Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

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  COMRADES! IN THE report of the Central Committee of the party at the twentieth congress, in a number of speeches by delegates to the Congress, as also formerly during the plenary CC/CPSU [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] sessions, quite a lot has been said about the cult of the individual and about its harmful consequences.

  After Stalin’s death the Central Committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior.

  Such a belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for many years.

  At the present we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the party now and for the future—[we are concerned] with how the cult of the person of Stalin has been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of party principles, of party democracy, of revolutionary legality….

  Because of the fact that not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual, the great harm caused by the violation of the principle of collective direction of the party, and because of the accumulation of immense and limitless power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee of the party considers it absolutely necessary to make the material pertaining to this matter available to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

  In December 1922, in a letter to the party congress, Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin] wrote, “After taking over the position of secretary general, Comrade Stalin accumulated in his hands immeasurable power, and I am not certain whether he will be always able to use this power with the required care.”

  This letter, a political document of tremendous importance, known in the party history as Lenin’s “testament,” was distributed among the delegates to the Twentieth Party Congress.

  It was precisely during this period (1935–1937–1938) that the practice of mass repression through the government apparatus was born, first against the enemies of Leninism—Trotskyites, Zinovievites, Bukharinites, long since politically defeated by the party, and subsequently also against many honest Communists, against those party cadres who had borne the heavy load of the civil war, and the first and most difficult years of industrialization and collectivization, who actively fought against the Trotskyites and the rightists for the Leninist party line.

  Stalin organized the concept “enemy of the people.” This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the use of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations in the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all norms of current legal science, was the “confession” of the accused himself; and, as subsequent probing proved, “confessions” were acquired through physical pressures against the accused.

  It was determined that of the 139 members and candidates of the party’s Central Committee who were elected at the seventeenth congress, 98 persons, that is, 70 percent, were arrested and shot (mostly in 1937–38).

  The same fate met not only the Central Committee members but also the majority of the delegates to the Seventeenth Party Congress. Of 1,966 delegates with either voting or advisory rights, 1, 108 persons were arrested on charges of antirevolutionary crimes, that is, decidedly more than a majority. This very fact shows how absurd, wild, and contrary to common sense were the charges of counterrevolutionary crimes made, as we now see, against a majority of participants at the seventeenth party congress.

  After the criminal murder of Sergey M. Kirov, mass repressions and brutal acts of violation of Socialist legality began….

  Now, when the cases of some of these so-called “spies” and “saboteurs” were examined, it was found that all their cases were fabricated. Confessions of guilt of many arrested and charged with enemy activity were gained with the help of cruel and inhuman tortures.

  Comrade Eikhe was arrested April 29, 1938, on the basis of slanderous materials, without the sanction of the prosecutor of the USSR, which was finally received fifteen months after the arrest.

  Eikhe was forced under torture to sign ahead of time a protocol of his confession prepared by the investigative judges in which he and several other eminent party workers were accused of anti-Soviet activity.

  On October 1, 1939, Eikhe sent his declaration to Stalin in which he categorically denied his guilt and asked for an examination of his case. In the declaration he wrote, “There is no more bitter misery than to sit in the jail of a government for which I have always fought.”

  On February 4 Eikhe was shot. It has been definitely established now that Eikhe’s case was fabricated; he has been posthumously rehabilitated….

  The power accumulated in the hands of one person, Stalin, led to serious consequences during the great patriotic war.

  A cable from our London embassy dated June 18, 1941, stated, “As of now Cripps is deeply convinced of the inevitability of armed conflict between Germany and the USSR which will begin not later than the middle of June. According to Cripps, the Germans have presently concentrated 147 divisions (including air force and service units) along the Soviet borders.”

  Despite these particularly grave warnings, the necessary steps were not taken to prepare the country properly for defense and to prevent it from being caught unawares.

  When the Fascist armies had actually invaded Soviet territory and military operations began, Moscow issued the order that Stalin, despite evident facts, thought that the war had not yet started, that this was only a provocative action on the part of several undisciplined sections of the German army, and that our reaction might serve as a reason for the Germans to begin the war.

  Stalin was very much interested in the assessment of Comrade Zhukov as a military leader. He asked me often for my opinion of Zhukov. I told him then, “I have known Zhukov for a long time; he is a good general and a good military leader.”

