Happy New Year from Speakola
That's it for 2025! Hope it was a good one for you.
I’ve just finished season three of Stranger Things, which isn’t the sunniest depiction of Cold War tensions. The Russians spend most of season three inhabiting an undetected weapons lab under the mall in a small town American town, which stretched credibility a fraction, and definitely situated the show pre-glasnost and perestroika. When we cut to Russia, the guards are feeding American prisoners to ravenous demogorgans. It’s definitely 1985.
In real history timelines, the Cold War thaw was on by New Year’s Day 1988, precipitated by a Soviet economy collapsing under the strains of the Reagan administration’s accelerated nuclear arms race, including the Star Wars missile defence program. General Secretary Gorbachev was a moderate confronting a political reality that involved independence movements, economic crises, and a thirst for westernisation, especially amongst the youth.
President Reagan often gets the credit for ending the Cold War, especially from Republican hawks, but I find it unsettling that ‘peace by escalation’ is the contribution we’re celebrating. Did he really think he would spend the USSR into submission, or did he escalate because he was a ‘force with force’ personality type, and that’s what they do? It could have been disastrous if Gorbachev had been a less visionary leader himself, or if the USSR had continued to prioritise military spend.
Having said that, the peace we celebrated in the 90s really was a false dawn when it came to Russia. The wall came down, there was much ideological triumphalism, ‘The End of History’ is the only article every person of my generation remembers from early 90s undergraduate reading1. Whatever we see now in Russia — a dictator, a warmonger, an anti-democratic strongman who appeals to nostalgia for the days of empire, was sewn in the chaos of the Russian experiment with 90s capitalism. The freedom the west invited Russians to at the end of the last century was a freedom for oligarchs to plunder the nation’s riches, one of the greatest asset heists in European history and one that set ordinary Russians against western democracy, and unfettered capitalism.
I’ve been distracted from this 1987 speech, which was the beginning of a time of optimism and hope. It’s worth a read, and a listen, even if only to remind yourself that amidst the fear and apprehension of the Cold War, there was a sense that the people in charge were motivated by civic duty, or could at least say the right words to give the impression they were motivated by civic duty.
We’re not so lucky now.
Best wishes and Happy New Year
Tony
Ronald Reagan & Mikhael Gorbachev: ‘This is a season of hope and expectation’, New Year’s address - 1988
1 January 1988, Washington DC & Moscow
The leaders of USA and USSR addressed the people in one another’s respective countries in an innovative and Cold War thawing New Year’s address.
MR REAGAN: Good evening. This is Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. I’m speaking to you, the peoples of the Soviet Union, on the occasion of the new year.
