Reagan Versus The Intellectuals - By Dinesh DSouza

[The Finman]

<h2><font color=#003399>Reagan Versus The Intellectuals</font></h2>
By Dinesh DSouza

Reagan's whole career was devoted to the defeat of Soviet Communism, and for him to witness the collapse, first of the Berlin Wall and of the Soviet empire itself, must have been a supreme vindication.

Yet many historians and pundits---who are writing the textbooks about the Reagan era---refuse to credit Reagan's policies as instrumental in assuring America's victory in the cold war.

Rather, they insist that Soviet Communism suffered from chronic economic problems and predictably collapsed, as Strobe Talbott, then a journalist at Time and now a senior official in the Clinton State Department, put it, "not because of anything the outside world has done or not done?but because of defects and inadequacies at its core."

If so, it is reasonable to expect that the inevitable Soviet collapse would have been foreseen by these experts.

Let us see what some of them had to say about the Soviet system during the 1980s.

In l982, the learned Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer of Columbia University wrote in Foreign Affairs, "The Soviet Union is not now nor will it be during the next decade in the throes of a true systemic crisis, for it boasts enormous unused reserves of political and social stability."

This view was seconded that same year by the eminent historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who observed that "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."

John Kenneth Galbraith, the distinguished Harvard economist, wrote in l984: "That the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene?One sees it in the appearance of solid well-being of the people on the streets?and the general aspect of restaurants, theaters, and shops?Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower."

Equally imaginative was the assessment of Paul Samuelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Nobel laureate in economics, writing in the l985 edition of his widely-used textbook.

"What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth?The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth."

Columnist James Reston of the New York Times in June 1985 revealed his capacity for sophisticated even-handedness when he dismissed the possibility of the collapse of Communism on the grounds that Soviet problems were not different from those in the United States.

"It is clear that the ideologies of Communism, socialism and capitalism are all in trouble."

But the genius award undoubtedly goes to Lester Thurow, another MIT economist and well-known author who, as late as l989, wrote, "Can economic command significantly?accelerate the growth process?

The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can?Today the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States."

Strobe Talbott faulted the Reagan administration for espousing "the early fifties goal of rolling back Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," an objective he considered misguided and unrealistic.

After all, explains Arthur Schlesinger in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, "History has an abiding capacity to outwit our certitudes.

We will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written."

We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis?But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union."

Reagan added that "it is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying freedom and human dignity to its citizens" and he predicted that if the Western alliance remained strong it would produce a "march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history."

Thus the "inescapable conclusion" in his view was that "freedom is the victor."

Then Reagan said, "General Secretary Gorbachev?Come here to this gate.


Full Article <font color="red"><u>Here</u></font>

[chris]

Here is a quote from the liberal intellectual George Kennan on Reagan.

"I think historical forces were a greater factor in the end of the cold war than were the actions of any individuals.But if you have to find two individuals who contributed greatly to this, I WOULD PUT FIRST OF ALL GORBACHEV.....But also Reagan,
who in his own inimitable way,WAS PROBABLY NOT EVEN QUITE AWARE OF WHAT HE WAS DOING!
He did what few other people would have been able to do in breaking the logjam."

[The Finman]

Originally posted by The Finman:
I love how liberals now smugly sit back (with the benefit 20/20 hindsight) and try to play "Monday Morning Quaterback".

Now they pretend with all the sincerity they can feign that the Soviet Union was due to fall under it's own weight and that Reagan was simply the benificary of someone who was in the right place at the right time.

Well, let's just take a stroll down memory lane and see what liberals & other pointy head elitist actually said during the 80's and compare it to what President Reagan said...shall we? :cool:


<font color="#000099">"It is a vulgar mistake to think that most people in Eastern Europe are miserable." --Paul Samuelson, Professor of Economics, MIT, Nobel Laureate, Economics, 1981.


"The Soviet Union is not now, nor will it be during the next decade, in the throes of a true systematic crisis, for it boasts enormous unused reserves of political and social stability that suffice to endure the deepest difficulties." --Seweryn Bialer, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University, Foreign Affairs Magazine, 1982/3.


"I found more goods in the shops, more food in the markets, more cars on the street ... those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse, ready with one small push to go over the brink are wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves." --Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 1982.


"All evidence indicates that the Reagan administration has abandoned both containment and detante for a very different objective: destroying the Soviet Union as a world power and possibly even its Communist system. [This is a] potentially fatal form of Sovietphobia ... a pathological rather than a healthy response to the Soviet Union." --Stephen Cohen, Princeton University Sovietologist, 1983.


"That the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene...One sees it in the appearance of well-being of the people on the streets...and the general aspect of restaurants, theaters, and shops... Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower." --John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor of Economics, Harvard University, 1984.


"On the economic front, for the first time in its history the Soviet leadership was able to pursue successfully a policy of guns and butter as well as growth ... The Soviet citizen-worker, peasant, and professional - has become accustomed in the Brezhnev period to an uninterrupted upward trend in his well-being ..." --John Kenneth Galbraith, Professor of Economics, Harvard University, New Yorker Magazine, 1984.


"What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth...The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth." --Paul Samuelson, MIT, Nobel laureate in economics, 1985.


"Can economic command significantly compress and accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can. In 1920 Russia was but a minor figure in the economic councils of the world. Today it is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." --Lester Thurow, Professor of Economics, MIT, The Economic Problem, 1989.</font>




But NO ONE on the left thought Communism could be contained, much less defeated...when Reagan took office Communism was on the move and expanding into 8 countries...two years after Reagan left office Communism had fallen everywhere, but China & Cuba and both those countries saw the need for market reform.

Not matter what people say now...NO ONE on the left (and only a few on the right) believed Reagan when he said...

<font color="#000099">"The years ahead will be great ones for our country, for the cause of freedom and for the spread of civilization. The West won't contain Communism, it will transcend Communism. We will not bother to denounce it, we'll dismiss it as a sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written." --Ronald Reagan, Commencement Address at University of Notre Dame, May 1981.</font>