 The roads end, the wall. These are the people who move along the road. Some walk, some ride, some are well shot, some are barefoot. Some are so young they must be carried, or so old. Of the hundreds of millions who take this road, some do so willingly. Others hope that the road leads to bread for the hungry, peace for the weary, land for the landless. Some protest openly. Doesn't matter. Some were born on the road. Many will die along the way. Havana, Cuba, January 1959. This road leads to this wall, Red China, September 1960. This road, this wall, Berlin, December 1961. This road, this wall. In the beginning, the road exists in the mind of a 19th century philosopher and scholar, Karl Marx, who maintains that only through a system he calls communism can the worker and farmer avoid starvation and exploitation. We declare openly, Marx writes, that our ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Thus, the road begins. Many who walk the road know its origins well. Many do not. Some things must be known about the road by those who do not travel it. This is a one-way street. The signposts along the way do not describe the true destinations. And nearly everyone who sets foot all-wheel on this road goes all the way to the end. For there are few exits, only difficult, dangerous escape. This man is Bert Ludens, a resident of East Berlin. His right to free passage into West Berlin is guaranteed by international agreement. But on August 13, 1961, this right has been set aside. To cross into West Berlin, Ludens swims the canal that at one point divides the zones. On reaching the Western Bank, he takes his first few steps into freedom and is promptly shot down by rifle fire from a border guard other coming aside. To know why Bert Ludens was shot down across an artificial border by a man who bore him no personal malice, we must look at the road. We must go back along it many miles and many years. Back from Berlin, 1961. To Havana, 1959. To Budapest, 1956. Koyokhan, 1940. Tronstadt, 1921. St. Petersburg, Tsarist Russia. Sunday, January 22, 1905. Onto the Tsar, Nicholas II, Russia is ruled by a government of absolute powers. These people, the workers and peasants of St. Petersburg, are not here to protest against this autocracy but to appeal to the autocrat. Under the leadership of a priest, Father Georgi Gapon, they have come to present a petition to the Tsar. We, the working men and inhabitants of St. Petersburg, come to the Isiah to seek defense. We have become beggars. We wait. One quarter of a million people stand before the Winter Palace. But the Tsar, in fact, is not there. Nor is it his will that the petition be received. Instead, said the Tsar, Nicholas II. My autocracy will remain unchanged. Said Father Gapon. We no longer have a Tsar. Long live the fight for freedom. The bearded young man who mends Father Gapon's words is V.I. Ulyanov, party name Lenion. Long live the revolutionary proletariat, say we. The Tsar will never be a success of the ruthless autocrat. He doesn't even look the part. And he's busy. Busy with elaborate ceremonials that no longer interest hungry people. Busy with his family, including his son, he will filiac who nears death whenever he cuts himself and is kept alive according to his mother by the awkward powers of Gregory Drasputin. Drasputin is a holy man. He says so himself. All one may be hell in the West. It is pure hell, 10 times over for the Russians. For them, no glamour, no airplanes, divisions without artillery, companies without rifles, rifles without bullets. The Russian casualties from typhus alone exceed the total casualties of the Germans. At the front, defeat, disorganization, and lonely death. Bones, starvation and poverty exceeding even previous Russian experiences. Finally, in March 1917, a demonstration in St. Petersburg starts over a simple demand for a higher bread ration. Gets out of hand, includes a new demand. Transfer of power from the Tsar to an elected parliament. The Tsar reacts in customary fashion. Turns his troops loose on the demonstrators. But something goes wrong. The army joins the people. With incredible swiftness, the Tsar's regime falls. A. N. Kerensky, a young lawyer, is minister of justice in a provisional government in which many parties are represented. A revolution belongs to the people. I propose to defend it against any attack, whether from the left or from the right. Kerensky arrests the Tsar and his family and announces that free elections are to be held. Political prisoners are freed and some food is distributed. But in the country, without experience in self-government, dissident elements of all shades struggle to convince still hungry people that their particular road leads to salvation. The war is unpopular. When it becomes clear that Kerensky means to continue it, the German general staff arranges for the return in a sealed railroad car of Lenin, who had been exiled by the Tsarist government to Switzerland. Leon Trotsky arrives a month later from Canada. Summer 1917, Kerensky becomes head of the provisional government and proclaims Russia a republic. Universal suffrage, power to be vested