Alexander Solzhenitsyn Set the Stage for Reagan and Walesa
The late dissident writer inspired those who worked to topple the Soviet empire.
[See also Roger Kimball's "A footnote on Solzhenitsyn"]
It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the literary works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died Sunday at age 89.
At the same time, without diminishing their importance, as well as his courageous personal example, it is too easy to exaggerate Solzhenitsyn’s role in defeating the historically unprecedented tyranny that was the Soviet Union.
After all, the legendary author won his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.”
Solzhenitsyn’s seminal work, the three-volume Gulag Archipelago, was published near the end of 1973. Solzhenitsyn’s obituary in the New York Times describes it this way:
Gulag was a monumental account of the Soviet labor camp system, a chain of prisons that by Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s calculation some 60 million people had entered during the 20th century. The book led to his expulsion from his native land. George F. Kennan, the American diplomat, described it as ׂthe greatest and most powerful single indictment of a political regime ever to be leveled in modern times:
Solzhenitsyn’s invaluable and irreplaceable contribution to mankind was to unmask the fundamentally heinous and evil nature of Marxist-Leninist Communism for all who wished to comprehend it. His exposure of the truth about the Soviet Union’s history, its living conditions, and its fundamental tenets of oppression and repression, set the table for those who would have the courage to confront and defeat it.
Many, sadly, had no such desire to comprehend, or to confront.
In the U.S., a man who felt that “detente” was the way to deal with ruthless thugs was elected president just three years after Gulag’s release.
Seven years later, the next president, Ronald Reagan, elicited a tidal wave of outrage when he very accurately called the Soviet regime “the focus of evil in the modern world.”
To make his case throughout his presidency, Reagan invoked Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet dissidents early, often, and to powerful effect. Ultimately, and without firing a shot, Reagan, Pope Paul II, and Lech Walesa, with considerable assistance from the American union movement and Margaret Thatcher, all stepped up and so weakened the evil empire that, by the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was forced to release its grip as its satellites demanded it.
A stumbled-upon story from the May 31, 1988, New York Times shows just how relentless Reagan was.
1988 was the last year of his administration, but there was no coasting. Reagan went to Moscow for a summit with media darling Mikhail Gorbachev. While there:
Reagan … publicly clashed over human rights issues … quoting Alexander Solzhenitsyn, appealed for increased civil and religious liberties in the Soviet Union.
… From the gilded halls of the Kremlin to the white-walled compound of the Danilov Monastery, Mr. Reagan used his first visit to the Soviet Union and his fourth meeting with Mr. Gorbachev to campaign for greater freedom.
… Mr. Reagan’s comments here are the most sustained criticism of internal Soviet policies by a foreign visitor since Mr. Gorbachev assumed power in March 1985, and raised potentially sensitive political problems for the Soviet leader as he faces an important Communist Party meeting next month.
… Mr. Gorbachev’s remarks about ‘’sermonizing” were apparently made in response to a meeting earlier in the day between Mr. Reagan and a group of dissidents at Spaso House, the residence of the American Ambassador.
… At the meeting, described by the White House as a gathering of ‘’selected Soviet citizens,” Mr. Reagan said Moscow has made progress on human rights in recent years but still falls short of acceptable international standards for freedom of religion, speech and travel.
Many of those in attendance were Soviet Jews who have been denied permission to emigrate to the West.
”I’ve come to Moscow with this human rights agenda because, as I suggested, it is our belief that this is a moment of hope,” Mr. Reagan told the gathering at Spaso House, where he and his wife, Nancy, are staying during their five-day visit.
… Addressing a group of (the Danilov Monastery’s) monks and church leaders who were dressed in the traditional black robes and cylindrical caps of the church, Mr. Reagan used the words of Mr. Solzhenitsyn as he called for a renewal of religious faith in the Soviet Union.
Reagan never let up on the pressure, even near the end of his term. Gorbachev, contrary to the fawning media portrayals, was dragged kicking and screaming every step of the way.
If we would have continued to listen to those who wished to “accommodate” this evil empire, the world would be a much different and much more dangerous place.
Evil empires don’t just “fail,” as some historical revisionists would have it. For proof of that, one only needs to look at North Korea and Cuba. The people in those two countries are arguably in a worse economic situation than the Soviet Union as a whole ever was. Their intrinsic evil is clearly visible to all who will open their eyes. Yet those dictatorships have not, and will not, collapse on their own.
Sadly, no one has had the courage mustered by Reagan et al against the Soviet Union to deal similarly with these two rogue nations.
