criminal intent of the victim in
performing them, many embellishments and elaborations of
the acts, the victim's guilt with regard to them, and his
belief that he should be punished-- all these are distortions,
and quite at variance with the facts.
A second and most essential characteristic of the brain-
washed, confessing individual is that he appears to have
developed a conviction that what he confesses is true. This
is indeed the most startling element in the whole picture;
and this is the element which demands explanation.
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TAT
An illustration may make this clear. If a prisoner has
been chosen for brainwashing, he cannot escape going through
the entire process simply by indicating a willingness to
sign anything he is asked to sign. In public trial, such
confessions would be unconvincingly supported by the victim,
or might be denied. The whole process must be carried through
to the point where the victim literally evinces belief in
his confession.
The key figure in the brainwashing process is the
interrogator. He is the protagonist around whom the
prisoner develops his conflict, and upon whom the prisoner
comes to depend as he seeks a solution for that conflict.
He provides the general outline, though not the details,
of the great fabrication which the victim must construct,
defend, and come to believe before the process is culminated.
He initiates the pressures which are applied to the victim,
and readily adapts his own behavior to provide additional
pressure. His role is predominant.
The process of brainwashing is essentially one in which
two paths are being followed. One is the demoralizing pro-
cess, the result of which is to reduce the victim's critical
faculties to the point where he no longer discriminates
clearly between true and false, logical and illogical. The
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other is the re-organizing process, in which he is required to
construct his confession, elaborate it., defend it, and believe
it. These two processes are actually going on all the time,
though an initial softening-up usually precedes the intensive
interrogation and the initial construct of the confession.
The previous section described in some detail the control
pressures exerted by the Commsuhists. Recognition of the psy-
chological effects of these pressures within the individual
is necessary to an understanding of brainwashing. It should
be noted that this is a theoretical analysis. As indicated
in the last section, the Communists did not design their
pressures to satisfy a particular need to achieve these
effects.
A Hypothetical Schedule of Brainwashing
In the period immediately following capture or arrest,
his captors are faced with the problem of how to exploit
the prisoner maximally. When, as in the case of arrested
Soviet citizens, the arrest and interrogation plan already
developed is suitable, little further need be done to carry
out the assault upon the prisoner. When the prisoner is not
a citizen of the Communist country, or he is a prisoner of
war, aplan must be developed from scratch. Therefore,
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initial treatment is similar both for those who' are to- be
interrogated for intelligence and those who are to undergo
a systematic brainwashing. One practical consequence
immediately becomes apparent. The minds of those who'are
to be interrogated for intelligence must be kept sufficiently
clear and intact to permit a coherent, undistorted revelation
of the desired information; whereas in brainwashing the
initial assault is upon the clarity of the thought processes.
Concurrently with preliminary administrative contacts
the prisoner undergoes a physical and psychological softening-
up process. This softening-up includes limited, unpalatable
food, regimented exercise and use-of toilet facilities,
withholding of reading materials, deprivation of tobacco,
and strict regulation of the conditions and position of
sleep.
As previously indicated, the most important mechanism
of the brainwashing process is the interrogation. During
the course of the interrogation the interrogator may attempt
to elicit information (especially in the case of captured
military personnel), to indoctrinate his victim to the Com-
munist point of view, to attack his value-system and his'
thought processes, and to lead him through the demoralization
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and reintegration that characterizes the brainwashed state.
In achieving his objective the interrogator controls the
administration of all the other pressures.
The following emotional states are created within the
individual during the systematic course of the brainwashing:
(1) A feeling of helplessness in attempting to
deal with the impersonal machinery of control.
(2) An initial reaction of "surprise".
(3) A feeling of uncertainty about what is required
of him.
(4) A developing feeling of dependence upon the
interrogator.
(5) A sense of doubt and a loss of objectivity.
(6) Feelings of guilt.
(7) A questioning attitude toward his own value-
system.
(8) A feeling of potential "breakdown", i.e., that
he might go insane.
(9) A need to defend his acquired principles.
(10) A final sense of "belonging"'(identificationn).
The order in which the feelings are engendered within the
individual may vary somewhat; but all are necessary to the
brainwashing process.