in an elected constituent assembly, freedom of speech and press, equal rights for women, Lenin on the Kerensky Republic. A democratic republic more free on the war conditions than any other country in the world. But in November, Lenin and Trotsky, as leaders of a huge pharma-worker army union, called the Soviet, called for the destruction of the republic. They imagine that serious political questions are decided by voting. As a matter of fact, they are decided by a class war. The class war is quick and relatively bloodless. Lenin's Bolsheviki sees the railroad station, telegraph lines, electric plants and government officers and declare themselves in business. This is the Russian version of a great event of that war, the storming of the Winter Palace. Notice Yvonne Armstrong, the all-Russian boy, opening the gate under fire. The interesting thing about this battle is that it never happened. In actual fact, the cadets defending the Winter Palace surrendered when it was pointed out to them that the building was an easy range of a rebel cruiser. Still, it makes a nice picture. The real violence comes later. On November 25th, the election Kerensky had called as held under the control of Lenin's Bolsheviki, who, to their amazement, lost it. Three to one. The assembly thus elected meets under the guns of Trotsky's Red Army, refuses for a time to turn over the power to the Soviet, but finally leaves the building in disorder. The following day, a few thousand citizens gather outside the building to protest against the dismissal of the assembly they have elected, and are promptly shot down by rifle fire by Trotsky's Red Army. Citizens of the Soviet Union still vote, but not since November 1917 as more than one name per office appeared on the ballot. The assembly never reconvenes. Power passes to the Soviet, which Lenin controls, and from there to the Council of Commissars, where Lenin's power is absolute. This is the dictatorship of the proletariat, a power won and maintained by violence that is unrestricted by... Lenin makes peace with the Germans, and now a genuine civil war breaks out. It ends. The white Russians rebel against the Reds. Allied troops fight to keep Russia in the war. Cossacks fight for both sides. Tsarist rise up to restore the monarchy. The Tsarist family are executed. And the chaker, first of many Soviet secret police groups, becomes active. Arrest without charge, imprisonment or exile without trial, disappearance without explanation, or become routine. But Lenin complains. There is still too little ruthlessness, not because we lack determination, but because we do not know how to capture enough profiteers, marauders, capitalists. However many they capture, they miss one. On August 30th, 1918, a young lady named Dora Kaplan takes a shot at Lenin. Her motives are unknown. Her marksmanship defective. Lenin is only slightly wounded. That night, in Moscow alone, 500 anti-Leninists are executed on suspicion of being associated with Miss Kaplan's airport. The sign posts along the road read, peace, freedom and bread. Because they understood that freedom and bread could be theirs only when peace was obtained, the workers and sailors of Konstadt have fought and won a bloody civil war. Now on March 7th, 1921, they mill in the streets asking for freedom and bread. Finally, at 6.45 in the evening, Trotsky, commander of the Red Army, who ordered the slaughter, gives the only explanation. It was necessary. Lenin and Trotsky are now firmly in power. The chaker is abolished. In its place comes the OGPU, or Political Police. And to check on the OGPU, there is Rob Green, the Workers and Peasants Inspection Group, whose chief is one Joseph Bizarjanovich Djukasvili. Party name, Stalin. He disputes Trotsky's position as Lenin's second in command and heir apparent. In the struggle, Stalin has the support of Zenovia, chief of the Communist International, and Kamenyev, city leader of Moscow, who could make you a judge or send you to Siberia. Now with the Civil War I, Lenin eases the demands for belt tightening and public sacrifice. Out of economic necessity, he institutes the new economic policy. Emphasis is placed on production of consumer goods, but the state maintains control of heavy industry. Even private enterprise is permitted within limits. And two new words, American aid, enter the Russian vocabulary. By March 1922, the American Relief Administration under Herbert Hoover is feeding 10 million Russians. But in March 1923, Lenin suffers a stroke. The following January, he is dead. And Zenovia and Kamenyev force Trotsky into exile. Then Stalin turns on his two associates and ends the new economic policy. In its place come three successive five-year plans, all designed to emphasize productive capacity, especially heavy industry and power output. In 1828 to 1941, Russian industrial capacity rises nearly 300%. For hydroelectric output is up nearly 800%. Agricultural production, however, lands. And housing starts actually, a less than population increase. If you're an average Russian, this means more work, not enough to eat and less and less living space per family. If