Perhaps a president who spent five years in a North Vietnamese gulag will.
Solzhenitsyn had something to say about that war, too:
The most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear?
Their responsibility, and their preference not to hear, continue to this day: it is telling, but not surprising that Ronald Reagan’s name is nowhere to be found in Solzhenitsyn’s New York Times obit.
Tom Blumer owns a training and development company based in Mason, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He presents personal finance-related workshops and speeches at companies, and runs BizzyBlog.com.
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39 Comments
1. WR Jonas:God Bless Mr. Alexander Solzhenitsyn. A Patriot. A compassionate human being. A monumental writer and a decent man. I believe there will be some place of honor in the next realm for a courageous man.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:11 am 2. Nikolay:The whole human rights agenda you see Reagan talking here about was largely introduced by Carter (“Carter doctrine”). As you say yourself, the economic situation is not enough to bring down the authoritarian regime, so this whole idea that “Reagan bankrupted USSR with his Star Wars programs” is pretty weak. Meanwhile, the human rights angle, the idea that USSR will go down when the people of USSR will want it to go down had much more to do with how USSR really collapsed. Carter deserves much more credit for the end of the Communism than Reagan, and where Reagan was doing the right things, he was doing them despite the protests from his own party.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:33 am 3. Peggy:My respect for Solzhenitsyn, both the writer and the man, knows no bounds. We have lost a literary giant and a profoundly moral and courageous man.
If I think about it too much, I’ll burst into tears of gratitude right here in the middle of work.
May God rest his soul and grant him eternal peace.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:15 am 4. weSwinger:The tribute on NPR yesterday revealed their typical bias. They paid homage to the Solzhenitsyn who wrote the “Gulag” and tsked over the “descent into illiberalism” in the Harvard graduation address. Even as great a man as Solzhenitsyn cannot open the eyes of the (willfully) blind. That is a job for Jesus Christ.
Peggy: Amen and amen.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:00 am 5. kabud:Solzhenitsyn
This must be said and realized as soon as possible
Solzhenitsyn is dead. Finally one of the most hidden campaign of disinformation has stopped.
I used to think highly of him. Until i learned more FACTS, not FICTION PLOTS about soviet genocide
Then i realized: Solzhenitsyn either was absolutely misinformed or he does it on purpose and was consulted by KGB
Later i read Golitsyn, Sejna, Cibulka, Nyquist, Douglas
And i realized that the only explanation for this incredible dishonesty of Solzhenitsyn decreasing and covering the real scale of genocide and its most bloody and important to know aspects WAS A PART OF THE PLAN
Kremlin wanted to reveal some of it, pretend that they are sorry and that they changed
Solzhenitsyn was a shameful desinformator and manipulator
It is another red herring we all consumed.
But not any more- today he is meeting his maker and it should be very rough for him
Solzhenitsyn was a KGB AGENT. Just the fact that in the 90s he began to VIGOROUSLY promote ANTISEMITIC VIEWS: leaves no doubt on his affiliation with soviet gestapo.
ANTISEMITISM is one of the most important ideological weapons of communism against Freedom. It was also successfully used to create antagonism between West and Islam world.
Walesa
Also must mention Walesa story:
google “walesa bolek” find out for yourself
Walesa was in close agreement with Polish KGB. He played very similar role as the above mentioned writer: when social situation in Poland became combustible- he channeled it into KGB PLANED UNREST to avoid A REAL PEOPLES UPRISING AND CLEAN UP OF THE COUNTRY FROM MURDERERS WHO COMMUNISTS ARE AND WILL REMAIN FOREVER UNTIL PUT TO JUSTICE
Or they will exterminate all of us like they exterminated over 100 millions of people in the 20th century
DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT?
REAGAN
“anticommunists without bomb shelters” (JRN) – it is irresponsibility, hypocrisy, falsity,
USA has THOUSANDS of Hydrogen bombs aimed at us from Russia and we have NEVER build a bomb or blast shelters?
AT LEAST FOR THE CHILDREN?
!!!!!!!! IDIOTS !!!!!!!!!
russians at least build bomb shelters, they built an extensive civil defense system
it is pathetic((((((
Most right wing politicians are just clowns, not enemies like leftists, but pathetic talkers, flatters of the things they oppose, they are shallow, they are not clear There is a stagnancy and the sourness
They have inability to sustain anything
The right is a fiction. Everyone is on the left.
There is no vigorous defense of civilization against totalitarianism coming from these fakes.
