Is it then possible or impossible to transmit the experience of
those who have suffered to those who have yet to suffer? Can one
part of humanity learn from the bitter experience of another or
can it not? Is it possible or impossible to warn someone of danger?
How many witnesses have been sent to the West in the last 60 years?
How many waves of immigrants? How many millions of persons? They
are all here. You meet them every day. You know who they are: if
not by their spiritual disorientation, their grief, their melancholy,
then you can distinguish them by their accents, by their external
appearance.
Coming from different countries and without consulting with one
another...they have brought to you exactly the same experience;
they tell you exactly the same thing: they warn you of what is
already happening, what has happened in the past. But the proud
skyscrapers stand on, point to the sky and say: it will never happen
here. This will never come to us. It's not possible here.
It can happen. It is possible. As a Russian proverb says: "When
it happens to you, you'll know it's true." But do we really have
to wait for the moment when the knife is at our throats? Couldn't
it be possible, ahead of time, soberly to assess the worldwide
menace that threatens to swallow the whole world? I was swallowed
myself. I have been in the dragon's belly, in the red burning belly
of the dragon. He wasn't able to digest me. He threw me up. I have
come to you as a witness to what it's like there, in the dragon's
belly.
It's an astonishing phenomenon that communism has been writing
about itself in the most open way - in black and white - for 125
years. And even more openly, more candidly in the beginning, for instance, which everyone knows by name,
and which almost no one ever takes the trouble to read, contains
even more terrible things than what has actually been done. It's
perfectly amazing. The whole world can read, everyone is literate,
Humanity acts in such a way as if it didn't understand
what communism is... and doesn't want to understand,
is not capable of understanding.
I think it isn't only a question of the disguises which communism
has assumed in the last decades. It's rather that the essence of
communism is quite beyond the limits of human understanding. It's
hard to believe that people could actually plan such things and
carry them out. And precisely because its essence is beyond comprehension,
communism is so difficult to understand.
In my last address in Washington I spoke a great deal about the
Soviet state system, how it was created and what it is today. But
it's perhaps more important to discuss with you the ideology that
inspired the system, that created it and that still governs it.
It's much more important to understand the essence of this ideology,
and above all its legacy which hasn't changed at all in 125 years.
It hasn't changed since the day it was born.
That Marxism is not a science is something which is entirely clear
to intelligent people in the Soviet Union. It would be a joke to
call it some sort of science. Leaving aside the exact sciences,
such as physics, mathematics, and the natural sciences, even the
social sciences can predict an event - when in what way and how
the event might occur. Communism has never made any such forecasts.
It has never said where, when, and precisely what is going to happen.
Nothing but declamations. Declamations to the effect that the world
proletariat will overthrow the world bourgeoisie and the most happy
and radiant society will then arise. The fantasies of Marx, Engels
and Lenin break off at this point, not one of them goes any further
to describe what the society would be like. They simply said: the
most radiant, most happy society. Everything for the sake of man.
I wouldn't want to enumerate for you all the unsuccessful predictions
of Marxism, but I can give a couple. For example, it was claimed
that the conditions of the working class in the West would deteriorate
steadily, get more and more unbearable until the workers would
be reduced to total poverty.
(If only in our country we could feed and clothe our working class,
provide it with everything and give it as much leisure as you do!)
Or the famous prediction - Communist revolutions would all begin
in such advanced industrial countries as England, France, America,
Germany - that's where communism will begin. (But it worked out
exactly the other way, as you know.)
Or the prediction that the socialist state wouldn't even exist.
As soon as capitalism would be overthrown, the state would at once
wither away.
(Look about you: where can you see states as powerful as in the
so-called socialist or Communist countries?)
Or the prediction that wars are inherent only to capitalism. Wars
are said to arise only because of capitalism; as soon as communism
is introduced, all wars will come to an end.
(We have seen enough of this also in Budapest, in Prague, on the
Soviet-Chinese border, in the occupation of the Baltic countries,
and when Poland was stabbed in the back. We have seen enough of
this already, and we will surely see more yet.)
Communism is as crude an attempt to explain society and the individual
as if a surgeon were to perform his delicate operations with a
meat-axe.
All that is subtle in human psychology and in the structure of
society (which is even more delicate); all of this is reduced to
crude economic processes. This whole created being - man - is reduced
to matter.
It's characteristic that communism is so devoid of arguments that
it has none to advance against its opponents in our Communist countries.
It lacks arguments and hence there is the club, the prison, the
concentration camp, and insane asylums with forced confinement.
Marxism has always opposed freedom. I will quote just a few words
from the founding fathers of communism, Marx and Engels
(I quote from the first Soviet edition of 1929)
"Reforms are a sign of weakness" (vol. 23, p. 339);
"Democracy is more to be feared than monarchy and aristocracy,"
(vol. 2, p. 369);
"Political liberty is a false liberty, worse than the most abject
slavery" (vol. 2, p. 394).
In their correspondence Marx and Engels frequently said that after
achieving power, terror would be indispensable, that "it will be
necessary to repeat the year 1793. After achieving power, we'll
be considered monsters, but we couldn't care less" (vol. 25, p.
187).
