The Problem Lies With The Regimes That Drive Their Own People Into Misery

I agree with Winston Churchill, who long before the Soviet Empire came to its shameful end, had said tersely and precisely: “The day will come when it will be recognized without doubt through the civilized world that the strangling of Bolshevism at birth would have been an untold blessing to the human race.”

This is why I wish the reader not be misled by the facades and verbal demagogue employed by yesterday’s Communist leaders. Personally responsible for the poisoning of minds and bodies of millions of their countrymen, they are still occupying the thrones on their respective shards of the Evil Empire; they are still working, by all imaginable and unimaginable means, to prolong the existence of the regimes restored on the national scale.

They are plunging their nations into a tragedy, and this tragedy is not so innocent and local. As recent history shows, such tragedies can spread into international ones. Hence we need to exercise extraordinary vigilance to prevent these tragedies from happening. Since our planet is one living organism, it is highly naïve and simplistic to believe that a local hotbed of malignant disease cannot affect the world at large.

I want my reader to realize that the path chosen by the independent states formed on the ruins of the empire will affect not only their respective societies, but the entire world civilization – and that, reader, includes the fate of your children and grandchildren.

I want my reader to realize that by encouraging and stimulating new dictatorships, by prolonging their existence, we slow down the progress of civilization as we waste material and human resources – which affects your spiritual well-being as well.

I cannot imagine my contemporary, wherever he lives, remaining indifferent to the fate of fellow humans. There are no inherently backward or intellectually feeble nations: the problem lies with the regimes that drive their own people into misery. It is everybody’s duty to help these people climb out of their hardship and render them moral and material support in building a historically justified democratic society.

I believe it is absurd to claim that setting up a dictatorship in a given country is a country’s domestic affair. A country’s domestic affair is to choose methods of implementing – not suppressing – democratic principles. Therefore, I believe, it is everybody’s duty to speak up against the regimes that limit human rights and reject freedom of conscience and expression. Especially it is the duty of democratic institutions and the countries who have adopted international standards in upholding these principles.

From “Path to Democracy“ (published in 1997)

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