There are no one NO ONE who could be named as a REAL DEFENDER of civilization today. All of them are dead. In 2008 – there are NONE.
We have to feel a certain degree of scorn for people who can not defend themselves. Its only natural. or people who have a toothless bite
They have a toothless bite. Come on get some tooth, get some bite!
Conservative formulas that are are aired by USA or UK politicians always seem to backfire
Behind this we see Reagan and his unnatural optimism, that become a cowardice, cowardly optimism.
All of it is showing only that THEY DON’T KNOW WHERE, ON WHAT GROUND THEY ARE REALLY STANDING. Because if they knew what ground it is – they would be afraid. And nothing wrong is with being afraid: it is a recognition that there is danger
Until they are willing to admit the danger i am not sure they are really in the game
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:09 am 6. uburoisc:Nicolay, though there is some truth the the idea that Carter’s emphasis on human rights, via Helsinki, was helpful, in the narrow sense, but it really wasn’t much more than public relations effort. To say this was more key to the collapse of the Soviet regime is risible.
What defeated the Soviets was stating the truth, over and over, bluntly, that the Soviet Union was a vicious, stupid, aggressive, and violent scourge on the earth: an Evil Empire in spades. This is exactly what Solzhenitsyn said, and Reagan took this position seriously.
The Carter Doctrine always nibbled around the edges, looking for small compromises, always mired in the carefully non-confrontational language of diplomats. Carter had us getting comfortable with the Soviets. Reagan continued the ongoing pressure that began with Kennan and Truman, and continued through Ike, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon that the Soviet Union must be beaten, and that the US would apply force where and when necessary.
What you are saying comes from the American and European university professors and time-servers in the State Dept who are desperately trying to cover their asses for being so wrong, for so long, about the nature of the real Soviet Union; it is essential, to salvage their reputation, that the fall of the Soviet Union was from anything other than the policy hawks like Dulles and Reagan.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:19 am 7. Javelin:weSwinger,
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:23 am 8. Michael T:good to see a jesus freak throw his two cents in. As far as truth goes, maybe that might explain Solhenitsyn’s anti-Semitism, which was a feature of good old Russian Orthodoxy as well as Polish Catholicism. It seems that anti-Semitism is only cool when it’s aimed at leftists or Muslims.
Mixed bag. He exposed the gulags while residing in the West which he also despised. Wanted the old Czarist system of Orthodoxy revived in which anti-semitism was a major driving force,ie he wnted to replace one evil with another. I think he has been overglorified.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:38 am 9. uburoisc:Like Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn, disgraced himself as he aged. Over the past two decades, Solzhenitsyn became a full-fledged loon, immersed in low-grade anti-Semitism and warning of elaborate conspiracies around every corner (a tendency of every Russian I’ve ever known, perhaps with some justification).
But his epic works for which he is well known are indisputably great works of courage and intelligence.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:39 am 10. Cincinnatus:Nikolay:
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:18 am 11. pch1013:Google “inordinate fear of communism”.
That is all, you’re welcome.
It’s interesting to see Solzhenitsyn lionized here, despite the fact that he lived in the U.S. for 20 years and never bothered to learn to speak English.
Re: the collapse of Communism in Poland, no history of it is complete without mentioning a certain Karel Wojtyla. I don’t know whether he was inspired by Solzhenitsyn at all, but to give all the credit to Reagan and/or Solzhenitsyn is a bit myopic.
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:47 am 12. Write What You Know - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, RIP « I’ve Gotta Fang:[...] PJs) [...]
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:47 am 13. Tom Blumer:John Paul II is mentioned.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:01 am 14. BizzyBlog » Special Pajamas Media Column (’Alexander Solzhenitsyn Set the Stage for Reagan and Walesa’) Is Up:[...] It’s here. [...]
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:07 am 15. kabud:Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a description of life in a Soviet prison by an author who had himself been a prisoner under Stalin.
Some were allowed to leave the Soviet Union permanently. Within the Soviet Union the well-known writer Kochetov emerged as the leader of the “conservative” wing of the writers’ union, while the late poet Tvardovskiy, who sponsored Solzhenitsyn’s writings, led the “liberals.”
The liberals were joined by the poets Yevtushenko and Voznesenskiy, also by prominent scientists and other dissidents.
With the help of these apparently more liberal official attitudes, the image of the Soviet Union presented to the outside world was
changed; the political fundamentals of the regime were not.