Communism has never concealed the fact that it rejects all absolute
concepts of morality. It scoffs at any consideration of "good" and
"evil" as indisputable categories. Communism considers morality
to be relative, to be a class matter. Depending upon circumstances
and the political situation, any act, including murder, even the
killing of thousands, could be good or could be bad. It all depends
upon class ideology.
And who defines class ideology? The whole class cannot get together
to pass judgment. A handful of people determine what is good and
what is bad. But I must say that in this very respect communism
has been most successful. It has infected the whole world with
the belief in the relativity of good and evil. Many people besides
the Communists are carried away by this idea today.
Among enlightened people it is considered rather awkward to use
seriously such words as "good" and '"evil." Communism has managed
to instill in all of us that these concepts are old-fashioned concepts
and laughable. But if we are to be deprived of the concepts of
good and evil, what will be left? Nothing but the manipulation
of one another. We will decline to the status of animals. Both
the theory and practice of communism are completely inhuman for
that reason.
There is a word very commonly used these days: "anti-communism."
It's a very stupid word, badly put together. It makes it appear
as though communism were something original, something basic, something
fundamental. Therefore, it is taken as the point of departure,
and anti-communism is defined in relation to communism. Here is
why I say that this word was poorly selected, that it was put together
by people who do not understand etymology: the primary, the eternal
concept is humanity. And communism is anti-humanity.
Whoever says "anti-communism.... is saying, in effect, anti-anti-humanity.
A poor construction. So we should say that which is against communism
is for humanity. Not to accept, to reject this inhuman Communist
ideology is simply to be a human being. It isn't being a member
of a party. It's a protest of our souls against those who tell
us to forget the concepts of good and evil.
But what is amazing is that apart from all their books, communism
has offered a multitude of examples for modern man to see. The
tanks have rumbled through Budapest. It is nothing. The tanks roar
into Czechoslovakia. It is nothing. No one else would have been
forgiven, but communism can be excused. With some kind of strange
deliberation, as though God wanted to punish them by taking away
their reason, the Communists erected the Berlin wall. It is indeed
a monstrous symbol that demonstrates the true meaning of communism.
For 14 years people have been machine gunned there, and not only
those who wanted to leave the happy Communist society. Recently
some foreign boy from the western side fell into the Spree River.
Some people wanted to pull him out, but the East German border
guards opened fire. "No, no, don't save him." And so he drowned;
this innocent boy.
Has the Berlin wall convinced anyone? No again. It's being ignored.
It's there, but it doesn't affect us. We'll never have a wall like
that. And the tanks in Budapest and Prague, they won't come here
either. On all the borders of the Communist countries, the European
ones in any case, you can find electronic killing devices. These
are automatic devices for killing anyone who goes across. But people
here say: "That doesn't threaten us either, we are not afraid of
that."
In the Communist countries they have a developed system of forced
treatment in insane asylums. That's nothing. We're living quietly.
Three times a day - right at this very moment - the doctors are
making their rounds and injecting substances into peoples' arms
that destroy their brains. Pay no attention to it. We'll continue
to live in peace and quiet here.
There's a certain woman here named Angela Davis. I don't know if
you are familiar with her in this country, but in our country,
literally for one whole year, we heard of nothing at all except
about Angela Davis. There was only Angela Davis in the whole world
and she was suffering. We had our ears stuffed with Angela Davis.
Little children in school were told to sign petitions in defense
of Angela Davis. Little boys and girls, 8 and 9 years old in schools,
were asked to do this. Well, they set her free. Although she didn't
have a rough time in this country she came to recuperate in Soviet
resorts.
Some Soviet dissidents - but more important, a group of Czech dissidents
- addressed an appeal to her: "Comrade Davis, you were in prison.
You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when
you consider yourself innocent. You now have such authority. Could
you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those persons
in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?" Angela
Davis answered: "They deserve what they get. Let them remain in
prison." That is the face of communism. That's the heart of communism
for you.
I would particularly want to remind you today that communism develops
in a straight line and as a single entity, without altering as
people now like to say. Lenin did indeed develop Marxism, but primarily
along the lines of ideological intolerance. If you read Lenin,
you will be astonished at how much hatred there was in him at the
least deviation, whenever some view differed from his by so much
as a hair's breadth. Lenin also developed Marxism in the direction
of inhumanity.
Before the October Revolution in Russia, Lenin wrote a book called
"The Lessons of the Paris Commune." There he analyzed why the Paris
Commune was defeated in 1871. And his principal conclusion was
that the Commune had not shot, had not killed enough of its enemies.
It had destroyed too few people, when it was necessary to kill
entire classes and groups. And when he came to power, Lenin did
just this.
And then the word Stalinism was thought up. It's a term which became
very popular. Even in the West they often say now: "If only the
Soviet Union doesn't return to Stalinism." But there never was
any such thing as Stalinism. This was contrived by Khrushchev and
his group in order to shift onto Stalin all of the characteristics
and all the principal defects of communism. It was a very effective
move.
But in reality Lenin had managed to give
shape to all the main aspects before Stalin ever came on the scene.
It was Lenin who deceived the peasants about their land. He is
the one who deceived the workers about self-management. He is the
one who turned the trade unions into organs of oppression. He is
the one who created the Cheka, the secret police. He is the one
who created the concentration camps. It is he who sent troops out
to the border areas to crush any national movements for liberation
and to set up an empire.
