http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=105450

"That is the great role of the Western democracies in this age. It is our duty—to understand the threat we face—to be strong enough to deter any aggressor—to engage in and win the battle of ideas and, as Churchill always sought to do, to bind ever more closely those nations who cherish the dignity of man and the power of the human spirit.[fo 1]
The threat

First, the threat. We have to deal with: the Soviet Union. But we must deal with it not as we would like it to be, but as it is. We live on the same planet and we have to go on sharing it. We stand ready therefore—if and when the circumstances are right—to talk to the Soviet leadership.

But we must not fall into the trap of projecting our own morality onto the Soviet leaders. They do not share our aspirations: they are not constrained by our ethics, they have always considered themselves exempt from the rules that bind other states. They claim to speak in the name of humanity—but they oppress the individual. They pose as the champion of free nations—but in their own empire they practise total control. They invoke the word democracy—but they practise single-party rule by a self-appointed oligarchy. They pretend to support the freedom of the ballot-box- but they are protected by a system of one man, one vote—and one candidate.

Their power is sustained by myth. Presenting themselves to the world as the fount of progress and revolution, they preside over a modern version of the early tyrannies of history. A structure so rigid that it totally precludes the normal processes of questioning, discussion and change.

They have little contact with their own people, still less with the free world. "


"We have watched the depredations of the Soviet Union in the 66 years since its creation. While the Soviet Union has imposed its rule on its neighbours and drawn an iron curtain between East and West, we in Great Britain have given freedom and independence to more than 40 countries whose populations now number more than one thousand million—a quarter of the world's total.

The readiness of Russia to use force outside its borders is manifest. It is active in every continent, reaching deep into the domestic affairs of independent countries—openly or covertly. By using the tools of subversion. "

"We are confronted by a power of great military strength, which has consistently used force against its neighbours, which wields the threat of force as a weapon of policy, and which is bent on subverting and destroying the confidence and stability of the Western world. That is the threat we face, what is our response"

"No amount of propaganda, of spurious half-truths can disguise the determination of the Soviet Union to maintain or gain numerical advantage in weaponry, men and materials.

No amount of facile argument can conceal the fact that Soviet flexibility to date has been designed to beguile public opinion, not to make progress by genuine negotiation at Geneva.

Some may recoil at the thought of negotiating with men whose theories and actions have been responsible for so much suffering."

"Is there conscience in the Kremlin? do they ever ask themselves what is the purpose of life? What is it all for? Does the way they handled the Korean airliner atrocity suggest that they ever considered such questions?

No. Their creed is barren of conscience, immune to the promptings of good and evil. To them it is the system that counts, and all men must conform.[fo 4]

Nevertheless in Poland they have seen that Communism, even when disguised as military government, cannot suppress the soul of the people. Do they ever wonder, nay even fear, whether the day will not dawn when their own people will give voice to their feelings and frustrations?

Freedom of conscience is a natural right which laws did not give and which law can never take away.

It is the countries of the democratic West which recognise the limits of the power of the state, and which enshrine the conscience of man, in the very structure of their institutions. It is this which is the burden of our responsibility to mankind. Surely this was what Churchill meant when he said in a war-time broadcast to this country: "United we can save and guide the world. Divided the dark ages return".

Those words are as true today as they were in June 1941.

Our ideals and our values are our living strength. Soviet ideology teaches that we in the West are like ripe apples, ready to fall into their laps: that all they have to do is shake the tree. "

"our resolve to defend our way of life, to deter all threats and to ensure in the end that triumph of freedom which America and Britain work for, long for and believe will one day come.

Mr. Chairman, I began with Winston Churchill, and I will end with him. Who better? Churchill wrote; "where we are able to stand together and work together for righteous causes, we shall always be thankful, and the world will always be free.""