On Reagan

Those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse [are] wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the famous historian, said these words two years into the Reagan presidency, reflecting the general attitude of the liberal establishment in America.

One year later, in March of 1983, Reagan made his famous speech in which he called a spade a spade. The Soviet Union was “an evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.”

Roger Kimball notes Anthony Lewis of the New York Times described the speech varyingly as “primitive — the only word for it,” “simplistic,” “sectarian,” “terribly dangerous.” Anthony Lewis sitting in the comfort of Manhattan could afford to make such judgements.

Natan Sharansky couldn’t:

In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan’s “provocation” quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.

And it was only a few years later that the whole impressive edifice of communism came crashing down.

Lech Walesa:

When talking about Ronald Reagan, I have to be personal. We in Poland took him so personally. Why? Because we owe him our liberty. This can’t be said often enough by people who lived under oppression for half a century, until communism fell in 1989.