The only new thing that Stalin did was based on mistrust. Where it
would have been enough - in order to instill general fear - to jail
two people, he would arrest a hundred. And those who followed Stalin
have merely returned to the previous tactic: if it is necessary to
send two off to jail, then send two, not a hundred.
In the eyes of the party, Stalin's entire guilt lay elsewhere: he
did not trust his own Communist Party. Due to this alone the concept
of Stalinism was devised. But Stalin had never deviated from the
same basic line. They used to sculpt a bas-relief of Marx, Engels,
Lenin and Stalin all together; to this one could add Mao Tse-tung,
Kim II Sung, Ho Chi Minh; they are all in the same line of development.
It is said that China is a sort of purified, puritanical type of
communism, one which hasn't been transformed for the worse. But China
is simply a delayed phase of that so-called "war communism"
established by Lenin in Russia, but which was in force only until
1921. Lenin established it, not because the military situation required
it, but because this is how they envisioned the future of their
society. But when economic pressure required them to retreat, they
introduced the so-called New Economic Policy and they retreated.
In China this initial phase has simply lasted longer.
China is characterized by all the same traits: massive compulsory
labor which is not paid in accordance with its value; work on holidays;
forced living in communes and the incessant drumming in of slogans
and dogmas that abolish the human essence and deny all individuality
to man.
What's worst in the 'world Communist system' is its unity, its cohesion. Enrico Belinguer quite recently said that the sun had set on the
Comintern. Not at all. It hasn't set. Its energy has been transformed
into electricity which is now pulsing through underground cables.
The sun of the Comintern today spreads its energy everywhere in the
form of high-voltage electricity. Quite recently there was an incident
when western Communists indignantly denied that Portugal was operating
on instructions from Moscow. Of course Moscow also denied this. And
then it was discovered that those very orders had been openly published
in the Soviet magazine "Problems of Peace and Socialism."These were the very instructions that Ponomarev had given. All the seeming differences among the Communist parties of the world
are imaginary. All are united on one point: your social order must
be destroyed. Why should we be surprised if the world doesn't understand
this? Even the socialists, who are the closest to communism, don't
understand this themselves. They cannot grasp the true nature of
communism.
Recently, the leader of the Swedish socialists, Olaf Palme, said
that the only way that communism can survive is by taking the path
of democracy. That is the same thing as saying that the only way
in which a wolf can survive would be to stop eating meat and become
a lamb. And yet Palme lives right next door. Sweden is quite close
to the Soviet Union. I think that he, and Mitterand, and the Italian
socialists will live to the day when they will be in the position
that (Portugal's Mario) Soares is in today.
Soares' situation today, by the way, is not yet at its worst. An
even more terrible future awaits him and his party. Only the Russian socialists - the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries
- could have told them of the fate that awaits them. But they cannot
tell of it; they are all dead; they've all been killed. Read the Gulag Archipelago for that.
Of course in the present situation the
Communists have to assume various disguises. Sometimes we hear words
like the "popular front," at other times "dialogue with Christianity"
For Communists to have a dialogue with Christianity! In the Soviet Union this dialogue was a simple matter: they used
machine guns and revolvers.
And today, in Portugal, unarmed Catholics are stoned by the Communists.
This happens today. This is dialogue... And when the French and the
Italian Communists say that they are going to have a dialogue, let
them only achieve power and we shall see what this dialogue will
look like. When I traveled to Italy this past April, I was amazed
to see hammers and sickles painted on the doors of churches, insults
to priests scrawled on the doors of their houses. In general, offensive
Communist graffiti cover the walls of Italian cities. This is today,
at a time before they have achieved power. This is today...When
their leaders were in Moscow, Palmiro Togliatti agreed to all of
Stalin's executions. Just let them reach power in Italy and we shall see what this dialogue will look like then.
All of the Communist parties, upon achieving power, have become completely
merciless. But at the stage before they achieve power, it's necessary
to adopt disguises.
We Russians who have had experience with this,
find it tragic to see what is going on in Portugal. We were always
told, "Well, this happened to you Russians. It's just that you couldn't
maintain democracy in your country. You had it for eight months and
then it was throttled. That's eastern Europe for you."
But look at Portugal, at the very western-most edge of Europe, you
can't go further West than Portugal. And what do we see there? We
see a sort of caricature, a slightly altered version of what happened
in Russia. For us it sounds like a repetition. We recognize what's
going on and can make the proper substitutions, placing our socialist
in Soares' position.
Or another familiar note: in Russia the Bolsheviks also pursued power
under the slogan "All Power to the Constituent Assembly."
But when the elections took place, they got 25 percent of the vote.
So they dispersed the Constituent Assembly. The Communists in Portugal
got 12 percent of the vote. So they made their parliament entirely
powerless. What irony: the socialists have won the elections. Soares
is the leader of the victorious party. And he has been deprived of
his own newspaper. Just imagine; the leader of a victorious party
has been stripped of his own newspaper! And the fact that there assembly
has been elected and that it will sit in session has no significance
whatever. Yet the western press writes seriously that the first free
elections took place in Portugal. Lord save us from such free elections!
Specific instances of duplicity, of trickery, can of course change
from one set of circumstances to another. But we recognize the Communist
character in the episode when the Portuguese military leaders, who
are allegedly not Communists, decided to settle the dispute within
the newspaper "Republica" in the following manner. "Come at 12 o'clock
tomorrow" they said, "we'll open the doors for you and you settle
it all as you see fit."
