Evil Empire speech

For other uses, see Evil Empire speech (disambiguation).

The term evil empire was applied to the former Soviet Union (USSR) by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, American conservatives, and Cold War hawks.

The use of the phrase "evil empire" by Reagan and U.S. conservatives was intentionally designed to introduce a moral divide to the Cold War, depicting the Soviet Union and its allies as acting in ways that were evil and undermined conventional moral ethos. Some contend that the depiction of the Soviet Union, in the mid to late-1980s, as "evil" marked a turning point in the Cold War, affording the U.S. a moral highground that allowed it to take vastly more aggressive steps to deter and rollback the Soviet Union's significant engagement in global affairs.

Anthony R. Dolan, Reagan's chief speechwriter at the time, apparently coined the phrase[1]. Reagan first used the phrase in a March 8, 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida:

[L]et us be aware that, while [the Soviet leaders] preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

. . . .

So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

Reagan described the Soviet Union as totalitarian and evil. While his characterization of the USSR was supported by conservatives and Cold War hawks, many others disagreed, and a global controversy grew around Reagan's use of the phrase.

Global reaction

Reagan's critics, especially those who favored détente with the Soviets, felt that he was needlessly inflaming tensions between the two superpowers, increasing the risk of war. Some on the Left held that the United States was not in a position to make a moral claim against the Soviet Union, arguing that both superpowers had acted immorally throughout the world.

Michael Johns, writing for the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review magazine, prominently defended Reagan's assertion. In "Seventy Years of Evil: Soviet Crimes from Lenin to Gorbachev", Johns cited 208 acts by the Soviet Union that, he argued, demonstrated the Soviet leadership's evil inclinations.

The Soviet Union, for its part, maintained the same position it held for most of the Cold War: That the United States was an imperialist superpower seeking to dominate the entire world, and that the Soviet Union was fighting against it in the name of freedom.

During his second term in office, almost three years after using the term "evil empire," Reagan visited the new reformist General Secretary of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev. When asked by a reporter whether he still thought the USSR was an "evil empire," Reagan responded that he no longer did, and that when he had employed the term it had been a 'different era'—referring to the period before Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost reforms. Still, Reagan remained a harsh critic of the Soviet regime.

Recent historians have grown more favourable towards the idea of the 'evil empire', particularly John Lewis Gaddis. In his book, The Cold War, he argues that Reagan was breaking with the detente tradition in using this phrase and thus laid the groundwork for the fall of the Soviet Empire. Many conservatives claim that this speech was instrumental in bringing about the collapse of the USSR. Non-conservatives say that crediting Reagan's speech for that is like crediting the cheerleading squad for winning the game.

Later uses

• The band Rage Against the Machine released a 1996 album titled Evil Empire, which featured songs generally critical of the United States government, including "People of the Sun" and "Bulls on Parade".

• "Evil Empire" is also the name of a Ska/Punk band.

• "Evil Empire Comedy" is the name of a comedy company in the Bay Area. They do improv and focus on pop satire sketch comedy. The logo of the group is a pig face with devil horns.

• In recent years, the American professional baseball team, the New York Yankees, have been nicknamed the "evil empire" because of their huge team salary and success in obtaining the best players with lucrative contracts. University of Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma also used the term to describe the University of Tennessee's program in their heated rivalry.

• Within hacker culture, the term has come to be used as a reference to Microsoft and its business tactics, often seen as unethical and monopolistic.

• Eurosceptics such as UKIP use the term "Evil Empire" to refer to the European Union.

• In 2002, in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, U.S. president George W. Bush frequently referred to a so-called "axis of evil", comprised of the regimes of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea (and/or Syria.) This probably represents an unsubtle double reference to the "evil empire" and also the Axis of World War II. Bush was criticized for this phraseology much the same way Reagan was.

• In the world of manga, there is a website called Evil Empire where you can download manga for only a dollar or 10 posts.