The “state of the whole people” was still a dictatorship ruled exclusively, and now more effectively, by the communist party through the party apparatus and other organs, including the KGB. The KGB was still one of the pillars of the strength and stability of the regime.
True anticommunist political opposition was suppressed as before, but on a selective basis. The real nature of the Soviet
regime and the KGB and their intolerance of ideological opposition were demonstrated in October 1959 by the assassination in West
Germany by the KGB of the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.
The regime was no less ruthless inside the Soviet Union when dealing with nationalist or other opposition movements. Despite Khrushchev’s disclaimers, political prisoners still existed, though their numbers were reduced. Political trials were normally still held in secret.
page 126 N E W L I E S F O R O L D, A Golitsyn.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:40 am 16. Kim Zigfeld:It’s a pity that Solzhenitsyn, in his quasi-senility, did much to taint his life’s work. He repeatedly rationalized the Putin regime and allowed himself to be used as its puppet. He even tried to hoast an ill-fated TV talk show! He did much to bring down the USSR, and he did much to elevate the neo-Soviet state we see now horrifyingly before us.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:55 am 17. kabud:Kim Zigfeld:
No Kim you are wrong!
Plan was to deceive the West in false liberalization, to get West in trading with the enemy , to get more money and WEAPONS and later attack us.
Solzhenitsyn was a deceiver , promoting a false idea of liberalization
Weapons are aimed, on the scale as NEVER BEFORE
tests conducted successfully on 9-11 and with anthrax.
Axes Kremlin-Beijing never acts on emotion, they NEVER lose power or captured ground: they effectively control Africa, ME, Latin America, most of the European public opinion, at least half of USA population who gonna vote for OBAMA
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:16 pm 18. Nikolay:“Nicolay, though there is some truth the the idea that Carter’s emphasis on human rights, via Helsinki, was helpful, in the narrow sense, but it really wasn’t much more than public relations effort. To say this was more key to the collapse of the Soviet regime is risible.”
Well, first, practically all the quotes about Reagan in this post are about human rights angle, so you can’t praise Reagan and at the same time say that this angle is unimportant. Carteк was the first American President to write letters to Russian dissidents.
I was a child when USSR collapsed, so my memories are not very clear, but as far as I remember Communism ended because it was hated by most of the Russian people (at least by the “elites” — working class actually had it quite good here). USSR didn’t end because of the weak economy or the military confrontations, the example Cuba shows that it’s not really a factor, but because people (including those in power) were sick of it. The stress that Carter gave to directly engaging Russian people was the key to what eventually ended the Cold War.
Russian people, who eventually dismantled Communism on their own, didn’t feel good about Reagan’s posturing about Evil Empire etc., but they liked Hollywood movies, Playboy magazines, Beatles music (you know, all those forces of decadence that right-wingers bashed). John Lennon and the rest of the “dirty hippies” did 100 times more to defeat Communism than Ronald Reagan, that’s for certain.
“What defeated the Soviets was stating the truth, over and over, bluntly, that the Soviet Union was a vicious, stupid, aggressive, and violent scourge on the earth: an Evil Empire in spades. This is exactly what Solzhenitsyn said, and Reagan took this position seriously.”
Well, first, you do understand, do you, that China nowadays is much more evil than USSR in its last years? Something like Tienanmen square massacre was unimaginable there.
Second, Reagan took Solzhenitsyn’s position seriously, but only to a certain degree. Solzhenitsyn was pals with neocons, while Reagan engaged Gorbachev over their objections. Nobody knows what would happen if Reagan followed neocons’ advice. Given the fact that nuclear war could by caused by a simple mistake (as it nearly did once), Reagan following neocon’s advice could mean the end of the world in our times. Thank God, Reagan fired neocons from his administration and followed his instincts, and now we live in a relatively safe &sane world.
Aug 4, 2008 - 1:38 pm 19. uburoisc:Nikolay
“Russian people, who eventually dismantled Communism on their own, didn’t feel good about Reagan’s posturing about Evil Empire etc., but they liked Hollywood movies, Playboy magazines, Beatles music (you know, all those forces of decadence that right-wingers bashed). John Lennon and the rest of the “dirty hippies” did 100 times more to defeat Communism than Ronald Reagan, that’s for certain.”
This is complete, fanciful bullshit, from beginning to end, yes, your memories are hazy, and wrong on every count. Yeah, I’ve heard the “rock-n-roll” conquered the Soviet Union many times–always from 1960’s idiots who were actively helping the Soviets wage proxy wars all over the globe. This is after-the-fact reasoning by people whose entire lives were devoted to undermining the US in the Cold War.
