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The
Evil Empire
Ronald
Reagan
June
8, 1982.
House of Commons
We're approaching the end
of a bloody century plagued by a terrible political
invention -- totalitarianism. Optimism comes less
easily today, not because democracy is less
vigorous, but because democracy's enemies have
refined their instruments of repression. Yet
optimism is in order because day by day democracy is
proving itself to be a not at all fragile flower.
From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black
Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had
more than thirty years to establish their
legitimacy. But none -- not one regime -- has yet
been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by
bayonets do not take root.
The strength of the
Solidarity movement in Poland demonstrates the truth
told in an underground joke in the Soviet Union. It
is that the Soviet Union would remain a one-party
nation even if an opposition party were permitted
because everyone would join the opposition party....
Historians looking back at
our time will note the consistent restraint and
peaceful intentions of the West. They will note that
it was the democracies who refused to use the threat
of their nuclear monopoly in the forties and early
fifties for territorial or imperial gain. Had that
nuclear monopoly been in the hands of the Communist
world, the map of Europe--indeed, the world--would
look very different today. And certainly they will
note it was not the democracies that invaded
Afghanistan or suppressed Polish Solidarity or used
chemical and toxin warfare in Afghanistan and
Southeast Asia.
If history teaches
anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of
unpleasant facts is folly. We see around us today
the marks of our terrible dilemma--predictions of
doomsday, antinuclear demonstrations, an arms race
in which the West must, for its own protection, be
an unwilling participant. At the same time we see
totalitarian forces in the world who seek subversion
and conflict around the globe to further their
barbarous assault on the human spirit. What, then,
is our course? Must civilization perish in a hail of
fiery atoms? Must freedom wither in a quiet,
deadening accommodation with totalitarian evil?
Sir Winston Churchill
refused to accept the inevitability of war or even
that it was imminent. He said, "I do not
believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they
desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite
expansion of their power and doctrines. But what we
have to consider here today while time remains is
the permanent prevention of war and the
establishment of conditions of freedom and democracy
as rapidly as possible in all countries."
Well, this is precisely our
mission today: to preserve freedom as well as peace.
It may not be easy to see; but I believe we live now
at a turning point.
In an ironic sense Karl
Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great
revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of
the economic order are conflicting directly with
those of the political order. But the crisis is
happening not in the free, non-Marxist West but in
the home of Marxism- Leninism, the Soviet Union. It
is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of
history by denying human freedom and human dignity
to its citizens. It also is in deep economic
difficulty. The rate of growth in the national
product has been steadily declining since the
fifties and is less than half of what it was then.
The dimensions of this
failure are astounding: a country which employs
one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable
to feed its own people. Were it not for the private
sector, the tiny private sector tolerated in Soviet
agriculture, the country might be on the brink of
famine. These private plots occupy a bare 3 percent
of the arable land but account for nearly
one-quarter of Soviet farm output and nearly
one-third of meat products and vegetables. Overcentralized, with little or no incentives, year
after year the Soviet system pours its best
resources into the making of instruments of
destruction. The constant shrinkage of economic
growth combined with the growth of military
production is putting a heavy strain on the Soviet
people. What we see here is a political structure
that no longer corresponds to its economic base, a
society where productive forced are hampered by
political ones.
The decay of the Soviet
experiment should come as no surprise to us.
Wherever the comparisons have been made between free
and closed societies -- West Germany and East
Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and
Vietnam -- it is the democratic countries that are
prosperous and responsive to the needs of their
people. And one of the simple but overwhelming facts
of our time is this: of all the millions of refugees
we've seen in the modern world, their flight is
always away from, not toward the Communist world.
Today on the NATO line, our military forces face
east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other
side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east
to prevent their people from leaving.
The hard evidence of
totalitarian rule has caused in mankind an uprising
of the intellect and will. Whether it is the growth
of the new schools of economics in America or
England or the appearance of the so-called new
philosophers in France, there is one unifying thread
running through the intellectual work of these
groups -- rejection of the arbitrary power of the
state, the refusal to subordinate the rights of the
individual to the superstate, the realization that
collectivism stifles all the best human impulses....
Chairman Brezhnev
repeatedly has stressed that the competition of
ideas and systems must continue and that this is
entirely consistent with relaxation of tensions and
peace.
Well, we ask only that
these systems begin by living up to their own
constitutions, abiding by their own laws, and
complying with the international obligations they
have undertaken. We ask only for a process, a
direction, a basic code of decency, not for an
instant transformation.
We cannot ignore the fact
that even without our encouragement there has been
and will continue to be repeated explosion against
repression and dictatorships. The Soviet Union
itself is not immune to this reality. Any system is
inherently unstable that has no peaceful means to
legitimize its leaders. In such cases, the very
repressiveness of the state ultimately drives people
to resist it, if necessary, by force.