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A feeling of helplessness in attempting to deal with
the impersonal machinery-of control develops within the
'individual during the early stages. The individual who
receives the softening=up-treatment described above not
only begins to feel like an animal but feels also that
nothing can be done about it, No one pays any personal
attention to him-. His complaints fall on deaf ears. His
loss of communication, if he has been isolated, creates a
feeling that he has been forgotten. Everything that happens
to him occurs according to an impersonal time schedule that
has nothing to do with his needs. The voices and footsteps
of the guards are muted. He notes many contrasts. The
cells are clean but he is filthy. His greasy, unpalatable
food is served on battered tin dishes by guards immaculately
dressed in white. The first steps in "depersonalization"
of the prisoner have begun. He has no idea what to expect.
Ample opportunity is allotted for him to ruminate upon all
the unpleasant or painful things that could happen to hit.
He approaches the main interrogation with mixed feelings
of relief and fright.
The controlled individual is constantly experiencing
surprise. That is, what he expects is often not what actually
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happens to hunt. Rarely is the prisoner prepared for the fact
that interrogators are often initially friendly and
considerate. They make eatery effort to demonstrate that they
are reasonable human beings. Often they apologize for any
bad treatment received by the prisoner and promise to improve
the prisoner's lot if he, too, is reasonable. This behavior
is not what the prisoner has steeled himself for. He lets
down some of his defenses and tries to take a reasonable
attitude. The first occasion, however, that the prisoner
balks at satisfying a request of the interrogator, he is in
for another surprise. The formerly reasonable interrogator
unexpectedly turns into a furious maniac who screams epithets.
The interrogator may slap the prisoner or draw his pistol and
threaten to shoot him. Usually this storm of emotion ceases
as suddenly as it began and the interrogator stalks from the
room. These surprising changes create a doubt in-the-
prisoner as to his very ability to perceive another person's
motivations correctly. His next interrogation, as likely as
not, will be marked by the very impassivity of the interrogator's
mien.
A feeling of uncertainty about what is required of him
likewise results from the prisoner's early contacts with the
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interrogator. Pleas of the prisoner to learn specifically of
what he is accused and by whom are sidestepped by the
interrogator. Initially the interrogation is left unstruc-
tured. The prisoner is asked to tell why he thinks he is
held and what he feels he is guilty of. If the prisoner fails
to come up with anything, he is accused in terms of broad
generalities (e.g., espionage, sabotage, acts of treason
against the "people", etc.). This usually provokes the pris-
oner to make some statement about his activities. If this
takes the form of a denial, he is usually sent to isolation
on further decreased food rations to "think over" his crimes.
Isolation appears to be an unusually efficacious control
pressure. Individual differences in psychological reaction
to isolation are very great. Some individuals appear to be
able to withstand prolonged periods of isolation without
deleterious effect; while a relatively short period of iso-
lation reduces others to the verge of psychosis. Psy-
chological reaction varies considerably with the conditions
of the isolation cell. Some individuals have indicated a
strong reaction to the filth and vermin, although they had
negligible reactions to the isolation itself. Others, how-
ever, reacted violently to isolation in relatively clean cells.
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The predominant cause of the latter reaction appears to be
the lack of sensory -stimulation. Then greyness of the
walls (or total lack of light), the lack of sound, the absence
of social contact, all combine to deprive the individual of
differential stimulation of his sensory end organs. Research
has indicated that, when sensory stimulation has been system-
atically decreased the individual is incapable of tolerating
his own subjective reactions for more than a very limited
number of days. Experimental subjects reported vivid halluci-
nations and overwhelming fears.
This process of alternating periods of isolation with
demands for a confession during interrogation can be
repeated again and again. The prisoner is forced to make
some compromise to break the intolerable cycle. As soon as
he can think of something that might be considered self-
incriminating, the interrogator appears momentarily satisfied.
The prisoner is asked to write down his statement in his own
words and sign it.
