On this date in 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ceased to exist. As detailed by University of Hawaii political science professor R.J. Rummel on his website "Powerkills", the 20th century was humanity's worst century of genocide and democide (the latter including mass killings not based on religion, race, or ethnicity). By far the greatest perpetrators of genocide were Communist regimes. Although a few of the Communist genocide perpetrators eventually developed hostile relations with the U.S.S.R., none of the Communist regimes would ever have come to power without the support of the Evil Empire that arose in October 1917, and which began styling itself as the "U.S.S.R." in 1922.
Rummel's website provides excellent quantitative data on genocide/democide all over the world. You might also want to check out Rummel's fine weblog "Democratic Peace."
A retrospective article on the Heritage Foundation website reminds us how bitterly President Reagan was attacked for his magnificent speech at Westminster in 1982. Reagan was mocked as a deluded idealist by so-called "pragmatists" who thought they knew better. Yet Reagan was right when he declared:
It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens...The collapse of the Evil Empire came sooner than even Reagan had hoped. The Cuban efforts to impose new dictatorships on Nicaragua and El Salvador failed completely. Solidarity became the elected government of Poland, and later yielded power to another government following a free election. The Warsaw Pact is now nothing more than a scrap of paper, and all the countries which suffered under its jackboots are making their way--some faster than others--towards stable and democratic government.
...the march of freedom and democracy...will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history...
Within the former U.S.S.R. itself, the Baltic Republics are making great progress, while Central Asia languishes under tyranny, and Russia itself is retrogressing into dictatorship. Dictators still oppress many hundreds of millions of people, and are still perpetrating genocide and promoting terrorism.
Today's anniversary, however, should remind us that the true pragmatists are those who recognize that totalitarianism is in constant danger of collapse because of its own internal contradictions, and that if free nations remain strong and resolute, they can bring down a superpower.
I thought the fall of the Berlin wall was unbelievable, I never imagined the fall of the Soviets during my lifetime.
And don't even get me started on formerly Soviet Uzbekistan, another brutal dictatorship we support...
And in Russia itself, one of the most popular parties among young people is "National Bolshevism", and other assortment of Nazi groups are on the rise.
Say what you want about Soviet Marxism Leninism, but as a Russian I would take it over Fashism or Nazism any day of the week
Not making any moral judgment; just stating a fact.
As to Vovan's statement, "Say what you want about Soviet Marxism Leninism, but as a Russian I would take it over Fashism [sic] or Nazism any day of the week." Ask a Lithuananian, Latvian or Estonian about your statement and they would say the precise opposite. Soviet Marxism Leninism was as bad, if not worse under certain circumstances, than German Fascism. Certainly, it was worse than Italian Fascism.
Saying the Soviets weren't as bad as the Nazis is a intellectually dishonest defense. Satan isn't as bad as the Nazi's either. he still is a jerk.
It was a sight I thought I'd never see, a mere four years after getting out of the military, where'd we'd constantly sparred with the Soviets.
I too remember duck-and-cover drills, where we'd sit in the inner hallways of my school to avoid the worst of the blast effects from the anticipated nuclear attack.
Ronald Reagan gets more credit from the former Communist leadership for their defeat than he receives from the American Left.
Says a lot.
And I'll strongly second Greed Clerk's opinion that our real opposition to communism was that it reduced the number of our productive trading partners. We clearly don't have any real problem with totalitarian regimes per se. (I should note that only the second part of this point is meant as a criticism. We are right to want more people to have the economic freedom to trade with us; we are wrong to continue to support totalitarian regimes.)
What I found striking, even at that tender age, is that there was only one name on the ballot - Mikhail Gorbachev. Now, this was incongruent with what I believed to be an election. We had recently had one in class - a real one. As I began to articulate this complaint to my grandfather, he hushed me. I was further pacified with the delivery of the promised ice cream.
Now I know that the reason my grandfather participated in the sham election was in order to keep his good standing with the Communist party. The reason, I also now know, he had to be a member, was to keep his prestigious job as a surgeon. After all, if a non-Communist can make a good surgeon, then what's the world coming to? A Jewish non-Communist surgeon? That would make Lenin's mummified and wax-enhanced body turn over in its mausoleum.
Sorry for the rant, but let this serve as a big thanks to Reagan, Thatcher, et al., for helping put an end to that mess...
Remember: Pinochet was a murderous bastard, but he turned over his country to an elected government, without a war or a coup. Mao never did anything like that. Nor Stalin.
Iraq was a Soviet client state in the 1980s (look at all those Soviet weapons they had). The Reagan Administration - and many governments throughout the world - provided assistance to Iraq out of fear of a Iranian military victory in their war. The concern was that the Khomeini revolution would spread throughout the region.
And the Reagan Administration shared satellite information, extended grain credits and allowed Iraq to purchase cluster bombs. Except for the satellite data, almost nothing.
And why this issue was raised over a discussion of the defeat of Soviet communism mystifies me. It's irrelevancy should be obvious to anyone.
[From Dave Kopel: In response to questions about the source of the Dec. 31 date: it's the Dec. 31 FYEO newsletter, from www.strategypage.com. Perhaps the USSR voted to dissolve itself on 12/25, but made the dissolution effective on 12/31, in order to put affairs in order.]
