|
Speech to the British House of Commons
Ronald
Reagan
June
8, 1982.
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.
America
|
|