Meanwhile the controlled individual is developing a
strong sense of dependence upon the interrogator. It does
not take him long to realize that the interrogator is the
source of all punishment, all gratification and all communi-
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cation that the prisoner can have. The interrogator mean-
while demonstrates his unpredictability. He is perceived
by the prisoner as a creature of whim. At times the inter-
rogator can be pleased very easily and at other times no
.effort on the part of the prisoner will placate him. The
prisoner may begin to channel so much energy into trying to
predict the behavior of the unpredictable interrogator that
he loses-track of what is happening inside himself. His
recognition of dependence upon a relatively unpredictable
interrogator is a source of intense internal conflict.
After the prisoner has developed the above psychological
and emotional reactions to a sufficient degree, the brain-
washing begins in earnest. First the prisoner's remaining
critical faculties must be destroyed. He undergoes long,
fatiguing interrogations while looking at a bright light.
He is called back again and again for interrogations
after minimal sleep. Drugs may be used to accentuate his
mood swings. He develops depression when the interrogator
is being kind and becomes euphoric when the interrogator
is threatening the direct penalties. And.then the cycle is
reversed. The prisoner finds himself in a constant state
of anxiety which prevents him from relaxing, even when he is
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permitted to sleep. Short periods of isolation now bring
on visual and auditory hallucinations. The prisoner feels
himself losing his objectivity.
The-prisoner may be tortured by being forced to stand
in one spot for several hours or assume some other pain-in-
ducing position. The physiological effects of such torture
have been described. Psychologically, this type of torture
creates additional internal conflict. When the prisoner is
required to stand in one position, there is often engendered
within him an initial determination to "stick it out". This
internal act of resistance provides a feeling of moral super-
iority, at first. As time passes and the pain mounts, the
individual becomes aware that, to some-degree, it is his own
original determination to resist that is causing the con-
tinuance of pain. There develops a conflict within the
individual between his moral determination and his desire to
collapse and discontinue the pain. It is this extra in-
ternal conflict, in addition to the conflict over whether or
not to give in to the demands made of him, that tends to make
this method of torture so effective in the breakdown of the
individual personality.
It is in this state that the prisoner must keep up an
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endless argument with his interrogator. He may be faced
with the confessions of other individuals who "collaborated"
with him in his crimes. The prisoner seriously begins to
doubt his-own memory. This feeling is heightened by his
inability to recall little things like the names of the
people he knows very well or the date of his birth. The
interrogator patiently sharpens this feeling of doubt and
uncertainty by a clever line of questioning. For example, if
the goal of the brainwashing is an admission of participation
in.germ-warfare activities,, the following questions may be
asked incessantly: "Did, you personally supervise the loading
of bombs in your plane? Did you know exactly what was in
each of them? Did you count the explosions of the bombs you
dropped? Are you sure? Were you told to hit secondary-
targets if you couldn't achieve your primary targets? Were
you ordered to drop all of your bombs well-within enemy
territory? Were some of your explosives of the anti-personnel
type? Are you sure that none of your bombs contained bacteria?
If you personally had any objection to the use of such germ-
warfare weapons, do you think your superiors would have told
you what you were carrying? etc., etc." This line of question-
ing, when the individual has lost most of his critical
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faculties, tends to creat a serious state of uncertainty. This
has been demonstrated, when accompanying pressures were virtually
nil, under experimental conditions.
The prisoner must suffer additional internal conflict when
strong feelings of guilt are aroused within him. As any clinical
psychiatrist is aware, it is not at all difficult to create such
feelings. Military personnel are particularly vulnerable. No
one can morally justify killing even in wartime. The usual
justification is on the grounds of necessity or self-defense.
The interrogator is careful to circumvent such justification.
