Right Then. Right Now ?

(Right Then. Right Now ?)

There has been a saying that Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, without firing a shot. That is a nice rhetorical flourish, and it is false. The Soviet Union did nor necessarily need the American President to foster its demise. By the time Mihail Gorbachev was named General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the structural weaknesses of the State  began to manifest themselves more by 1985. The new General Secretary was aware that reform was needed, and two initiatives were announced. Glasnost, meaning "openness," and Perestroika, translating into "restructuring." It was hoped that these reforms would stabilize the U.S.S.R.


As people know, however, Gorbachev's tenure had been preceded by the Soviet leadership going back to the October Revolution. Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, were all old men but what they all had in common was the use of "Terror." By the time of Gorbachev, the Communist Party had lost the will to continue the Terror. Gorbachev's initiatives could do nothing without the popular repression that had been a hallmark is State control so, beginning in 1989 with the dismantling of the Iron Curtain, the opening of the Berlin Wall, all without Soviet intervention. On Christmas Day, 1991, after an abortive coup by remaining Communist hard liners, the Soviet Union ceased to exist,


While President Reagan was not directly involved in the collapse of the U.S.S.R., he was aware that the U.S.-U.S.S.R. relationship was not two sides of the same coin. As one originally from Hollywood, he had a front row seat to Communist infiltration of the industry and there had been plenty. So, on this date in 1983, Reagan in a Washington D.C. address referred to the Soviet Union as "the Evil Empire."


Of course, the former President was berated and belittled, especially from liberals. But what Reagan declared in no uncertain terms was that the two systems were ideologically not compatible. He talked about a regime that has no regard for human life and Soviet history is the case in point. In short, President Reagan promised to oppose the Soviet regime, and he did so with his defense build-up and the diplomatic isolation of the Soviet Union.


Now, could the Peoples' Republic be the next Evil Empire ? Can the things said about Moscow now be applied to Beijing ? Who would be making that speech ? Not President Biden.

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