Read a great article from Steven Hayward on the Berlin Wall.  It is incredible to me that tyrants genuinely believe they can keep a group of people against their will in a tyrannical system.  Any cursory glance at history would clearly prove the illusory nature and unenforceability long term of any tyrannical scheme.  It takes one’s breath away that tyrants would believe they can deny the people their freedom and not suffer the consequences all tyrants eventually must face.  Here is the article with my comments on the philosophy of oppression and captivity after each paragraph.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Ten years ago this week the Berlin Wall started to come down, and it was immediately evident that the Communist empire would come down with it. A few years before the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, the Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg offered what would become a fitting epitaph for Communist tyranny: “If the whole world were to be covered with asphalt, one day a crack would appear in that asphalt; and in that crack, grass would grow.” The crack in the Wall in 1989 proved to be the fatal fissure.

Tyranny can only survive by threats, intimidation, and by blocking the free movement of people, ideas, and money.  Tyranny is based upon lies and when the lies are called lies by the courageous people—the end is near.  Tyranny relies on the masses of people to sit by quietly and allow the walls to be built up around them.

When President Ronald Reagan went to Berlin in 1987 and said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” (a line his foreign policy advisers tried several times to delete from his speech), most observers thought, “There he goes again.” Reagan had predicted back in 1983 that it would be Communism, not western democracy, that would end up on the ash heap of history. Almost no one thought the beginning of the end would come before the decade was over. How did Reagan know?

Leaders are typically criticized for standing up to tyranny.  Many managers think a program of détente with tyranny is acceptable.  True leaders know that détente with tyranny enslaves people in an unnatural system that denies people their God given rights.  Reagan courageously called the Communist system what it was—an Godless materialistic system that denies people their freedoms and humanity.  Reagan understood that tyranny only survives by counting on the passivity of the masses.  Reagan awoke the masses to the hope of a better tomorrow!

One other modern statesman predicted the demise of communism before the century’s end—Winston Churchill. In the mid-1950s, when Churchill was Prime Minister for the second time, he told a young aide that if he lived his normal span of life he would surely see Eastern Europe free from Communism. How did Churchill know?

Winston Churchill understood the lies of communism also.  Both of these great statesmen knew that any system that denies people the right to freely choose their futures is tyranny—no matter how much it is justified by propaganda.  Human freedom is a God given right.  If the freedoms are taken from the people, then any leader with a historical perspective will know it is temporary.  Tyranny is a system that forces people to do what the managers say, regardless of the people’s desires.

Reagan and Churchill came to their assurance about the fate of Communism by the simple recognition that a social system so wholly unnatural could not long endure, even with the powerful scientific props of modern tyranny. The Berlin Wall was the ultimate artifact of this unnatural system: unlike the Great Wall of China or other bastions, the Berlin Wall was the first bulwark intended to keep people in instead of out. Reagan had noticed the significance of this back in the early 1960s, and his resolve was bolstered by a visit he made to East Berlin before he was president, during which, his traveling companions said, Reagan shook with rage at the tyranny he saw first hand. He resolved that “We must do something to free these people.”

Walls are typically built to keep invaders out, but tyranny builds walls to keep people in!  The tyrants will claim the wall is to keep people out and this is exactly what the East German government did.  They claimed the wall was to keep the West Germans out of East Germany and told the lie repeatedly to their constituents.  Reagan could not believe the hubris of the East German communist government.  What kind of system would force people to stay in a system against their will and lie about the purpose of the wall?  Any courageous leader would resolve to do something to free the people from the Godless tyranny.  What type of leader would continue to allow the people to suffer while they benefitted by others loss of freedoms?  Reagan vowed to do something about this and he did!  The world has benefited from the courage and resolve of this great President.

