‘The Reagan World View’

The term “the post-colonial period” makes an appearance in your editorial. The Times has now taken to letting Soviet propaganda define the state of the world for all of us.

The Western world has entered a post-colonial period. The same can certainly not be said of the U.S.S.R. What are Czechoslovakia, Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba and Mongolia but colonies, leached of their productive capacity, spirit and national resources by the lumbering Soviet state?

Additionally, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, the Ukraine and the South Asian republics, though incorporated into the Soviet Union itself, are colonies nonetheless, whose governments are dominated by ethnic Russians, and whose people did not voluntarily choose Russian rule.

The unrelenting stream of falsities spewing from Moscow cannot but have an effect even on the most sober of Western ears. Totalitarians, whether Soviet, South African or other, are quite capable of producing catchwords such as “peace” and “detente,” their intention being that these be adhered to by those who oppose them, unilaterally.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s calls for “cleaning away the last vestiges of colonialism,” are, unfortunately, anything but exercises in self-criticism. The Soviet finger of blame always points outward.

ALEXANDER PAVIC

Los Angeles