Julie Behling, an author and documentary filmmaker who lives in Hurricane, told members of the Washington County Republican Women at a recent meeting that the United States is facing an "ideological capture" of schoolchildren and showed excerpts from her documentary Beneath Sheets Clothing.

Behling said the film and her 2022 book trace tactics used by Soviet authorities to reshape society — particularly through schools and youth organizations — and that she sees similar patterns in parts of U.S. education today. "If we're gonna save freedom in our state of Utah, we really have save Washington County because we're kind of the last stronghold here," Behling said during her talk, urging local action to counter those trends.

Why it matters: Behling framed her presentation as both historical background and a local call to action. She argued that early Soviet efforts to centralize power relied heavily on schooling and youth indoctrination, and said those same methods — she said — prioritize ideological instruction over traditional civic or religious teachings. She showed portions of her documentary Beneath Sheets Clothing and cited interviews including one with a man she identified as a former Antifa member who spoke about his past willingness to use violence.

Details from the presentation: Behling described her background researching the Soviet Union, saying she worked in Russia in the late 1990s and later wrote a master's thesis on clandestine Christian movements. She said her research informed her 2022 book and a documentary released last year. During the talk she recounted historical claims about the Soviet era — including famine and political purges — as illustrative context and cited specific anecdotes from survivors and family histories. Behling told the meeting she had interviewed a former Antifa member who, she said, told her he "almost killed someone" while participating in unrest elsewhere in the U.S.

Behling presented several historical figures and events to support her comparison, including references to Nikita Khrushchev and Joseph Stalin and to organized Soviet youth programs she described as instruments of ideological conformity. She also described classroom exercises used, she said, to teach atheism and loyalty to the state in Soviet schools and said contemporary U.S. classrooms should be scrutinized for similar influences. Where Behling offered numeric claims about Soviet-era deaths — for example an estimate she stated at the meeting that "about 6 to 9,000,000 people starved to death" in the early 1930s and that Stalin's purges led to "about 1,000,000 executions" — those figures are included here as her reported statements.

Local meeting context and other business: The presentation took place during a regular Washington County Republican Women meeting that also included announcements about upcoming municipal candidate forums in Saint George, Hurricane and Santa Clara, a planned Charlie Kirk memorial event at the Dixie Center on Oct. 20, and administrative items such as membership renewals and volunteer-hour tracking. The club raffled a quilt and reported $1,508 raised from donations and the raffle.

Attribution and claims: The article reports claims made by Behling at the meeting. The presentation mixed historical description, personal family stories she said she found in research, and contemporary interviews. The transcript of the meeting contains two different last-name spellings for the speaker ("Behling" and "Bailey"); this article identifies her as Julie Behling, following the earliest full-name usage in the meeting record and the identification of her book and film titles used during introductions. Where the transcript records specific factual assertions (historical casualty totals, rate of pay in 1990s Russia, or the interviewee's statements), those are presented as statements by Behling rather than independently verified facts.

What was not decided: The meeting recorded no formal votes or policy actions on education or school oversight. Behling called for community action and vigilance; the club did not record any motion or directive to staff or government agencies in the meeting minutes provided.

Looking ahead: Club organizers said they will take nominations for the group's officers at the November meeting and hold elections at the December meeting. Members were encouraged to register for the state federation convention in November and to continue tracking volunteer hours for year-end awards.