Posted on 02/19/2003 12:07:28 PM PST by mrustow
http://ToogoodReports.com/ Call me a Cold War sentimentalist — but smile when you say it. I never felt so alive, as when I was passing through Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall, my heart in my throat, between free, West Berlin, and its garrisoned sister city in the East. And how I lived, with a few American dollars in my pocket, on the other side of The Wall. Two weeks ago, on Joe Millionaire, I saw golddiggers and the ditchdigger spend nights in the sort of four-star hotels I once stayed in. In June, 1989, just months before The Wall fell, I ate chateaubriand in, and stayed at the Hotel Gellert, Budapest's most luxurious digs. The Gellert even had pissoirs fit for a king. Our room had a balcony overlooking the Danube. (I also got awoken from my dreams the next morning, at 6 a.m., by the screeching of streetcar wheels.) The Germans have a phrase, "wie Gott in Paris leben" — to "live like G-d in Paris." Today, with the influx of dollars in the East, and attendant inflation, I could sell my wife and son to slavers, and still couldn't afford the fare to Budapest, and a night in the Gellert. Alright, so maybe you're no beef eater, the Danube is only the title of a banal waltz, and as far as you're concerned, Germany is just "Old Europe." But you too have reason to miss The Wall. With America poised to send hundreds of thousands of men in harm's way in Iraq, it is understandable that there should be a heated debate as to the merits of going to war, even if most commentators are now resigned to war. And yet, much of the debate has been dominated by false historical assumptions. The truth is not only intrinsically valuable, but in matters of war and peace, of great utility. People usually seek to explain the fall of the Soviet Union and the East Bloc, via either of two competing theories. A theory popular in the U.S., especially among Republicans, holds that Ronald Reagan's 1980s arms buildup forced the Soviets to compete with us, a competition that eventually exhausted their economy, and caused their system to collapse. By contrast, the theory of choice among many American leftists and foreigners is that the Soviet Union and East Bloc were brought down by a bloodless, popular revolution – what fans (among them, journalist Paul Berman) of Czechoslovakian dissident playwright and contemporary President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and his group, Charter 77, called the former Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution." During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan engineered the biggest peacetime arms buildup ever. On June 12, 1987 in West Berlin, he told the Soviet premier – thanks to speechwriter Peter Robinson – "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And beginning in June, 1989, less than six months after Reagan handed over the reins of power to George Herbert Walker Bush, the world saw the biggest liberation, in terms of sheer numbers, in history. What's not to like? If the conventional wisdom in the U.S. is correct, and Ronald Reagan's arms buildup caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, then Reagan must get both the credit and the blame for today's world order, or lack thereof. With all due respect, however, I don't think he deserves either. Reagan cared deeply about the millions oppressed by Soviet totalitarianism, but he did not cause The Wall to come down. Alternatively, we are to believe that, inspired by a group of poets and artists who signed petitions and wrote editorials, in 1989, the Czechoslovakian people "shouted down" their communist rulers, and young East Germans simply decided to tear down the Berlin Wall. So, for 44 years, the Czechoslovakians and East Germans (not to mention all the other nationalities who suffered under the boot of Soviet terror) had needed only to mass in the street, and start shouting! Think of all of the missed opportunities! Such silliness will not convince any sober person above the age of consent, much less anyone familiar with the history of Soviet communism. It was Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev that caused The Wall to fall, but not because Ronald Reagan had succeeded in converting him to the cause of freedom, and not because Gorbachev sought to end the Soviet Union and the East Bloc. Rather, Gorbachev was a vain, confused man. Dreaming of being a beloved dictator, he sought to be both the dictator and the liberator of his people. As Stalin, Hitler, and Mao had already shown, however, the way to become a beloved dictator, is through murdering millions of one's own people, and terrorizing the rest. Most of the citizens whom a tyrant has not yet murdered, will learn to fear him, others will learn to love him, and some will feel both emotions for him. Witness the nostalgia for the "certainty" and "security" Stalin supposedly provided that is still widespread in "free" Russia, and the former Soviet Republics and East Bloc nations. Gorbachev was a tyrant who stopped tyrannizing. In a tyranny, such a man is soon out of a job, if not dead. Gorbachev expected the Soviets to embrace him as their leader. Instead, they no longer recognized him as leader, but as the cause of a vacuum in leadership. Soon enough, Gorby was an ex-leader. In 1991, his resignation as Premier of the Soviet Union was redundant, since as many observers have commented, he was the ruler of a nation that no longer existed. Gorbachev is lucky to still be alive. Had any other Soviet leader been in power on November 9, 1989, the East German border guards would simply have shot all of the protesters who massed at The Wall. But Gorbachev's confusion had spread west, and immobilized the East German apparat, as well, and so instead of shooting demonstrators, the East German authorities opened the border crossings. In the summer of 1989, East Germans engaged in mass demonstrations, action that would have been suicidal before Gorbachev. They also began leaving the country by the tens of thousands for Hungary, which they could use to enter free, neutral Austria. (It did not help that the Soviets' man in East Berlin, Premier Erich Honecker, was then ailing, but the role of the East German premier was to follow orders. The Soviets always called the