The series of events which culminated in the West's victory - how the United States and other western democracies won the Cold War - is long and complex. One chapter of that history centers on Poland, and on a movement called "Solidarity" - a labor union which resisted the Soviet occupational government. Led by Lech Walensa, who later became the leader of Poland after it was freed from Communist control, Solidarity created an significant hindrance to the Marxist totalitarian government - but at a high price. Anyone who dared to question the Soviet Communist dictatorship was treated ruthlessly. Historian Ann Coulter writes:
In one famous case from the eighties, the Soviets brutally murdered the charismatic Catholic priest Jerzy Popieluszko, who had spoken out against the Communist regime in Poland, urging resistance and inspiring Solidarity. After arrests and "car accidents" failed to stop him, he was brutally beaten and murdered by three Security officers in 1984 and his body dumped in Vistula Water Reservoir.
When Communism manifests its essential nature - the violence which eventually erupts from apparently pacifistic utopian schemes when they encounter obstacles - it becomes clear why the Cold War was so important: had the Communists won, millions of human beings and large portions of the globe would be subjected to slavery and tyranny.
Any scheme for creating an ideal society, no matter how well-intentioned, and no matter how peaceful, creates an immense amount of psychological and emotional pressure: if perfection is within our grasp, we should do everything possible to achieve it! Thus even morally noble utopians gradually persuade themselves that violence is permissible in their cause: yes, violence is bad, but how great an achievement will be the result. From Rousseau to Marx, neither of whom wanted war, interminable bloodshed resulted. The social engineering which arises from the notion that humans and human society are perfectible leads consistently to the violation of rights - the very rights which it hopes to institute.