But they opened the doors at 10 o'clock and for some reason only
the Communists knew of this, but not the socialists. The Communists
entered, burned all the incriminating documents and then the socialists
arrived. Ah, yes, it was of course only an error. An accident, they
didn't check the time...These are the sort of tricks - and there
are thousands - which make up the history of our revolution. There
will be many more such incidents in Portugal.
Or take the following example: the current military leadership of
Portugal, in order not to lose the assistance of the West (they have
already ruined Portugal, there is nothing to eat, so they need help),
have declared, "Yes, we shall keep our multi-party system."
And the unfortunate Soares, the leader of the victorious party, now
has to demonstrate that he is pleased with this declaration in favor
of a multi-party system. But on the same day the same source declared
that the construction of a classless society will begin immediately.
Anyone who is the least bit familiar with Marxism knows that "classless
society" implies that there won't be any parties. That is to say,
on the very same day they said: there will be a multi-party system
and we shall strangle every party. But the former is heard while
the latter is inaudible. And everybody repeats only that there will
be a multi-party system. This is a typical Communist technique.
Portugal has, in effect, fallen out of NATO today. I hate to be a
prophet of doom but these events are irreversible. Very shortly Portugal
will already be considered a member of the Warsaw Pact. It is painful
to look at this tragic and ironic repetition of Communist techniques
at the far ends of Europe, 60 years apart. In the same few months
we see the throttling of a democracy which had only just begun to
get on its feet.
The question of war is also well elucidated in Communist and Marxist
literature. Let me show you how communism regards the question of
war. I quote Lenin: "We cannot support the slogan 'Peace' since we
regard it as a totally muddled one and a hindrance to the revolutionary
struggle." (Letter to Alexandra Kollontai, July 1915) "To reject
war in principle is un-Marxist. Who objectively stands to gain from
the slogan 'Peace'? In any case not the revolutionary proletariat."
(Letter to Alexander G. Shliapnikov, November 1914). "'There's no
point in proposing a benign program of pious wishes for peace without
at the same time placing at the forefront the call for illegal organization
and the summons to Civil War."
This is communism's view of war. War is necessary. War is an instrument
for achieving a goal. But unfortunately for communism, this policy
ran up against your atomic bomb in 1945. The American atomic bomb.
Then the Communists changed their tactics. Then they suddenly became
advocates of peace at any cost. They started to convoke peace congresses,
to circulate petitions for peace, and the western world fell for
this deceit. But the goal, the ideology, remained the same. To destroy
your society. To destroy the way of life known in the West. But with
your nuclear superiority, it wasn't possible to do this then. Hence
they replaced one concept with another. They said: what is not war
is peace. That is to say, they opposed war to peace. But this was
a mistake.
Only a part of the antithesis opposed to the thesis. Although an
open war could not be conducted, they could still carry out their
oppressions behind the scene - terrorism, partisan war, violence, prisons,
concentration camps. I ask you: is this peace?
The diametric opposite of peace is violence. And those who want peace
in the world should remove not only war from the world, but also
violence. If there is no open war, but there is still violence, that
is not peace. As long as in the Soviet Union, in China, and in other
Communist countries there's no limit to the use of violence - and
now we find India joining in (it appears that Indira Ghandi has learned
a lot from her trip to Moscow; she has mastered these methods very
well, and is now adding another 400 million persons to this continent
of tyranny) - as long as there is no limit to this use of violence,
as long as nothing restrains the use of violence over this tremendous
land mass (more than half of humanity), how can you consider yourselves
secure?
America and Europe together are not yet, I agree, an island in the
ocean - I won't go so far as to say that. But America together with
Europe is now a minority, and the process is still continuing. Until
society in those Communist countries can keep a check on the government
and can have an opinion on what the government does - now it doesn't
even have the least idea of what the government is up to - until
that time comes the West, and the world generally, has no guarantee
at all.
We have another proverb in Russia: "Catch on you will when you're
tumbling downhill."
I understand that you love freedom, but in our crowded world you
have to pay a tax for freedom. You cannot love freedom just for yourself
and quietly agree to a situation where the majority of humanity over
the greater part of the globe is being subjected to violence and
oppression.
The Communist ideology is to destroy your society. This has been
their aim for 125 years and has never changed; only the methods have
changed a little. When there is detente, peaceful co-existence, and
trade, they will still insist: the ideological war must continue!
And what is ideological war? It is a focus of hatred, this is continued
repetition of the oath to destroy the western world. Just as, once
upon a time in the Roman Senate, a famous speaker ended every speech
with the statement: "'Furthermore, Carthage must be destroyed,"
so today, with every act - detente, trade, or whatever - the Communist
press, acting on secret instructions, sends out thousands of speakers
who repeat: "'Furthermore, capitalism must be destroyed."
I understand, it's only human that persons living in prosperity have
difficulty understanding the necessity of taking steps - here and
now, in a state of prosperity - to defend themselves. That even in
prosperity one must be on guard. But if I were to enumerate all the
treaties that have been violated by the Soviet Union, it would take
me another whole speech. I understand that when your statesmen sign
some treaty with the Soviet Union or China you want to believe that
it will be carried out. But the Poles who signed a treaty in Riga
in 1921 with the Communists also wanted to believe that the treaty
would be carried out, and they were stabbed in the back. Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, who signed treaties of friendship with the
Soviet Union, also wanted to believe that they would be carried out,
but these countries were all swallowed.