He keeps the interrogation directed towards the prisoner's
personal moral code. (Why is the prisoner personally killing
civilians and troops who have never done anything to.him? Did he
personally want to fight this war, or was he drafted?) Every
moral vulnerability is exploited. (How does the prisoner feel
about the fact that the weapons of war cannot be sufficiently
controlled to guarantee the killing only of soldiers? Or did
the "arms makers" design them that way? Does the prisoner
really believe in fighting to support colonialism? Would the
prisoner feel any obligation to support his country if an attack
were made upon Mexico? How is this different from the Chinese
position in Korea? What does the prisoner feel about the fact
that the U.S. was the first to utilize nuclear weapons in
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warfare? Does the prisoner support wholeheartedly all the policies
of his government? If not, doesn't this war support some of the
policies he does not approve? Is the prisoner a Christian? Does
Christianity condone slaughter of the type meted out by air
bombings?) Incessant questioning of this type tends to arouse many
doubts based upon irrational guilt feelings. The prisoner begins
to question the very fundamentals of his own value-system. One
brainwashed priest reported that after interrogation he really
began to feel intense guilt about the very missionary work to which
he had devoted his entire life. Constantly, the prisoner must
fight off a potential breakdown. He finds that his mind is
"going blank" for longer and longer periods of time. He cannot
think constructively. If he is to maintain any semblance of
psychological integrity, he must bring an end to this state of
interminable internal conflict. He signifies a willingness to
write a confession.
If this were truly the end, no brainwashing would have actually
occurred. The individual would simply have "given in" to intoler-
able pressure. Actually the final stage of the brainwashing
process has just begun. No matter what the prisoner writes in
his confession, the interrogator is not satisfied. The interroga-
tor questions every sentence, every phrase of the confession. He
begins to edit while working with the prisoner. The prisoner is
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forced to argue against every change, every demand for increased
self-incrimination. This is the very essence of brainwashing!
The prisoner has begun to argue for maintaining statements that
he would not have accepted prior to the commencement of brain-
washing. Every time that he gives in on a point to the interro-
gator, he must rewrite his whole confession.* Still the
interrogator is not satisfied. In a desperate attempt to maintain
some semblance of integrity and to avoid further brainwashing, the
prisoner must begin to argue that what he has already confessed
is true. He begins to accept as his own the statements he has
written. Subtly, step by step, he has identified with a new
value-system. The prisoner uses many of the interrogator's
earlier arguments to buttress his position. He believes what he
has stated. By this process identification with the interrogator's
*That "simple Pavlovian conditioning" accounts for what occurs
in the final stages of brainwashing is a common misconception.
The major similarity between what happens to Pavlov's dog and
what happens in brainwashing lies in the preparation of the dog
for the conditioning experiment. Brainwashing can be likened
much more fruitfully to the more complex concept of "instrumental
avoidance conditioning" which requires that the animal "discover"
a solution to avoid pain. It is much more difficult to
"de-condition" an animal that has learned in this way. Actually
brainwashing requires a creative act of learning (internal re-
organization of the thought processes) on the part of the
brainwash-victim. This does not imply that he could "help"
learning any more than the child can "help" learning that fire
is hot and should be avoided.
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value-system becomes complete. It is extremely important to
recognize that a qualitative change has taken place within the
prisoner. The brainwash-victim does not consciously change his
value-system; rather the change occurs despite his efforts.
He is nc' more responsible for this change than is an individual
who "snaps" and becomes psychotic. And like the psychotic, the
prisoner is not even aware of the transition.
An interesting point is raised by the behavior of returned
prisoners-of-war who had been brainwashed during the Korean
conflict. Some of these individuals stood court-martial; others
were vilified in the press. One wonders why they did not say,
"I was brainwashed -- I believed at the time what I said over
the radio", in their own defense. Apparently they could not
explain clearly what happened to them. One wonders if this
inability to communicate their experience is related to a most
interesting psychiatric finding that it is virtually impossible
for a recovered schizophrenic to tell what a psychotic "state"
is like. All that he can say is that it is unimaginably
horrible. Similarly, some of the brainwashed have characterized
their own experiences as "indescribable".
Aftermath
Since the changed value-system of the brainwash-victim has
developed in a severely controlled environment when his critical
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judgment was at its nadir, it can be considered, in a sense, like
and "enforced schizophrenia". The victim literally "forgetsil
many of the events that occurred during the brainwashing process.
If such an analogy is useful, it could be predicted that the
brainwash-victim, once freed from oppressive controls and having
recovered his critical faculties, would undergo a spontaneous
reintegration and recovery with the passage of time. This appears
to be the case. Accompanying this recovery of a value-system more
consistent with his beliefs prior to brainwashing is the gradual
recall of the various aspects of the brainwashing process itself.
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