shots, when it came to the border.) Hungary had long had a unique status as the freest country in the East Bloc, where some people had private property, and as a result, the standard of living was the highest in the communist world. During the early 1980s, while visiting East Berlin, I recall a pervasive climate of fear. In September, 1980, wandering through a pedestrian tunnel, two machine gun-wielding, East German "Vopos" ("Volkspolizisten" – people's police, though they looked more like soldiers than cops) stopped me. "Ausweis, bitte!" one commanded me. (Papers, please!) The point was to intimidate me – and it worked. By contrast, the first time I visited Budapest, in spring of 1982, I was wandering around with a map, obviously lost, when two machine gun-wielding, Hungarian policemen stopped me. These guys, however, were trying to help. I tried to communicate with them, but they spoke neither German nor English, and my Hungarian was limited to "please" and "thank you," and "yes" and "no." Before I'd gotten very far, a forty-something Hungarian couple barged in, and started telling jokes and yucking it up with the policemen. I wandered away, without them even missing me. In East Germany, the locals did not yuck it up with policemen, and foreigners did not wander away from the police unnoticed. (Between 1980 and 1989, I visited East Germany and Hungary three times each.) Oddly, even Gorbachev has supported the popular revolution theory. In November, he told the Berliner Morgenpost (my translation), "Basically, the entire development showed that the Honecker Regime had blown any credit it had with the people." So, it was all a legitimacy crisis? So, Stalin enjoyed great legitimacy with the Soviet people, as did Honecker and his predecessors with the East German people in earlier years? Only if legitimacy comes out of the barrel of a machine gun. If my interpretation is correct, liberty arose in Eastern Europe, and chaos elsewhere, as a fluke. Am I knocking Reagan? Not at all. But even hindsight is often blind. While those who identify themselves as conservatives are the first to speak of "the law of unintended consequences" regarding their opponents' proposals, many of them put on blinders when it comes to their own plans. It was the fall of the Soviet Union that opened the Pandora's Box of Islam, and led directly to today's world, in which America finds herself beset by enemies, particularly Islamic terrorists. As the saying goes, be careful what you pray for, because your prayers just might be answered.
To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Nicholas at adddda@earthlink.net .
Republicans should be flashing the twin towers explosion in the backround with this quote superimposed in campaign ads when they attack their opponents.
Very well said and worth posting again, IMNTBHO.
Apparently. Some folks are complaining, because I didn't attach a barf alert. Oh, well, much as you try, you can't please every paying customer.
I don't know what your point is, because you didn't say anything intelligible, Newbie. Tell you what, how about you post your criteria for what articles I may post? Then I can print them out, and wipe my butt with them.
They were right. And you are rather pious and intemperate against those who disagree with your pet revisionist theory...especially for someone who casts unwarranted personal attacks around so freely...
Republicans should be flashing the twin towers explosion in the backround with this quote superimposed in campaign ads when they attack their opponents.
Well, I'm shocked by Red Ron's statement, but not surprised. The guy has always been a traitor. Dellums begs the chicken-egg question: Is he so bad, because Oakland is so bad, or is Oakland so bad, because he's so bad?
I read the whole article. His nostalgia for the good old days does nothing to support his thesis.
You blame everything on Bill Clinton, and deny the spread of radical Islam over the past 13 years, yet you call other people "shallow." What's wrong with this picture?
I did not deny the spread of radical Islam in the last 13 years. I did suggest that radical Moslems were emboldened by Bill Clinton's cowardice and they have said as much themselves. If you want to go ahead and defend Bill's foreign policy record regarding Islamic terrorist, be my guest. Islamic terrorism did not start after the fall of the Soviet Empire, especially considering the Soviets sponsored much of it. The following are a few of the Islamic terrorist attacks I can remember from the 60s through the 80s: Egypt, Syria et al attack Israel, Israeli olympians murdered, Aquille Lauro (sp?), Beirut marine barracks bombing, PLO in Lebanon, various bombings in Western Europe, Pan Am flight over Lockerbie.
Back under communism, the tour guides were all party members; you must have had a holdover. No sane, halfway intelligent Gerry would have made such a moronic statement. Even if East Germans had wanted to go to the opera, they didn't have the time. They spent every "free" minute waiting on endless lines for luxuries like bread. And once they'd gotten their bread, they had to rush home, so as not to break curfew.
I visited Dresden, which we firebombed, killing over 100,000 civilians in one night. Dresden is one of the few honest beefs they have with us, but after all they did, they have no business complaining about any other country's conduct in that war.
But the day they started tearing it down, I told my wife, we won world war III, but world war IV will be fought in the middle east.
My view of Islam was filtered through the rantings of Yassir Arafat, but I was certain he had a vast hoard behind him, all aimed at Israel.
As the saying goes, generals are always fighting the last war -- politicians and civilians, too. But as you observed, the moment one "war" ends, you have to prepare for the next one, and think in new ways, not the old ways. Unfortunately, that's not the way things worked out.
Horsehockey!!!! Tell that to the 13 he slaughtered in Vilnius in 1991.
Do you think that killing 13 people counts as a slaughter in the context of Soviet history? A traditional Soviet response would have seen 1300 slaughtered.
Yup. You have him hoist squarely by his Revisionist little petard. What a maroon. 
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