At any time, the Soviets could have rolled their tanks into Poland (as they did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia), and sent the message that the fun was over. It ended because the political class and the military couldn’t hold the empire by force anymore; and once it broke on the frontiers, it broke at home, too. Once it was clear the tanks weren’t coming the tidal wave swept fast enough to end it. Had the military held with the old guard, and acted decisively, it would have been over fast for the new openness.
As for the idea that something like Tienanmen square wouldn’t have been possible in the late period of the Soviet regime, you’re nuts.
You don’t even know what a neo-con is, except as a catchy and largely misused catchphrase, and we do not live in a safe or sane world, never have.
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:17 pm 20. uburoisc:Once other thing, and this is key: the Soviet Union did not exist before the collapse because the Russian people liked it, or didn’t mind it so much or any other such thing, they never had in say in what they liked or didn’t like, or much of a say in anything period. The decisions were made either by a lunatic dictator or by a small group of all-powerful Communist bosses. If the people didn’t like it, they knew where they could wind up. The entire regime was run by a psychotic, lying, vicious criminal caste and they held on to power through the liberal application of terror, not from some popular mandate.
The system fell apart for many reasons, but sheer exhaustion seems to be a big one; also, endemic corruption at all levels of society, a gradual contempt for Marxism, military defeats, and the economic and technological backwardness of the whole enterprise. And yes, economics, did matter; when you can’t grease the wheels around the world, you lose influence, and your proxy states up and leave. But throughout this is the constant pressure: military, economic, ideological, and psychological coming from the United States through 8 administrations (yes, even Carter, who was soft on communism, did his part, though I think the pressure from good Democrats like Scoop Jackson made most of the difference)
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:56 pm 21. Kim Zigfeld:NIKOLAY:
It’s sheer poppycock to say that Russians dismantled communism. The fact that you can repeat such a ridiculous bit of Kremlin propaganda in public only goes to show how very far Russia has to go before it becomes a civilized society.
Communism imploded of its own fetid weight. Russians as a people did nothing to bring it down, just as they did nothing to protect Solzhenitsyn from GULAG and exile. Russians have never shown any inclination to be responsible in managing their own government — in their defense, one can also say that the Russian people as a whole showed the same sloth when the Bolsheviks arrived on the scene, and did little to bring them to power or keep them there.
Russia is a failed civilization with a declining lifespan and population that may soon become extinct. Instead of looking to reform, you look to rationalize failure. That makes you Russia’s very most dangerous type of enemy.
Aug 4, 2008 - 3:05 pm 22. Nikolay:“This is complete, fanciful bullshit, from beginning to end, yes, your memories are hazy, and wrong on every count. Yeah, I’ve heard the “rock-n-roll” conquered the Soviet Union many times–always from 1960’s idiots who were actively helping the Soviets wage proxy wars all over the globe. This is after-the-fact reasoning by people whose entire lives were devoted to undermining the US in the Cold War.”
Well, I _lived_ there (an in fact still live in Russia), and I talked a lot with people who experienced Communism themselves, so it’s not like I’m talking about a thing I have no direct knowledge about (as opposed, probably, to you).
My parents that distributed typewritten samizdat books of Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov and other dissidents, had nothing to do with proxy wars of 60ies, and yet they certainly saw themselves as part of the “Beatles generation”.
“As for the idea that something like Tienanmen square wouldn’t have been possible in the late period of the Soviet regime, you’re nuts.”
Well, I’m not. Things like (relatively minor) massacres in the Baltic states and in Georgia perpetrated by Gorbachev were done in the “colonial politics” mode, like British massacred Indians in 20th century.
But the coup of 1991 in Moscow, where army was turned against people they saw as their own, had _3_ civilian victims, and that was too much and led to the direct collapse of the Soviet Union.
“You don’t even know what a neo-con is, except as a catchy and largely misused catchphrase, and we do not live in a safe or sane world, never have.”
What makes you think so? Just in case, I’m not into crazy conspiracy theories about “Zionist evil neo-con cabal” etc. Neo-cons is a group that exists in reality, and they had particular ideas about the Cold War and a particular influence on Reagan.
You can either praise Reagan for the way he ended the Cold War or you can praise the neo-con positions on the Cold War. You can’t do both at the same time, because they were in total contradiction. That Perle, Cheney and Rumsfeld were saying that Reagan was dangerously naive when he engaged Gorbachev is a historical fact.