And the persons who sign these treaties with you now - these very
men and no others - at the same time give orders for persons to be
confined in mental hospitals and prisons. Why should they be different?
Do they have any love for you? Why should they act honorably and
nobly toward you while they crush their own people? The advocates
of detente have never yet explained this. You want to believe and
you cut down on your armies. You cut down on your research. There
used to be an Institute for the Study of the Soviet Union - at least
there was one.
(You know nothing about the Soviet Union. It's dark over there. These
searchlights don't penetrate that far.)
Knowing nothing, you eliminated the last genuine institute which
actually could study this Soviet society, because there wasn't enough
money to support it. But the Soviet Union is studying you. You are
all wide open here, through the press and Congress. And they study
you even more, increasing the size of their staffs. They follow what's
going on in your institutions. They visit the buildings when they
can; they even visit congressional committees; they study everything.
Of course, peace treaties are very attractive to those who sign them.
They strengthen one's prestige with the electorate. But the time
will come when the names of these public figures will be erased from
history. Nobody will remember them any longer, but the western peoples
will have to pay heavily for these over-trusting agreements.
Is it only a question of showing that detente is needed today, here
and now? No. We have theoreticians who look very far into the future. The director of the Russian Institute of Columbia University, Marshall
Shulman, at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
depicted a radiant long-range future, stating that detente would
ultimately lead to cooperation between the United States and the
USSR in the establishment of a world order. But what sort of new
order, in cooperation with insatiable totalitarianism, does this
professor want to see established? It won't be your order in any
case.
But the principal argument of the advocates of detente is well-known:
all of this must be done to avoid a nuclear war. But after all that
has happened in recent years, I think I can set their minds at ease,
and your minds at ease as well: there will not be any nuclear war.
What for? Why should there be a nuclear war if for the last 30 years
they have been breaking off as much of the West as they wanted -
piece after piece, country after country and the process keeps going
on.
In 1975 alone four countries were broken off. Four - three in Indochina
plus India, the process keeps going on, and very rapidly, too. One should be aware of how rapid the tempo is. But let us assume that ultimately the western world will understand
and say, "No, not one step further." What will happen then?
Let me direct your attention to the following fact. You have theoreticians
who say: "The U.S. must stop the process of nuclear armament. We
have enough already. Today America has enough nuclear weapons to
destroy the other half of the world. Why should we need more than
that?" Let the American nuclear specialists reason this way if they
want, but for some reason the nuclear specialists of the Soviet Union
- and for some reason the leaders of the Soviet Union - think differently.
Ask your specialists! Leave aside their superiority in tanks and airplanes - where they
surpass you by a factor of four, five or seven. Take the SALT talks
alone: in these negotiations your opponent is continually deceiving
you. Either he is testing radar in a way which is forbidden by the
agreement; or he is violating the limitations on the dimensions of
missiles; or he is violating the limitations on their destructive
force; or else he is violating the conditions on multiple warheads.
As the proverb says, "Look before you leap, or you will have bruises
to keep."
At one time there was no comparison between the strength
of the USSR and yours. Then it became equal to yours. Now, as all
recognize, it is becoming superior to yours. Perhaps today the ratio
is just greater than equal, but soon it will be 2 to 1 , then 3 to
1. Finally it will be 5 to 1.
I'm not a specialist in this area, and you're not specialists either,
I suppose, but this can hardly be accidental. I think that if the
armaments they had before were enough, they would not have driven
things further. There must be some reason for it. With such a nuclear
superiority it will be possible to block the use of your weapons,
and on some unlucky morning they will declare: "Attention. We're
marching our troops to Europe, and if you make a move, we will annihilate
you." And this ratio of 3 to 1, or 5 to 1 will have its effect: you
will not make a move. Indeed, theoreticians will be found to say, "If
only we can have that blessed silence . . ."
To make a comparison with chess, this is like two players who are
sitting at a chess board, one of whom has a tremendously high opinion
of himself and a rather low opinion of his opponent. He thinks that
he will, of course, outplay his opponent. He thinks he is so clever,
so calculating, so inventive, that he will certainly win. He sits
there, he calculates his moves. With these two knights he will make
four forks. He can hardly wait for his opponent to move. He's squirming
on his chair out of happiness. He takes off his glasses, wipes them,
and puts them back on again. He doesn't even admit the possibility
that his opponent may be more clever. He doesn't even see that his
pawns are being taken one after the other and that his castle is
under threat. It all seems to him.. "Aha, that's what we'll do. We'll
set Moscow, Peking, Pyongyang, Hanoi one against the other."
But what a joke! No one will do any such thing! In the meantime, you've been outplayed in West Berlin; you've been
very skillfully outplayed in Portugal. In the Near East you're being
outplayed. One shouldn't have such a low opinion of one's opponent.