  After the war Stalin began to tell all kinds of nonsense about Zhukov, among others the following: “You praised Zhukov, but he does not deserve it. It is said that before each operation at the front Zhukov used to behave as follows: he used to take a handful of earth, smell it, and say. ‘We can begin the attack,’ or the opposite, ‘The planned operation cannot be carried out.’” I stated at that time, “Comrade Stalin, I do not know who invented this, but it is not true.”

  It is possible that Stalin himself invented these things for the purpose of minimizing the role and military talents of Marshal Zhukov.

  All the more monstrous are the acts whose initiator was Stalin and which are rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state. We refer to the mass deportations from their native places of whole nations, together with all Communists and Komsomols without any exception; this deportation action was not dictated by any military considerations.

  The Ukrainians avoided meeting this fate only because there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them. Otherwise, he would have deported them also.

  Let us also recall the “Affair of the Doctor Plotters.” Actually there was no “affair” outside of the declaration of the woman doctor Timashuk, who was probably influenced or ordered by someone (after all, she was an unofficial collaborator of the organs of state security) to write Stalin a letter in which she declared that doctors were applying supposedly improper methods of medical treatment.

  Such a letter was sufficient for Stalin to reach an immediate co
nclusion that there are doctor plotters in the Soviet Union. He issued orders to arrest a group of eminent Soviet medical specialists. He personally issued advice on the conduct of the investigation and the method of interrogation of the arrested persons.

  Stalin personally called the investigative judge, gave him instructions, advised him on which investigative methods should be used; these methods were simple—beat, beat, and, once again, beat.

  Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts. One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin’s self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his “Short Biography,” which was published in 1948.

  “Stalin is the worthy continuer of Lenin’s work, or, as it is said in our party, Stalin is the Lenin of today.” You see how well it is said; not by the nation but by Stalin himself.

  Comrades, we must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all….

  We are absolutely certain that our party, armed with the historical resolutions of the twentieth congress, will lead the Soviet people along the Leninist path to new successes, to new victories.

  Long live the victorious banner of our party—Leninism!

  President John F. Kennedy, in His Inaugural, Takes Up the Torch for a New Generation

  “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

  “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen,” said Lincoln in his first inaugural “and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.” John F. Kennedy adopted the cadences of Lincoln (and corrected Lincoln’s redundant “fellow countrymen”) with “In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.” He also followed Lincoln in the use of quotation from both the Old and the New Testament, quoting from Isaiah and the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans. The most Lincolnesque of all was the use of the oratorical “let”; Kennedy began eight sentences with it, moving from “Let the word go forth… that the torch has been passed” (stressing the point that he was the first president born in the twentieth century) to “So let us begin anew” and “But let us begin” (which Lyndon Johnson later used as the basis of his “Let us continue”) to a paragraph that was later cited by Vietnam hawks as evidence of a determined Cold War mind-set: “Let every nation know… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

  The use of antithesis (“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate”) and parallelism (“United, there is little we cannot do…. Divided, there is little we can do”) made many passages memorable, culminating in the “ask not” line, which dramatized an idealism and selflessness in calling for sacrifice, though not specifying a particular sacrifice. But rhetorical devices aside, this speech—patterned on the Lincoln style, though not seeking to match the Lincoln legal substance or philosophical profundity—set the standard by which presidential inaugurals have been judged in the modern era. Such skilled political writers as Adlai Stevenson, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Walter Lippmann were consulted by Kennedy alter ego Ted Sorensen, but the result was not a committee product; rather, the excitingly delivered outdoor speech exuded youth and idealism, a sense of history, and a feeling for language that reflected the taste and cool passion of the speaker himself. In the light of Kennedy’s subsequent assassination, the association with Lincoln’s cadences makes a rereading especially poignant.

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  WE OBSERVE TODAY not a victory of a party but a celebration of freedom—symbolizing an end as well as a beginning—signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.

  The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

  We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

  Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.

  This much we pledge—and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

  To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

  To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

  To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge—to convert our good words into good deeds—in a new alliance for progress—to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house.

  To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

  Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction.

  We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.

  But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course—both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind’s final war.

  So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

  Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and contr
ol of arms—and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations.

  Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.

  Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah—to “undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free.”

  And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in a new endeavor—not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

  All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

  In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

  Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation”—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

  Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

  In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.