In most generations of human history,
mankind has had to survive a revolution, that is, a global shift in the
balance of power.
Some of the revolutions have been bloody, but others,
such as the English Revolution of 1688, have been notably bloodless.
Some
revolutions have enlarged the area of liberty, while others have been
followed by authoritarian regimes.
Some have reflected changes in
economic conditions and others different ideologies or differences in
religion.
One never
knows what the outcome will be.
The end result of the English Civil War
of 1642 and the 1688 Revolution was the establishment of the liberal
constitution under which the United Kingdom has been governed for the
past three centuries.
Britain only became fully democratic
in 1929, when all women were able to vote.
The other British revolution,
the American War of Independence (from 1775 to 1783), was also
democratic.
This revolution was not complete until slavery was brought
to an end. Civil rights were only established in the Sixties.
Other
revolutions have had much darker outcomes.
The French Revolution was
triggered by the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. It began with
hopes of a democratic constitution on the English model, but it passed
rapidly to the Terror of the early 1790s and to the wars and tyranny of
Napoleon.
The Russian
Revolution started in 1917 as a democratic uprising but reached the
stage of Stalin’s flowering paranoia in the Thirties. Only one of the
great European revolutions was evil from the start; that was the Nazi
revolution of 1933 and it ended in the Holocaust.
If
a nation chooses the revolutionary path it can end up with power
passing to someone as mild as Queen Anne, as honourable as George
Washington, as tyrannical as Napoleon or as murderous as Stalin, Hitler
and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung.
You
cannot predict what you will get; revolutions swallow their own
children. Revolution is a high-risk business, with the historic odds
against the revolutionaries achieving what they originally hoped.
Last
Monday, a statue of former United States President Ronald Reagan – a
hero of the anti-Marxist counter-revolution – was unveiled in Grosvenor
Square, London. He was one of the four statesmen who brought the Cold
War to an end in 1991, and thereby brought to its conclusion the Russian
Revolution, after 70 years.
There were three other major figures who shared the credit for having set free Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries of Europe.
When
Reagan took office in 1981, he was underrated, particularly in Europe,
yet he was one of the four leaders who produced the greatest and most
benign counter-revolution of modern history.
It
could not have been done without Reagan.
Equally, the
counter-revolution needed the USSR’s last head of state, Mikhail
Gorbachev. At the first stage of perestroika, the reform could only be
made with the acquiescence of the Soviet state itself.
To take Margaret
Thatcher’s phrase: there was no alternative.
The
Cold War was an immensely dangerous and unstable situation. If either
side had been convinced that the other was willing to strike first, a
nuclear war could have followed.
That could have destroyed civilisation.
Gorbachev
is the leader who lost the nation the role of being the world’s second
superpower. To the West, he is the hero of the peaceful resolution of
the Cold War.
But Reagan was the first US President who understood how
vulnerable to pressure the former Soviet Union had become.
But there were two other figures who should be counted among the Titans of World Peace.
One,
Pope John Paul II, brought immense influence to the table, particularly
in Eastern Europe. He was leading a church with a billion members; he
was a Pole who had experienced the wartime suffering of his own nation
under two tyrannies. In any club of victims of the Marxist or Nazi
tyranny, Poland is a founder member.
Apart from the Pope’s role in
religion, he also had authority due to his remarkable strength of
character.
He was a great Pope in an era that called for greatness; Mrs
Thatcher was the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to play a
central role in a world dispute.
Like the Pope, she had an unquenchable
reserve of willpower.
There
were still communists who wanted to restore the Soviet regime.
The
economic situation, and the inefficiency of the USSR, would have told
against that, but they did kidnap Gorbachev in 1991, and were only
defeated by the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin, speaking from the
top of a tank.
It was the strength of will of Reagan, Gorbachev, John
Paul II and Mrs Thatcher that also stood in their way.
It
was sad that Baroness Thatcher was not well enough to attend the
unveiling of the statue because the partnership between her and Reagan
was so important.
Reagan and the Pope have died; Gorbachev alone is
still active.
Yet both
Russia and the West should be more aware of the achievement of all
four.
Since the end of the Second World War, Reagan can claim the most
important achievement of statesmanship of any American President,
Gorbachev of any Russian, Pope John Paul II of any Pope and Margaret
Thatcher of any Prime Minister.
Between them they saved the world; they saved the peace.
They are legitimate heroes in human history.