As Churchill contemplated at the end of World War II the division of Europe that would necessarily come with Soviet occupation of the East, he remarked to Charles de Gaulle that while the Soviets were a hungry wolf now, “after the meal come the digestion period,” and that the Soviet Union would not be able to digest the peoples of Eastern Europe. Sure enough, every few years, like a burp of indigestion, a part of Eastern Europe would flare up and require to be put down forcibly—Hungary in 1956; Czechoslovakia in 1968; Poland in 1981.

Tyranny is not capable of maintaining their power base.  They may implement a tyrannical system, but the people will eventually wake up to their plight.  They will throw the tyrants out of power and give freedom back to the people.  In every system based on tyranny there is a history of revolts and flare ups.  This is a sign that the people are dissatisfied and will eventually overcome the tyrants.  Each revolt builds in power and resolve until the innate dream for freedom cannot be held back.

By early 1989 it was time for another period of Eastern European indigestion. It was no longer possible for the Soviet Union to check the desire of Eastern Europeans to be free. A military crackdown would have made a hash of Gorbachev’s program of glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”) and ruined Soviet-American relations at a crucial time.

Repeated waves of resistance to tyranny and lack of results in the communist systems eventually produces change.  It becomes no longer possible for the tyranny to resist the desire of the people to be free.  A forceful crackdown on the aspirations of the people makes a mockery of the alleged slogans and value system of the tyranny.   Tyranny is always hypocritical—claiming freedoms and independence to the people while building walls and ruling with fear and intimidation. 

The beginning of the end started in Hungary. After Solidarity had swept an election in Poland, reformers within the Hungarian ruling Communist party pushed for a genuine multi-party election there as well. A divided Communist party was unable to blunt the momentum for a process that it knew was likely to be its death sentence. But reformers knew that they faced great hazards during the transitional phase, and they feared that another 1956-style military crackdown might be in store, perhaps from East Germany (whose Stalinist leadership never did sympathize with Gorbachev’s program) if not the Soviet Union.

Tyranny is a house of cards and will fall when freedom loving people act with courage.  The more light that shines into the hypocritical behavior of the tyrants the faster it will fall.  The reformers know they will be subject to attacks through the press, judicial system, police, etc, but continue the course because they know the truth and history is on their side.

So the Hungarians decided on a bold stroke. They opened their border with Austria, and stopped detaining East Germans who transited through Hungary en route to Austria. A back door around the Berlin Wall had opened up, and thousands were pouring through. The Hungarians did not inform the Soviet Union or East Germany in advance. “We were pretty sure,” Hungarian reformer Imre Pozsgay said later, “that if hundreds of thousands of East Germans went to the West, the East German regime would fall, and in that case Czechoslovakia was also out.”

The Hungarians opened their border with Austria and people by the millions departed.  They did not need to be solicited by the Austrians, but they freely left when given the choice.  This is the fatal flaw in every tyrannical system—the majority of the people will choose freedom over tyranny and will leave if given a choice.   Communism fell—not from an outside attack—but from the internal rot. 

They were right. Throughout the fall protests in East German cities were growing, reaching a climax on November 4, when a million people took to the streets of East Berlin. East Germany’s aging tyrant, Erich Honecker, had stepped down in October, but it was too late. His successors bowed to the inevitable on November 9, and announced the opening of the borders to the West. Within hours thousands of Germans from both sides of the Berlin divide descended on the Wall with picks and hammers. “We did not suspect,” the East German foreign minister wrote, “that the opening of the Wall was the beginning of the end of the Republic.” He was clearly oblivious to Ehrenburg’s prophecy that once a blade of grass poked through the concrete, the Wall would come tumbling down.

When enough people rise up against their tyrannical masters, the system will fall.  Over a million people took to the streets and in the end the wall tumbled down—just as Reagan and Churchill said it would.  The tyrants had no idea how many people hated their regime and how quickly it would be discarded when given a choice.  A free people will choose freedom and opportunity over oppression and slavery every time.  Ronald Reagan said it best, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!”   Like the good Book says, “The Truth will set you free.”