The impending turn of the millennium may be based on dubious
chronology, but these final weeks of 1999 nevertheless offer
a
good opportunity for stock-taking. Whatever else can be said
of it, the twentieth century has been a study in contrasts. The
mighty engines of capitalism have produced wealth beyond
reckoning even as mankind’s technological ingenuity has populated
the world with dazzling instruments of comfort, inquiry, and
diversion. At the same time, as Hilton Kramer notes in his
reflections below, this “unrepentant” century has been, by far,
the most murderous on record. Untold lives—numbering in the
hundreds of millions—have been blighted or extinguished in the
name of political ideology
—above all Communist ideology—over
the course of the century.

Facing up to the real dimensions of this evil has proved to be
extraordinarily difficult—partly because the seductive nature of
political ideology is felt even by those who have escaped its
murderous rage. Indeed, it is not at all clear whether, even at
this late hour, Western liberal opinion is prepared to
acknowledge either the depth of Communist tyranny or the accessory
nature of its own repeated capitulations and fellow-traveling.
If the twentieth century has been the most deadly in
history, it is also shaping up to be the most amnesiac.

We were reminded of this recently on the occasion of the ten-year
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9. A more
eloquent symbol of freedom triumphing over tyranny is hard to
imagine. As Charles Krauthammer noted in his column for The
Washington Post (“Reluctant Cold Warriors,” November 12), “the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet
Union are events of biblical proportion. They mark the end of a
century of totalitarianism.” And yet this apocalyptic anniversary
came and went virtually without fanfare. “The twenty-fifth
anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ White Album,”
Mr.
Krauthammer noted, “caused more of
a stir.”

Why? Why is it that this historic anniversary passed without
celebration or ceremony, passed with only perfunctory
acknowledgment here? Because, as Mr. Krauthammer observed,
“many people now in authority prefer not to be
reminded that the last twenty years of the Cold War were not their
finest hour, and that victory in the Cold War was achieved
despite—not because of—their best efforts.”

It is may be difficult to remember this now when nearly everyone
speaks blithely of America’s victory in the Cold War. But it was
not so long ago that liberal orthodoxy snidely derided the very
idea of the Cold War as the product of right-wing fanatics who
mistakenly saw Communists under every bed. All that is
conveniently forgotten now in the warm glow of complacency. But
when Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an “evil
empire,” the liberal establishment was practically unanimous in
its ridicule and outrage. As Mr. Krauthammer reported, Tweedledee
and Tweedledum from The New York Times—Anthony Lewis and Tom
Wicker—weighed in with their usual hand-wringing, calling Mr.
Reagan’s comment “primitive” (Lewis) and “smug” (Wicker). Henry
Steele Commager agreed: “It was the worst presidential speech in
American history, and I’ve read them all.” George Ball, an
apparatchik in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, published
an open letter to President Reagan complaining about “your
obsessive detestation of what you call ‘the evil empire.’” What,
we wonder, would Mr. Ball have called it? Perhaps, like Lincoln
Steffens, he looked at the Soviet Union, saw the
future, and believed that it worked.

Had it not been for President Reagan and other cold warriors who,
undeterred by liberal heckling, persevered in the fight against
Communist tyranny in the former Soviet Union, in El Salvador, and
elsewhere, Mr. Ball may indeed have been looking at the future.
But when it finally arrived, he would have been given ample reason to
repent his fatuousness. The Cold War was waged on two fronts:
abroad against Communist tyranny, at home against liberal
sympathizers who were naïve or mendacious or both.
Mr. Krauthammer is to be commended for helping us to recall
the realities of that second front.