And the world is neither sane nor safe, but it’s much safer and saner than it could be thanks to the fact that Reagan listened to his inner Carter despite hard-right’s objections.
Aug 4, 2008 - 3:19 pm 23. kabud:i am so much amazed of commentators blindness
NUKES ARE POINTED AT YOU as NEVER BEFORE
now you have Soviet NUKES, Biological weapons and chemical as well
PLUS
You have Chinese army in millions and military spendings at USA level
You idiots think the just COLLECT BULLETS AS A HOBBY?
You gonna die if you are not going to wake up
Communism NEVER ENDED
It only ended in the stupid heads of the western useful idiots
But they can and plan and so far it looks like they WILL END ALL OF YOU
WHY THE REST OF US HAVE TO SUFFER BECAUSE SOME SHMAKS HAVE NO BRAINS?
Aug 4, 2008 - 3:22 pm 24. Banafsheh:I remember the day in 1974 when Solzhenitsyn arrived in the US…boy was he happy. He stayed here and benefited from the fame and comfort that life afforded him here for more than 25 years. Then he goes back to mother Russia, only to launch attacks on the U.S. and act like the lapdog of Mr. Putin. So much for gratitude.
Aug 4, 2008 - 4:53 pm 25. Steynian 215 « Free Mark Steyn!:[...] ALEXANDER Solzhenitsyn Set the Stage for Reagan and Walesa; Alexander Solzhenitsyn denounced the West too, [...]
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:32 pm 26. uburoi:Kabud, at what point will you begin to use complete sentences, drop the constant use of capital letters, cut back on the heavy breathing, and stop the the “you’re all going to die if you don’t listen to me right now,” routine. Frankly, you sound like a lunatic in almost every post, even when your facts seem reasonably well-ordered. Further, I kind of suspect you submit posts under various guises so you can make the same points as if they were from different authors (something about the same stylistic tics appearing over and over). Calm down, pour a glass of wine, it will all be over soon.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:11 pm 27. uburoi:Nikolay, we both know you have no idea what a neocon was or is, and you wouldn’t know Irving Kristol or Norman Pohhoretz from a hole in the ground. I know the names you mentioned, and most of their work, and I’m pretty sure that Reagan thought pretty highly of most of them. I’m guessing you’ve been reading Mr. Diggins over at CUNY? Well, he’s partly right, but keep in mind that Reagan understood the language of force and of diplomacy; there was no reason to reject Gorbachev out of hand, and he did pursue diplomatic solutions where possible, but he also used the laguage of hawks very effectively when necessary. It’s not as if Reagan invented dialogue with the Soviets; every president since Truman had extensive diplomatic relations with the Soviets; the problem was the Soviets were prone to lie about everything–and take advantage of weakness. Like the neocons, Reagan was international, willing to get involved wherever the Soviets were, and not afraid to butress our involvment with troops. He wasn’t just talking, behind him he was rearming. What his advisors said was not to expect much from talking with the Soviets, and based on the overwhelming evidence, they were right.
Speaking of weakness, Carter was a terible president and maybe one of the worst ever on foreign policy; he never had any consistant signal on the Soviets, and the United States was clearly on the defensive all around the world during his presidency. Every message he sent regarding the Soviet adventures from Africa to Latin America to Asia was debilitating; 1979 was a disaster. Carter never fully grasped the Soviet inclination for mendacity and agression or the extent of Soviet meddling around the world; Carter was nothing more than a pious finger-wagger, the Communists laughed at him. The policies of the previous administrations had been either containment or rollback; Carter was retreat. If anyone gave the Soviet system hope (and the Soviet slaves around the world despair), it was Carter.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:52 pm 28. Bogdan of Australia:Nikolay; your infatuation with Carter has no basis in reality. After Conference On Security And Cooperation in Helsinki in 1974, in Eastern Europe and in Poland and Czechoslovakia in particular dissidents began to create so called Human Rigts Watch Groups or Helsinki Groups. They did so in a good faith that the Carter’s administration would make Kremlin accountable in its promise to stick to the Helsinki Agreement and help the dissidents. Nothing of that kind happened. In fact the persecution of dissidents in Poland and Chechoslovakia intensified and that was the time when the majority of political murders, in particular in Poland, have been commited by Communist security apparatus. We had to wait another ten years, until Reagan’s policy began to bear fruits. Carter writing letters to dissidents! Pathetic!
Aug 5, 2008 - 5:40 am 29. Nikolay:“Nikolay, we both know you have no idea what a neocon was or is, and you wouldn’t know Irving Kristol or Norman Pohhoretz from a hole in the ground.”