But even if this chess player were able to win the game on the board,
carried away by the play, he forgets to raise his eyes; he forgets
to look at his opponent and doesn't see that he has the eyes of a
killer. And if the opponent cannot win the game on the board, he
will take a club from behind his back and shatter the skull of the
other chess player, winning the game in that way. This very calculating
chess player also forgets to raise his eyes to the barometer. It
has fallen. He doesn't see that it's already dark outside, that the
clouds are coming on, that a hurricane is rising. That's what it
means to be too self-confident in chess.
In addition to the grave political situation in the world today,
we are witnessing the emergence of a wholly new situation, a crisis
of unknown nature, one completely different, one entirely non-political.
We're approaching a major turning point in world history, in the
history of civilization. It can be seen in various areas by various
specialists. I could compare it only with the turning point from
the Middle Ages to the modern era, a whole shift of civilizations.
It is a turning point at which settled concepts suddenly become hazy,
lose their precise contours, at which our familiar and commonly used
words lose their meaning, become empty shells, at which methods which
have been reliable for many centuries no longer work. It's the sort
of turning point at which the hierarchy of values to which we are
dedicated all our lives, which we use to judge what is valuable and
what is not, and which causes our lives and our hearts to beat, is
starting to waver and may perhaps collapse.
And these two crises: the political crisis of today's
world and the oncoming spiritual crisis, are occurring
at the same time.
It is our generation that will have to confront them. The leadership
of your country, which is entering the third century of your national
existence, will perhaps have to bear a burden greater than ever before
seen in the whole of American history. Your leaders during this time
(which is so near) will need profound intuition, spiritual foresight,
high qualities of mind and soul.
May God grant that in those times you will have at
the helm in this country personalities as great as those
who created your country.
In recent weeks, when traveling through various of your states, I
of course felt that these two cities in which I have made my addresses
- Washington and New York - are far from reflecting your country
as a whole, with its tremendous diversity and all of its possibilities.
Just as old St. Petersburg did not express the whole of Russia, just
as Moscow does not reflect the Soviet Union of today, and just as
Paris more than once abused its claim to represent all of France.
I was profoundly impressed by my contact with those places which
are, and have always been, the wellsprings of your history. It really
makes one think: the men who created your country never lost sight
of their moral bearings. They did not laugh at the absolute nature
of the concepts of "good" and "evil." Their practical policies were
checked against that moral compass. And how surprising it is that
a practical policy computed on the basis of moral considerations
turned out to be the most far-sighted and the most salutary.
Even though in the very short term one wonders: why all this morality?
Let's just get on with the immediate job. The leaders who created
your country never said: "Let slavery reign right next door, and
we will enter into detente with this slavery, so long as it doesn't
come over to us."
I have traveled enough through the different states of your country
and in its various regions to have become convinced that the American
heartland is healthy, strong and broad in its outlook. I am convinced
that these healthy, generous and inexhaustible forces will help you
to elevate the whole style of your government leadership. Yet, when
one travels in your country and sees your free and independent life,
all the dangers which I talked about today indeed seem imaginary.
I've come and talked to people, and I see this is so. In your wide
open spaces even I get a little infected. The dangers seem a little
imaginary. On this continent it is hard to believe all the things
which are happening in the world. But, gentlemen, this carefree life
cannot continue in your country or in ours. The fates of our two
countries are going to be extremely difficult and it is better to
prepare for this beforehand.
I understand, I sense that you're tired. You're fatigued, but you
have not yet really suffered the terrible trials of the 20th century
which have rained down on the old continent. You're tired, but not
as tired as we are, lying crushed to the ground for 60 years. You're
tired, but the Communists who want to destroy your system aren't
tired; they're not tired at all.
I understand that this is the most unfavorable time to come to this
country and to make this sort of address. But if it were a favorable
time, if it were an appropriate time, there wouldn't be any need
for me to speak.
Precisely because this is the worst possible time I have come to
tell you about our experience over there. If our experience in the
East could flow over to you by itself, it wouldn't be necessary for
me to assume the unpleasant and inappropriate role of orator. I am
a writer, and I would prefer to sit and write books. But a concentration
of world evil, of hatred for humanity is taking place and it is fully
determined to destroy your society. Must you wait until it comes
with a crowbar to break through your borders, until the young men
of America have to fall defending the borders of their continent?
After my first address, as always, there were some superficial comments
in the newspapers which did not really get to the essence. One of
them was as follows: that I came here with an appeal to the United
States to liberate us from communism. Anyone who has at all followed
what I have said and written these many years; first in the Soviet
Union and now in the West; will know that I've always said the exact
opposite. I have appealed to my own countrymen - those whose courage
has failed at difficult moments, and who have looked imploringly
to the West - and urged them: "Don't wait for assistance, and don't
ask for it; we must stand on our own feet. The West has enough troubles
without us. If they support us, many thanks. But to ask for it, to
appeal for it - never."
I said the last time that two processes are occurring in the world
today. One is a process of spiritual liberation in the USSR and in
the other Communist countries.
The second is the assistance being extended by the West to the Communist
rulers, a process of concessions, of detente, of yielding whole countries.
And I only said: "'Remember, we have to pull ourselves up - but if
you defend us you also defend your own future." We are slaves there
from birth. We are born slaves. I'm not young anymore, and I myself
was born a slave; this is even more true for those who are younger.
We are slaves, but we are striving for freedom. You, however, were
born free. If so, then why do you help our slave owners?