you don't work hard enough, or if you complain, there are plenty of trains to Siberia where many hydroelectric dams are being built. On the other hand, if you work hard, you might become a staconovite. All you have to do is break the production record for your machine and get a medal and a small wage increase. That's better than a quick trip to the reindeer country. These are also the years of the great executions called Ytsovshina, in honor of Stalin's executioner N.I. Ytsov. How many people are permanently moved from circulation? No one knows. In some provinces, as much as 4% of the population vanishes. Kamenyev and Zinobyev, who helped Stalin seize power, are quickly disposed of. To have been a friend of either one of them is now a crime. For this and related activities, well over half of the top communist leadership and thousands of lesser officials vanish. As do most of the army officers. A very few of Ytsov's victims are given trials. Some of the trials are remarkable. For example, several defendants are convicted of conspiring with Trotsky in 1936 in the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. In actual fact, in 1936, the hotel was no longer in business. Next case, in 1938, Ytsov himself is purged together with many purged judges, labor camp operators, and the like. Coyoca, near Mexico City, August 20th, 1940. A young man comes calling on an attractive secretary and paying her little heed, plunges a mountain climber's axe into an old man's skull. And Leon Trotsky is dead. In the West, meanwhile, another dictatorship arose. He voted to world conquest complete with infallible leader, secret police, and cattle cars that carried men and women to the grave. Or worse. The time of the popular front. All who would make common chords against the fascists are welcome. But even as the pickets march, the popular front is changing. On August 23rd, 1939, Molotov for the Russians and von Ribbentrop for the Germans undertake to divide the world between them. On September 1st, eight days after the Nazi Soviet pack designed, German troops crossed the Polish frontier. And the world learned the meaning of a German word. Litzkrieg. On September 17th, the Red Army crossed the Poland frontier. On October 5th, Poland had disappeared. German and Russian shake hands at Szemyszcz. The scum of the earth, I believe. The bloody assassins of the workers, I presume. Germany gets more from the pack with the dismemberment of Poland. Russian icebreak is clear the way for German surface cruisers. Germans are also given a naval base at Murmansk and vast amounts of warm material. Each communist saboteurs the electrical systems on French fighter planes. The fall of France, Hitler decides the pack has served its purpose and ends it by invading the territory of his recent author, Russia. The turning point of the German invasion of Russia comes at Volgograd, which is then called Stalingrad. When the war ends, Russia acquires as the spoils of war Eastern Poland, Bessarabia, subcarpathian Ruthenia, East Prussia, Northern Sakhalin, the Quarrel Islands, and portions of Finland. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are incorporated as Soviet republics and much of their native population is deported. There are Russian zones of occupation depending final peace treaties in Germany, Austria, and North Korea. And the Russians have the right to maintain garrisons in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. How did we get from here to there to the present situation with an iron curtain dividing Europe and communist outposts throughout much of the world? What is the secret of communism's post-war expansion? What method do they use? The answer is they use them all. Occupying troops to remain until political domination is achieved in Poland, Romania, and Hungary. Zones of occupation become zones of continuing influence and control in East Germany and North Korea. Along with their political and psychological efforts, economic aid and trade agreements help spread the Soviet influence in Africa and the Middle East. Forces avoided wherever possible. But when it is needed, it is used. The expulsion from the mainland of the Chinese nationalist government is a military exercise complete with artillery, amphibious operations, casualties, and refugees. Subversion is, of course, an important technique of communist conquest. Czechoslovakia in 1948 is an established democracy in Eastern Europe. Suddenly, a rash of strikes. Conservative elements reside in the cabinet. Communist deputies pound their desks as the street demonstrations reach riot proportion. Police brutality and putting down the riots is charged, and the communists take over the police. On February 25th, informed that the alternative is civil war and aware of unmistakable threats of invasion from the Soviet Union, if he does not capitulate, President Benesh accepts a communist cabinet. But John Marzharik, son of the country's greatest hero, will not go along and remains in the foreign office. Two weeks later, his dead body is discovered. Whether he was murdered or killed himself is not known to this day. Three months