Who Will Liberate Us?

In the last or cold-war decade we have heard a lot of talk about “saving” and “liberating” the peoples under the Kremlin yoke. But when the great tests came—first in East Germany and then, even more challengingly, in Hungary—the talk was exposed as hollow and largely hypocritical. If anything is clear today it is that the so-called free world, suffering paralysis of the will, itself needs saving and liberating.

The decades—nearly four—since the advent of Soviet Communism, have witnessed magnificent courage and readiness to stake life for liberty. Millions of ordinary people have traded their blood for honor and conviction. But this glory and this nobility has been manifest only on the dark side of the Iron Curtain.

EL

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Eugene Lyons

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In the last or cold-war decade we have heard a lot of talk about “saving” and “liberating” the peoples under the Kremlin yoke. But when the great tests came—first in East Germany and then, even more challengingly, in Hungary—the talk was exposed as hollow and largely hypocritical. If anything is clear today it is that the so-called free world, suffering paralysis of the will, itself needs saving and liberating.

The decades—nearly four—since the advent of Soviet Communism, have witnessed magnificent courage and readiness to stake life for liberty. Millions of ordinary people have traded their blood for honor and conviction. But this glory and this nobility has been manifest only on the dark side of the Iron Curtain.