In my last address I only requested one thing and I make the same
request now: when they bury us in the ground alive - I compared the
forthcoming European agreement with a mass grave for all the countries
of East Europe - as you know, this is a very unpleasant sensation:
your mouth gets filled with earth while you're still alive - please
do not send them shovels. Please do not send them the most modern
earth-moving equipment.
By a peculiar coincidence the very day when I was giving my address
in Washington; Mikhail Suslov was talking with your senators in the
Kremlin. And he said, "In fact, the significance of our trade is
more political than economic. We can get along without your trade."
That's a lie. The whole existence of our slave owners from beginning
to end relies on western economic assistance.
As I said the last time, beginning with the first spare parts used
to reconstruct our factories in the l920s, from the construction
in Magnitostroy, Dneprostroy, the automobile and tractor factories
built during the first five-year plans, on into the postwar years
and to this day, what they need from you is economically absolutely
indispensable - not politically, but economically indispensable -
to the Soviet system.
The Soviet economy has an extremely low level of efficiency. What
is done here by a few people, by a few machines, in our country takes
tremendous crowds of workers and enormous masses of materials. Therefore
the Soviet economy cannot deal with every problem at once: war, space
(which is part of the war effort), heavy industry, light industry;
and at the same time the necessity to feed and clothe its own population.
The forces of the entire Soviet economy are concentrated on war,
where you won't be helping them. But everything which is lacking,
everything which is needed to fill the gaps, everything which is
necessary to feed the people, or for other types of industry, they
get from you. So indirectly you are helping them to rearm.
You're helping the Soviet police state. To get an idea how clumsy
the Soviet economy is, I'll give you the following example: What
kind of country is it; what kind of great power, which has tremendous
military potential, which conquers outer space, but has nothing to
sell? All heavy equipment, all complex and delicate technology, is
purchased abroad. Then it must be an agricultural country? Not at
all; it also has to buy grain. What then can we sell? What kind of
economy is it? Can we sell anything which has been created by socialism?
No! Only that which God put in the Russian ground at the very beginning,
that's what we squander and that's what we sell. What we got from
God in the first place. And when all this will come to an end, there
won't be anything left to sell.
The president of the AFL-CIO; George Meany, has quite rightly said
that it is not loans which the United States gives to the Soviet
Union, it is economic assistance. It's foreign aid. It's given at
a level of interest that is lower than what American workers can
get for their home mortgages. That is direct aid. But this is not
all. I said in my last address and would like to repeat it again,
that we have to look at every event from the other point of view
- from the point of view of the Soviet Union. Our country is taking
your assistance, but in the schools they're teaching and in the newspapers
they are writing and in lectures they are saying, "Look at the western
world, it's beginning to rot. Look at the economy of the western
world, it's coming to an end. The great predictions of Marx, Engels
and Lenin are coming true. Capitalism is breathing its last. It's
already dead. And our socialist economy is flourishing. It has demonstrated
once and for all the triumph of communism."
I think, gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have
a socialist outlook, that we should at last permit this socialist
economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it
is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that
it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling
to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it
stand on its own feet for 10 or 15 years. Then we will see what it
looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite
serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal
with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations.
It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have
to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced
to relax.
Thus, all I ask you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so
proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund - stop
helping it then. Where has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?
Another distortion appeared in your press with respect to my last
address. Someone wrote that "one more advocate of the Cold War has
come here. One more person has arrived to call on us to resume the
Cold War." That is a misunderstanding. The Cold War - the war of
hatred - is still going on, but only on the Communist side. What
is the Cold War? It's a war of abuse and they still abuse you. They
trade with you, they sign agreements and treaties, but they still
abuse you, they still curse you. In sources which you can read, and
even more in those which are unavailable to you, and which you don't
hear of, in the depths of the Soviet Union, the Cold War has never
stopped. It hasn't stopped for one second. They never call you anything
but "American imperialists."
One day, if they want, all the Soviet newspapers could say that America
wants to subjugate the world and our people would have nowhere to
get any other information. Do I call upon you to return to the Cold
War? By no means, Lord forbid! What for? The only thing I'm asking
you to do is to give the Soviet economy a chance to develop. Do not
bury us in the ground, just let the Soviet economy develop and then
let's see.
But can the free and varied western system follow this policy? Can
all the western countries together say: "It's true, let us stop competing.
Let us stop playing up to them. Let us stop elbowing each other and
clamoring...Me.. me, let me have a concession.. please give it to
me' . . ."
It's very possible that this could not be done. And if
this sort of unity cannot be achieved in the West, if, in the frenzied
competition of one company with another they will continue to rush
in loans and advanced technology, if they will present earth-moving
equipment to our grave-diggers, then I'm afraid that Lenin will turn
out to have been right.
He had said: "The bourgeoisie will sell us rope, and then we shall
let the bourgeoisie hang itself."
In ancient times trade would begin with the meeting of two persons
who had come out of a forest or had arrived by sea. They would show
one another that they didn't have a stone or club in their hand,
that they were unarmed. And as a sign of this each extended an open
hand. This was the beginning of the hand clasp. Today's word "detente"
literally means a reduction in the tension of a taut rope. (What
an ominous coincidence: A rope again!) So "detente" means a relaxation
of tension. But I would say that what we need is rather this image
of the open hand.
Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States of America
should be such that there would be no deceit in the question of armaments,
that there would be no concentration camps, no psychiatric wards
for healthy people. Relations should be such that the throats of
our women would no longer be constricted with tears, that there would
be an end to the incessant ideological warfare waged against you,
and that an address such as mine today would in no way be an exception.
People would simply be able to come to you from the Soviet Union,
from China, and from other Communist countries and would be able
to talk freely, without any tutoring from the KGB, without any special
approval from the Central Committee of the Party. Rather, they would
simply come of their own accord and would tell you the truth about
what is going on in these countries. This would be, I say, a period
in which we would be able to present "open hands"
to each other.
* * * * * * * * *
THE WANDERER - November 20th, 1975
The Scoff Report
Kissinger Vs. Solzhenitsyn
By PAUL SCOTT
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is continuing to
wage his private "cold war" against Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the great
Ruusian writer and exile. After succeding in blocking Solzhenitsyn's
visit to the White House to alert President Ford to the dangers of
U.S. Soviet detente, Kissinger has now turned his efforts toward
keeping Congress from honoring one of the great men of our age. A
resolution approving honorary U.S. citizenship for the celebrated
Russian Nobel prize-winning author was passed unanimously by the
Senate earlier this year and is now pending in a House Judiciary
subcommittee.
Kissinger has succeeded in blocking action by the sub-committee by
refusing to send a report outlining the State Department's position
on whether such an honor should be granted Solzhenitsyn.
Rep. Joshua
Eilberg (D., Pa.), chairman of the subcommittee, asked the Justice
and State Departments for their views on the matter more than two
months ago. Justice Department officials promptly replied, stating
that Solzhenitsyn clearly was legally entitled to the honorary citizenship.
In sharp contrast, State Department officials so far have withheld
a reply.
Acting on instructions from Secretary Kissinger, all they will say
publicly is that the matter is being studied. Department insiders
have another story. They say privately that Kissinger is holding
up a reply in an effort to block congressional action on the resolution
this year. What concerns Kissinger, they say, is that if Congress
honors Solzhenitsyn that he will be in a much stronger position to
influence U.S. public opinion against detente and this must be avoided.
At one State Department meeting on the resolution, Kissinger stressed
that if the honorary citizenship is approved this year that Solzhenitsyn
would be invited back to the United States early in 1975 to receive
the honor and address a joint session of congress. Kissinger noted
that this would mean that Solzhenitsyn would be furnished a nationwide
TV and radio forum with Congress sitting in the background to carry
his anti-detente message to all the American people.
"We cannot permit this to happen." Kissinger stated.
"Solzhenitsyn is one of the few persons in the world today that has
the moral stature and power of persuasion to rally a majority of
the American people against detente."
This concern about Solzhenitsyn's ability to wreck the Ford Administration's
policy toward the Soviet Union is the reason why Kissinger has rejected
a challenge by the Soviet exile to debate him on the question of
whether detente will destroy freedom in the world.
PRESSURE IS NEEDED
Whether the House is permitted to vote on the resolution honoring
Solzhenitsyn could depend on a campaign now being launched by Solzhenitsyn's
supporters in Congress headed by Sen. Jesse Helms (R., NC.). Helms
is calling on supporters of the Soviet author to write members of
Rep. Eilberg's subcommittee, urging them to approve the resolution
without waiting for the State Department's reply. If enough people
petition the House subcommittee to act, Sen. Helms is convinced that
the lawmakers will vote out the resolution in time for Congress to
act this year. Polls indicate that the resolution will easily be
approved in the House.
SCHLESINGER'S LAST REPORT
Before being fired from his Cabinet post, Defense Secretary James
Schlesinger sent President Ford a report clearly showing that if
the present trend continues that the United States will be militarily
inferior to Russia before the end of the 1970s. The confidential
document, which vigorously opposes President Ford's unannounced plans
to cut $7 billion from the defense budget next year, warned that
the United States and Russia were going in opposite directions in
military preparedness.
While the Russians are dramatically increasing their military strength,
Schlesinger reported, the United States is being forced to cut back
on all military fronts because of budget reductions. If this trend
is continued for four more years, he forecast, the results will be
overwhelming Russian superiority in all types of military power.
THE HARD FACTS
The Schlesinger document revealed that since 1964 Soviet military
manpower has increased by one million men to a force of four million
at this time. This is exactly double the current U.S. military strength
of two million, which represents a reduction of 585,000 since 1964.
In comparing the production of military weapons, Schlesinger stated
that on average from 1972 to 1975, the Soviets produced 3,000 tanks
per year compared with 462 in the United States. The Russians turned
out, annually, 1,200 cannons compared to 170 by the United States
during the past three years. In the field of aircraft, the Russians
built 930 tactical aircraft per year compared to 540 in the United
States; 39 surface ships per year for Russia, compared to 11 for
the United States. Schlesinger noted that there are no new transport
aircraft in the 1976 budget request compared with more than 200 for
the Russians. The Soviets also are building an estimated 50 long-range
bombers each year while the United States is turning out none. In
view of these and other U.S.-Soviet military production figures,
Schlesinger told President Ford that he could not support his plan
to cut the defense budget by $7 billion next year.
It is this Schlesinger position that is believed to have triggered
his firing by President Ford.