Aug 5, 2008 - 5:40 am 30. coisty:Well, you’re veery mature here, and, of course, wrong.
And no amount of Orwellian historical revisionism can hide the fact that neocons called Reagan an appeaser and cut-and-runner, compared him to Nevil Chamberlain and even after the end of his turn claimed that his Russian policies will end in disaster. Sure, he listened to them, but in his overall approach to USSR he was anti-neocon.
You can either claim that Reagan was just extraordinary lucky that vicious Communists didn’t succeed in their devious plans despite having successfully duped Reagan or say that his policies were, in the end, failures (like, Russia is still around and not in the Stone Age), or, try to rewrite history. The last approach seems to be most popular.
And no amount of Orwellian historical revisionism can hide the fact that neocons called Reagan an appeaser and cut-and-runner, compared him to Nevil Chamberlain
You are absolutely correct. I, being a naive teenager at the time, was one of those anti-communists who fell for the anti-Reagan pro-neocon line. Norman Podhoretz excoriated the “Reagan road to detente” and talked of appeasement.
Following Reagan’s death it was surreal listening to those who attacked him as an appeaser when he was in office claiming him as one of their own.
Aug 5, 2008 - 10:42 am 31. kabud:uburoi:
u’ve got to start thinking,
Judging from your other opinions here i know that educational system never explained to u how
but it actually may save your life
i am not sure who did more damage: openly leftist Carter
or Reagan with his totally false and deceiving optimism
same actually could be applied to current presidential run
Just ask yourself again and again:
why kremlin and china maintain WMD on the level FAR exceeding American
nobody is threatening them
Aug 5, 2008 - 11:56 am 32. Steve Nelson:Benafsheh,
You’re not Kim Zigfeld are you??? I know you don’t care for the Russians making deals with the mullahs, who probably had Klebnikov killed, but the oligarchs and people in power are just taking what kickbacks they can from deals with Iran. I don’t think they actually view Iran as a blood brother or ally, just a convenient party to annoy the U.S. with and make some money at the same time off of.
Seriously, KZ, and the Cold War fanatic Kabud, hate Russia and Russians. And worst of all, in the name of saving them, this Pharisee-like online anonymous collective troll shows no compassion for them whatsover.
If Russia really were lurching back to the Soviet model, Solzhenitsyn would have recognized it and called it. The fact that he saw Russia’s problems as more spiritual and moral than political and economic is hard for Westerners to accept, as is his statement that Putin just barely did what was possible – marshall oil wealth to try and put the country back together again, whether Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again or not. This was not exactly a ringing endorsement, just an acknowledgement of reality.
What idiot really thinks that if the men in the Kremlin suddenly became angels, Russia would stop losing population, stop killing itself with alcohol, drugs, AIDS, and bribes? And yet I see no compassion whatsoever for ordinary Russians from KZ contributor Pajamas Media, just good riddance. When a weak Russia becomes absorbed into Greater China and the Global Caliphate forty or fifty years hence, will KZ be happy? Bzerzinski and the others who always viewed the retreat and humiliation of Russian power as a good thing will long be dead and gone, but their legacy will remain. Russia needs the West desperately, and the West actually still needs Russia. Kissinger at least understands that Russia historically saved Europe, by sacrificing itself (usually inadvertently) – from the Mongols, from the Muslim Tartars, from the megalomaniac Napoleon, and from Hitler.
Solzhenitsyn said in his last interview with Der Spiegel that we would realize that someday, and come back together again as allies, just as we did in the Boxer Rebellion, WWI and WWII.
Aug 5, 2008 - 12:31 pm 33. kabud:hey, Kim:
-never pay attention to this enemy: Steve Nelson
-never get in a discussion with IT, yes IT as in sh*t
-never reveal to IT anything
-delete all messages of IT immediately
I know what i am talking about.
God Bless you Kim.
If you need ANY support or anything:
contact us. We have a structure for those thing
God Bless America
Aug 5, 2008 - 12:46 pm 34. Javelin:I am sorry for my churlish earlier post. He was a brave man, a great writer and helped sink the ugly Soviet tyranny. That is what should be on his tombstone.