later, a constitution Soviet-style is adopted by parliament. Benesh refuses to sign it and is forced from office. Before the year is over, Czechoslovakia, like its heroes Benesh and Marzharik, is dead. And Eastern Europe? In the words of Winston Churchill, from Statein in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Behind the iron curtain, it is easy to express contentment with your lot. And difficult and dangerous, not too. But human freedom dies hard. Uprising strikes in East Germany in 1953, and in Poland in 1956 are put down with local police augmented by Russian soldiers. In Poland, concessions are made so that Poland today, although indisputably communist, permits a degree of freedom unheard of in the other iron curtain countries. Poles are permitted to criticize government decisions if they do so discreetly. An occasional political joke is allowed but loud laughter is not recommended. You might disturb your neighbor and he might be the law. What I've touched. October 1956. These demonstrators are not anti-communist. In fact, many of Hungarian students particularly are communists who feel that as Hungarians they have the inalienable right to determine how Hungarian communism is to be administered. On October 24th, local party bosses decide enough is enough. And in the interest of law and order, their law, their order directs police to fire into the crowd. But the crowd does not melt away. Even when Russian garrison troops join the police, faced by an overwhelming mob, the Russians make a strategic withdrawal leaving the Hungarian police to be slaughtered by their own countrymen. In November, Imrenage was a communist but a Hungarian communist. He clears Hungary neutral as between Russia and the West. The Russians hesitate. Hungarians celebrate. But hesitation and celebration end soon. An entire Russian army invades Hungary and crushes the revolt. Nodged visits the Russians under a flag of truce to discuss surrender terms on June 17th, 1958. His execution is announced. No flowers, please. For many Cubans, the years before 1958 were hard. As in many other countries, the Cuban peasants rarely owned the land they worked so hard to till. For the urban masses, life in city slums was also depressing. Filth and disease flourished. Yet most of these poor Cubans, the proletariat of Marx, suffered their lot almost as if they were unaware that there was another way to live. When Fidel Castro was ready to come out of the Sierra Maestre, his support is based not on the poor but on the middle class. Ironically, it is the knowledgeable who formed the advance guard of the revolution. But when the Pied Piper seeks to broaden his support and sound support for bread and peace, the poor are there to listen. Many believe, few doubt, the revolution is a success. Castro's brother Raul is already a self-proclaimed communist. His close associate, Shea Guevara, had participated in the unsuccessful revolution in Guatemala. But in the enthusiasm of the revolution, few Cubans, even in the middle class, believe that Fidel Castro will ever turn communist. At first, he promises free elections. He acknowledges many of the traditional rights of citizens and the established institutions of government. But the elections never take place and the government quickly becomes an instrument of coercion. The takeover is a success. 1961. The road has almost reached the present. Why have the Russians built this war? Why are all Berliners denied the right, guaranteed them under the international agreements to pass freely from zone to zone within Berlin? The communist explanation is simplicity itself. According to them, West Berlin was a base for intrigue and imperialist assaults on East Berlin and East Germany where a man has a chance to enjoy peace and life. But Bant Ludens was going the other way. East to West. And so has every other casualty at the Wall. No one can be sure of the real reason. But prior to the erection of the Wall, almost anyone who could get into East Germany could reach West Berlin if his feet held out. And many did. Once in West Berlin, you are outside the Iron Curtain. But the free passage of people between East and West Berlin was the only physical gap in the Iron Curtain. So the Russians sealed it. The Wall is a solid fact and the Wall remains. It stands in Berlin today. It stands and will stand wherever the road of World Communism leads. Someday, according to its builders, it will surround not merely the world, but the moon, the stars, outer space, the universe. Their objective is clear and so is ours. They intend to put the world on their road. We intend that the world shall be free, each man and each country to choose the road that suits him best. To achieve our objective, we need above all to understand. Each new threat must be met. Force with force as in Korea. Threaten military action with military aid as in Greece and Turkey. Exploitation of economic weakness with economic aid and cooperation of the sort that has helped keep Western Europe independent. The choice is not red or dead. The choice lies between wisdom and ignorance. Ravery and cowardice. Freedom and slavery.