While we must be cautious
about forcing the pace of change, we must not
hesitate to declare our ultimate objectives and to
take concrete actions to move toward them. We must
be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the
sole prerogative of a lucky few but the inalienable
and universal right of all human beings. So states
the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free
elections.
The objective I propose is
quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure
of democracy, the system of a free press, unions,
political parties, universities, which allows a
people to choose their own way to develop their own
culture, to reconcile their own differences through
peaceful means.
This is not cultural
imperialism; it is providing the means for genuine
self-determination and protection for diversity.
Democracy already flourishes in countries with very
different cultures and historical experiences. It
would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say
that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.
Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right
to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda
handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer
government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land
to be owned by the state instead of those who till
it, want government repression of religious liberty,
a single political party instead of a free choice, a
rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic
tolerance and diversity.
Since 1917 the Soviet Union
has given covert political training and assistance
to Marxist-Leninists in many countries. Of course,
it also has promoted the use of violence and
subversion by these same forces. Over the past
several decades, West European and other social
democrats, Christian democrats, and leaders have
offered open assistance to fraternal, political, and
social institutions to bring about peaceful and
democratic progress. Appropriately, for a vigorous
new democracy, the Federal Republic of Germany's
political foundations have become a major force in
this effort.
We in America now intend to
take additional steps, as many of our allies have
already done, toward realizing this same goal. The
chairmen and other leaders of the national
Republican and Democratic party organizations are
initiating a study with the bipartisan American
Political Foundation to determine how the United
States can best contribute as a nation to the global
campaign for democracy now gathering force. They
will have the cooperation of congressional leaders
of both parties, along with representatives of
business, labor, and other major institutions in our
society. I look forward to receiving their
recommendations and to working with these
institutions and the Congress in the common task of
strengthening democracy throughout the world.
It is time that we
committed ourselves as a nation -- in both the
public and private sectors -- to assisting
democratic development....
What I am describing now is
a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of
freedom and democracy which will leave
Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it
has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom
and muzzle the self-expression of the people. And
that's why we must continue our efforts to
strengthen NATO even as we move forward with our
zero-option initiative in the negotiations on
intermediate-range forces and our proposal for a
one-third reduction in strategic ballistic missile
warheads.
Our military strength is a
prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we
maintain this strength in the hope it will never be
used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle
that's now going on in the world will not be bombs
and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial
of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the
beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are
dedicated.
The British people know
that, given strong leadership, time, and a little
bit of hope, the forces of good ultimately rally and
triumph over evil. Here among you is the cradle of
self-government, the Mother of Parliaments. Here is
the enduring greatness of the British contribution
to mankind, the great civilized ideas: individual
liberty, representative government, and the rule of
law under God.
I've often wondered about
the shyness of some of us in the West about standing
for these ideals that have done so much to ease the
plight of man and the hardships of our imperfect
world. This reluctance to use those vast resources
at our command reminds me of the elderly lady whose
home was bombed in the blitz. As the rescuers moved
about, they found a bottle of brandy she'd stored
behind the staircase, which was all that was left
standing. And since she was barely conscious, one of
the workers pulled the cork to give her a taste of
it. She came around immediately and said, "Here
now -- there now, put it back. That's for
emergencies."
Well, the emergency is upon
us. Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our
strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world
that a new age is not only possible but probable.
During the dark days of the
Second World War, when this island was incandescent
with courage, Winston Churchill exclaimed about
Britain's adversaries, "What kind of people do
they think we are?" Well, Britain's adversaries
found out what extraordinary people the British are.
But all the democracies paid a terrible price for
allowing the dictators to underestimate us. We dare
not make that mistake again. So, let us ask
ourselves, "What kind of people do we think we
are?" And let us answer, "Free people,
worthy of freedom and determined not only to remain
so but to help others gain their freedom as
well."
Sir Winston led his people
to great victory in war and then lost an election
just as the fruits of victory were about to be
enjoyed. But he left office honorably and, as it
turned out, temporarily, knowing that the liberty of
his people was more important than the fate of any
single leader. History recalls his greatness in ways
no dictator will ever know. And he left us a message
of hope for the future, as timely now as when he
first uttered it, as opposition leader in the
Commons nearly twenty-seven years ago, when he said,
"When we look back on all the perils through
which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we
have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs
that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our
future? We have," he said, "come safely
through the worst."
Well, the task I've set
forth will long outlive our own generation. But
together, we too have come through the worst. Let us
now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a
crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and
fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of
peace and justice, let us move toward a world in
which all people are at last free to determine their
own destiny.
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