The Iron Curtain

I went to Heritage at lunch today to listen to Anne Applebaum speak about her new book, "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe." This New Yorker piece captures much of the book's tone. I've finished the first half, where she details how Eastern Europe--focusing on Poland, East Germany, and Hungary--were subsumed by totalitarianism exerted by Stalin. From youth subjugation, to the suppression of religious, to the takeover of radio, police control, and the entire eradication of everything civil society stood for, the entirety of these countries was overwhelmed.  She paints a vivid portrait of that region after it was literally destroyed in World War II. She also articulates the fear, desperation, and utter exhaustion of a people who were tired of losing their homes, businesses, and families in the agonies of war. And though she does not focus on it, one can only wonder why and how the United States let this happen. It was some sort of grand deal, some grand exchange, to just let the Soviet do want they want.  And so many what could have been.

I kept thinking of North Korea during her remarks, and the parallels to that regime, which also clamped down on human rights and has relied on fear and brainwashing to maintain their strangle hold of control. We sat back and let Eastern Europe lose nearly two generations, and have again for the North Koreans. Could we have prevented either? I don't know. Should we have?

The New Yorker piece makes clear that totalitarian control is not absolute. Even Applebaum marveled and how young Polish citizens, only one generation removed from Soviet control, travel freely across Europe as de facto Westerners. And questions of Soviet control have been replaced with questions on EU absolutism.

But for multiple generations of North Koreans, they suffer, largely in silence. What to be done?