De 3, 1991 Memorandum to Marin Strmecki RE: Communism and Socialism After a visit to the Soviet Union in 1918, a liberal American newspaper reporter wrote ecstatically, "I have been over into the future and it works." Now millions of people in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have seen that future and they know it doesn’t work. Ironically, the communist revolution in the Soviet Union began with a successful cour and ended with a failed coup. © It would be a massive err communism did not work. All communist regimes beginning with y to assume that only Stalin’s Lenin and including Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and even the reforming Gorbachev were gigantic failures. Gorbachev's great historical contribution was to adopt political reforms which allowed the people of the Soviet Union to see that Communism was a failed faith, that contrary to his expectations it cannot be reformed, end that it must be consigned with other failed faiths to the dustbin of history. Those who criticize Yeltsin and other reformers for conducting a "witch-hunt" against communists should remember that the world applauded the purge of Nazis in Germany at Newrinberg. Soviet communists have killed three times as many people in an @:: of communist "peace" than Hitler killed in Nazi wars. Thecancer of communism must be cut out root and branch if the people ¢ of the Soviet Union will have any chance to enjoy freedom and prosperity, Tt would be a tragedy if the newly liberated people of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe gave up on freedom and turned to so-called democratic socialism. In these tumultuous times, we have learned that not only totali tarian communism but democratic socialism, even without communist repression and aggression, will not work. Soviet communism was an unmitigated evil. Democratic socialism is not evil but it is a fashionable fraud which hoodwinks not only the masses, but the intellectual elitists, in many institutions, in the media, and in the drawing rooms o Washington and other Western capitals. The only economic success stories in the developing world @.:. in those nations whose leaders chose free market policies and rejected the siren call of socialism which would have sacrificed opportunity and progress on the alter of equalit, That is why at this historic moment, when we celebrate the defeat of communism, we must develop a strategy for the victory of freedom -- for helping those who are liberated from communism to enjoy the blessings of freedom. The stakes could not be higher. The people in the liberated countries of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union know that communism won't work. They have chosen free market policies because they know they have worked in the West and in non- communist democracies in Asia. They have rebelled against the failed policies of communism. eIf freedom fails they would rebel against it. O They will not return to communism, but communism is only the most edvancediiorm/ of scctaliem | sAlreturn tolsccialism of any kind, even the non-aggressive, non-repressive variety so popular in Western intellectual circles, would be a tragedy for the liberated peoples of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It would condemn them permanently to the backwaters of Third World stagnation. We know communism won’t work. We believe socialism won’t work. Being right in theory is not enough. Our challenge is to demonstrate that we are right in practice. The battle in the West between those who favor progressive democratic capitalism and those who favor benign democratic socialism predated the Cold War and will continue after the Cold War. We have won that eo" in Western Europe and non-communist East Asia. The West must now win it in the East. For 45 years our priority was the defeat of communism. Yow we must win victory for freedom -~ which is more difficult but te Phar abet wd far more rewarding becat ee be building not destroying. We will for not just for what we are against.socialism. e For 75 years Communism distorted the battle between those who, stood Soricapitalleniandithosekyholstood for socialism, pet ween sthocegulOBtovonedMtnaniuancestetand those whe favored Bovernment-controlled markets. Those who exalted individual rights and those who put highest priority on group rights. Those who emphasize political rights and those who insisted on economic rights. Equality at the cost of freedom and opportunity is too high @ price to pay. Freedom and opportunity must not be sacrificed on the alter of equality. The last time I saw Mao in 1974, he asked a profound question -- "Is peace your only goal?" I responded, "Peace with Justice.” You can have peace in a graveyard or in a prison! The question we should ask today of world leaders is, "Is stability your only goal?" The answer is stability is important but must not sacrifice the right of individuals to be free and of nations to be independent on the alter of stability. This brings us to the great challenge of our time. We know communism doesn’t work. We know socialism doesn’t work. We have the opportunity to demonstrate in the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union that freedom can produce the progress that communism and socialism only promise.