Aug 5, 2008 - 8:21 pm 35. Javelin:It’s nice to see Mr. Blumer throw his juvenile right wing politicking into his obituary. You can slam Gorbachev all you want, but if it wasn’t for good people like him at the top, certainly better than a blog rat like you, the Soviet Union could have kept on going. If the USSR had a capable and ruthless ideologue leader he could have reformed and consolidated things enough to prolong the agony. Gorbachev had to deal with hard liners at home so it was impossible for him to quit the Communist party and join the Republican party. A softheaded little dweeb like Blumer has no conception what a leader in a country like that had to contend with, so he can keep his cheap partisan historical rants to himself if he had any sense of integrity. I don’t think that McCain’s prison experience is going to give him any leverage in dealing with North Korea or Vietnam, unless there are brave, liberal reformers in those places willing to compromise with us.
Aug 5, 2008 - 8:29 pm 36. kabud:Javelin:
he was a KGB agent a high flyer, very important operative:
his function was to sufficiently decrease the UNDERSTANDING of the scale of genocides KREMLIN conducted in USSR and in the world
Krushev wanted to survive personally and save the regime:
if the real truth will EVER come out and will become A PUBLICLY ADMITTED KNOWLEDGE , -
guys you DONT HAVE ANY IDEA…Hitler- did nothing compared to THEM
check this film “THE SOVIET STORY”
http://xyu.livejournal.com/671500.html (links to downloads inside)
————————
Solzh antisemitism and anti-ukrainianism is a key
Zionism and Ukrainian Nationalism were always considered by the enemy to be the most threatening movements to soviet regime
they even dispatched Stashinski to kill 2 most important `enemies`:
Bandera and Rebet in Germany: both were leaders of Ukrainian nationalism, Rebet was Jewish
Ukrainians continued armed resistance up until the 60s
in 1949 there were tens of thousands communists killed by UPA and over 10 thousands UPA bunkers captured by NKVD
it was a large scale partisan war with 100s of thousands of UPA fighters involved
In 1918 when 1st Ukrainian state UNR was established and soldiers came back from WW1 : Ukraine had an army of several hundred thousands willing to fight:
socialist government, those traitors, dismissed the army on Kremlin’ order-
even though Ukrainians could crash bolshevism in 1 month: they were ready and willing(((((
It took Stalin to organize a famine in Ukraine to somehow secure the existence of USSR in 1932-33
5-10 millions people starved. My relatives witnessed those events
Aug 5, 2008 - 11:02 pm 37. BizzyBlog » Alexander Solzhenitsyn, RIP; He Set the Table for Reagan, John Paul II, and Walesa:[...] This was originally posted at Pajamas Media on Monday. Also see this previous BizzyBlog post announcing the column for related commentary and [...]
Aug 6, 2008 - 10:13 am 38. Sandra M:For decades, communism and nazism were defined as opposites.
It was in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, THE FOUNTAINHEAD that Rand defined the two systems as variations on a theme: one demanded you sacrifice for the state, the other demanded you sacrifice for the race. Both systems were based on sacrifice and altruism. By putting a new ethical base: rational self-interest beneath the American political system of laissez-faire capitalism. Rand greatly undermined Communism.
Rand had grown up in the Soviet Union and her novels WE THE LIVING although not as horrifying as the Gulag and Ivan Denisovich novels explained how these horrors were possible.
Once you undercut an individual’s RIGHTS in favor of those of “society” a non-existent entity which you are immediately excluded from the moment the state turns against you, any horror is possible.
Unions claim that the working man is responsible for this country’s greatness. In ATLAS SHRUGGED, Rand demonstrated that it is the thinking man who is responsible and if he goes on strike, society falls apart.
Rand, Buckley, Tom Clancy’s RED STORM RISING (in which the Soviet Union starts World War III in pursuit of oil) the Polish Pope, Maggie Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Charlie Wilson (CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR) all had starring roles in bringing down the Soviet Union.
Then, instead of doing the equivalent of “de-nazifing the society, President Clinton urged the Russians to “forgive and forget.” Wait. It gets better. When the Clinton White House was asked by the Russians for help in setting up a new legal system, the Clinton White House suggested the Russians watch LAW AND ORDER.
Left-wing Democrats, communists and Islamicist don’t think in terms of principles and concepts. That is their weakness and should be our strength.
Aug 7, 2008 - 11:54 am 39. kabud:the best text Ayn Rand produced was her testimony to House committee on anti-american activity: check it out
Ayn did not believe in God, so all her work is not worth real attentions,
if she influenced people- well, not enough
it looks like USA will not be able to protect itself from communist attack coming soon:
Ayn should be more smart and realize that GOD is the only guidance
God Bless USA
Aug 7, 2008 - 10:18 pm