I think your sentiment is best expressed in this audio clip. [Warning: 2.3mb file]
demarche: 1 a : a course of action : MANEUVER b : a diplomatic or political initiative or maneuver
2 : a petition or protest presented through diplomatic channels
Oh yeah, the Uzbekistan rulers are shaking in their boots.
Funny how the left didn't protest when Stalin or Saddam was doing the killing.
I didn't write that piece; I had included a link in the post, and it somehow did not show up in the post. Here's the source.
"Oh yeah, the Uzbekistan rulers are shaking in their boots. "
Well you seem to have cherry-picked your definition, but hey, you're right: Why should the Uzbeks be worried when the most powerful country in the world is squarely backing them?
Honestly, I can't believe you all want to defend this...
"Funny how the left didn't protest when Stalin or Saddam was doing the killing."
Well I don't know who you think "the left" is, but 1) I wasn't even alive when Stalin was; and 2) I DID actively oppose Saddam. I especially protested our own government's support of him when he was gassing the Kurds.
What president was that again? Oh yes.... Reagan.
As for why I protest the U.S. government more than someone like Saddam: Because it's my government, doing these things with my tax dollars, in my name, and we live in a participatory democracy where a citizen's voice is supposed to mean somtething.
It's ludicrous to say "Why didn't you protest Stalin" and infer that I therefore supported him. I don't usually "protest" against foreign dictators because it's kind of pointless; Stalin or Saddam does not give a damn what I think, no matter how much I oppose them (and I certainly did).
Presumably, our own government cares when its citizens object to its policies (although maybe not this administration).
Think about how silly your logic is: Let's see... Did you ever protested publicly against Charles Taylor, the former brutal dictator of Liberia? No? Aha!! You therefore supported him, didn't you!
This is from the BBC timeline:
"On 25 December, Gorbachev goes on television to announce he is stepping down as Soviet president. The Soviet flag is lowered from the Kremlin for the last time, and the white, blue and red tricolour of the Russian Federation flies in its place. The USSR is no more."
Whatever -- it's nice that it's gone.
And don't forget John Paul II...who inspired many in Solidarity...
The Christmas Day vote to abolish the USSR of course has enormous symbolic significance for Westerners, including, the Vatican. Interestingly, though, Russian Orthodox Christmas is January 7.
A brief recap (certainly not exhaustive) of the events overseen (if not directly influenced) by the other CW presidents:
Truman--Oversaw the birth of the nuclear threat (which, although morally questionable, was crucial in creating the MAD context. Without this limitation on "hot" war, Reagan's actions would have been a lot less palatable.) Marshall plan set the boundaries of the First and Second Worlds, and paved the way for the creation of NATO and corollary organizations. Creation of the UN as (at the very least) a forum for publicly airing the debate between the two sides.
Eisenhower--Furthered the MAD context. Expanded American civilian and military infrastructure.
Kennedy--Despite early foreign affairs missteps, the proper handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis gave the US a badly needed dose of prestige in a war defined by image.
LBJ--Despite a miscalculation of the importance of the psychological domino theory and misunderstanding of the Chinese weight in the overall conflict (more on this later), the civil rights movement began a long and important campaign in America to reframe the debate away from greedy bigoted capitalists fighting righteous socialist crusaders that care about the third world, and towards a free and open society benevolently pushing for reform in cold totalitarian regimes. The truth of either statement is obviously more grey, but this change in the tenor of the debate was instrumental in later presidents' policies (especially Reagan's "Evil Empire" stance.)
Nixon--Arguably the most important CW president vis-a-vis American success (and understand that I vehemently disagree with aout 85% of his presidency.) The rapprochement with China was the essential realist counterweight in tying the hands of the USSR. Like the PRC or hate them, this was the real turning point.
Ford--Stopped the long-since-dead psychological domino theory in practice.
Carter--Conservatives love to rip on Carter for being "soft" and "cutting" the military (ignoring first-hand reports that suggest much of Carter's decisions on cutting military projects had more to do with his background as a nuclear engineer and his inability to sign off on any new weapons, like the B-1, without evaluating it from that standpoint.) Still, without Carter's commitment to human rights, which was the final building block in the reframing of the debate between the First and Second World, Reagan's rhetoric would have rung hollow to many other countries.
H.W. Bush--Many people think H.W. had little more to do than mop up the cleanly won victory of his predecessor. People close to both administrations (including Condoleeza Rice, who wrote a book on the subject) suggest otherwise. Bush I's ability to negotiate was unparalleled; his handling of Gorbachev was truly crucial.
History is often more complex and detailed than spaghetti Westerns with one hero on a white horse. Perhaps we might learn something from this lesson that would inform our support for a certain cowboy in power at present...
And your point is? Most of the Eastern European countries and even the Soviet Union ended their communist regimes peacefully, either in bloodless coups or even through volutary transfer of power, which destroys your argument. Even the mythical Reagan arms race that brought the Soviet Union to its knees is a right wing fantasy. It simply didn't happen. The Soviet Union didn't sharply increase its defense spending in the eighties in response to increased U.S. defense spending. Any extraordinary increases that did occur were the the result of the war in Afghanistan rather than direct response to conventional arms buildup by the U.S. After Gorbachev took over, he drastically cut back on Soviet defense spending.
And you know this how?