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US: Reagan won the Cold War all by himself? It's a myth

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  • US: Reagan won the Cold War all by himself? It's a myth

    Reagan won the Cold War all by himself? It's a myth
    By Daniel Sneider

    San Jose Mercury News
    Sunday, June 13, 2004

    As a reporter in Moscow, I had the privilege of witnessing one of
    the great events of the past century -- the end of Soviet communism
    and the collapse of the Soviet empire.

    What I saw and heard bears almost no resemblance to the pernicious
    myth repeated in recent days that Ronald Reagan single-handedly won
    the Cold War.

    The myth distorts history. It insults the Polish dockworkers,
    Lithuanian nationalists and Russian democrats who risked their lives
    for freedom. If any single person can be credited for such a momentous
    event, it would be Mikhail Gorbachev.

    Even worse, the myth perpetuates a dangerous idea, now at play in
    the deserts of Iraq, that the United States can, by its own will,
    transform other societies.

    To his credit, Ronald Reagan didn't create this myth -- his supporters
    did. They claim the decision to pursue the ``star wars'' program,
    along with a massive defense buildup, drove the Soviet Union to
    economic collapse. And they insist that Reagan's calls for freedom
    inspired the uprising against Communist rule.

    There is a kernel of truth to this. The United States had to make
    clear to the Soviet leadership that it could not advance its aims by
    military means or ever hope to win an arms race. And it needed to not
    lose sight of the fact that the Cold War was also a struggle of ideas.

    Those principles did not belong exclusively, however, to Reagan. They
    are the core of the doctrine of containment crafted at the dawn
    of the Cold War by diplomat George Kennan. As long as the West
    remained unified and strong, Kennan predicted, the Soviet system
    would eventually collapse from its own inherent limitations.

    That ``long twilight struggle'' succeeded. The Soviet Union I
    encountered at the end of the 1980s was exhausted. Soviet workers were
    soaked in vodka by midday. Dimly lit grocery stores were lined with
    bottles of pickled tomatoes nobody would buy. In Soviet offices, a desk
    covered with large clunky rotary dial phones was a sign of power. To me
    it was evidence of a country left behind by the microchip revolution.

    Though it commanded tremendous resources, the Soviet military wasn't
    much more impressive. On the bases of elite Soviet Marines and advanced
    jet fighter wings, the men paid more attention to cultivating potato
    fields they depended on for food. Even some Russians described their
    own country as ``Bangladesh with nuclear weapons.''

    The crisis of legitimacy was kept in check only by the fading fear
    of the police state. Russians read official propaganda in reverse --
    whatever the authorities said was white, they knew had to be black.

    Cynicism was the dominant ideology of the Communist Party. No one
    mentioned Marx or talked of socialism. A failed coup in 1991 was
    carried out by drunken apparatchiks desperate to hang on to power,
    pale remnants of the ruthless Bolsheviks who created this system.

    Nationalism was and remains the most powerful motivating
    belief. Russians still felt pride in their nation and hoped freedom
    would bring them prosperity as part of Europe. From Poland to Armenia,
    entire populations revolted against Russian imperial rule. The depth of
    disaffection was a shock not only to Gorbachev but also to the American
    leadership, which never saw the breakup of the Soviet Union coming.

    The Soviet system was already in crisis by the 1960s. The exposé of
    Stalin's crimes had dug deep into belief. The growth symbolized by
    massive projects, many of them built with slave labor, had reached
    its limit. An attempt at limited economic reform failed.

    The Soviet Union probably lived longer than it properly should have
    for two reasons -- the Vietnam War, which discredited and fatigued
    the United States; and the OPEC oil cartel, which allowed the Soviets
    to paper over their problems with booming revenue from oil and gas
    exports (which continues to this day).

    Gorbachev sought reform not to keep up with America but to save the
    system. But each step to open up the Soviet Union only exposed its
    weakness, most of all to its own people. Ultimately his reforms only
    hastened the end.

    To the extent that Ronald Reagan recognized the potential of these
    changes and encouraged them, he helped speed the end of the Cold
    War. But it is time to dump the self-congratulatory rhetoric into
    the dustbin of history where communism now resides.

    DANIEL SNEIDER is foreign affairs columnist for the Mercury News. His
    column appears on Sunday and Thursday. You can contact him at
    [email protected]
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