Mikhail Gorbachev tried to save the Communist system. Ronald Reagan tried to destroy it. Reagan achieved his goal. Gorbachev failed at his. Yet through the Alice-in-Wonderland looking glass of the intellectuals, Gorbachev is awarded the credit for something he tried to prevent. Reagan, on the other hand, is portrayed in textbooks as a mere bystander to history.

To the victor go the spoils. This old axiom is turned on its head when it comes to the Cold War. The end of the Cold War, an Oxford University Press history of post-war America supposes, was “above all a gift from Gorbachev.” Yeah right, and we should give the lion’s share of the credit to Lee for surrendering at Appomattox, Hirohito for instructing his emissaries to sign for peace on the USS Missouri, and Napoleon for blundering at Waterloo. Only when it comes to the Cold War do the rules get rewritten to assign victory’s credit to the defeated.

The Cold War didn’t just end. The West won it. The West emerged victorious because the leader of the West’s flagship nation dramatically shifted policy. Presidents Eisenhower through Carter essentially pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union. President Reagan altered course dramatically. Thus, world events altered course dramatically.

Reagan significantly increased the defense budget. Reagan confronted the Soviet Union in Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Grenada, and elsewhere. He used the presidency as a bully-pulpit to shame Communism. During his presidency, for instance, he predicted that Communism’s “last pages are even now being written,” noted that humanity would “leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history,” and famously demanded, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” It all happened—to the consternation of too many academics.

President Reagan’s unforgivable sin was making learned men look ignorant.

Intellectuals can rewrite history. They can’t, thankfully, alter it.

Even if historians want to give Gorby some credit for being a reformer and ignore that his motivation for reform was to save communism and not destroy it; they should still see the clear facts surrounding his becoming Secretary General of the CP's central committee at all. He didn't achieve that position until 1985 . . . after 5 years of Reagan pursuing his prudently aggressive policies against the Soviets. Andropov groomed Gorby for the role because he realized that the Soviets must change tactics to deal with the American president, Gorby's appointment was clearly a reaction to Reagan and so more because of Reagan than because of any desire on the part of the Soviets to change.

Academics are accepting Gorby's OWN version of events uncritically, in which he has always portrayed himself as a catalyst of historical change rather than just along for the ride. Shame on them for such fawning.

Certainly Reagan adopted a more confrontational pose. But can you prove a causal link between his words & policies and the eventual collapse of the Eastern bloc? Perhaps communism was just a dying system that happened to hit its expiration date around 1989-1991.

I also wanted to say: Every president after FDR pursued proxy wars against communist entities.