3. Implicit Ideological Action, the Central Feature of the Process

It is important to emphasize at the outset that the process in question is designed to predispose those naturally refractory to explicit forms of Marxist preaching in such a way as to make them favor communism's tactics and doctrine and finally transform them into "useful idiots," if not convinced communists. For this very reason, the process works on mentalities in an implicit way.

A characteristic and essential note of this process is that, throughout or almost throughout its course, its patients do not perceive that they are undergoing a psychological action caused by someone, nor do they realize that their impressions and sympathies are leading them toward communism. In varying degrees of clarity, they know that they are "evolving" ideologically. But it seems to them that this evolution is a process in which they themselves are gradually discovering or deepening their knowledge of an appealing "truth," or constellation of "truths," without the aid of anyone else. As a rule, during nearly the entire process these patients never realize that they are little by little becoming communists. If at a certain moment this danger were made apparent to them, they would ipso facto recognize the abyss into which they are falling and would step back.

Only in the final stage of this "evolution" does the patients' interior transformation become so evident that they realize they are tending towards communism. But at this point their mentality has so "evolved" that the hypothesis of becoming adherents of communism no longer horrifies but rather attracts them.