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.