Two months after this speech was delivered, the final dissolution of the Soviet Union itself began. On August 19, 1991, some of President Mikhail Gorbachev's associates staged a coup d'etat. Within three days, with Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin leading the resistance, the coup collapsed. On December 8, 1991, the three republics of Russia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia (Belarus) formed a new federation and moved the capital from Moscow to Minsk. This new union, called the Commonwealth of Independent States, marked the end of the Soviet Union and a search for a new relationship between the former Soviet Republics. In the following speech, Dr. Pak pinpoints the deep, spiritual reason behind the failure of communism. On the occasion of the 20th American Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., on June 1, 1990, Dr. Pak gave the following remarks.

On behalf of the American Leadership Conference, I would like to welcome you all to Washington, D.C., and to the 20th American Leadership Conference. There is no doubt that this conference is being convened at a most historic time. On November 10, 1989, the Berlin Wall finally began to tumble down. In existence since 1961, this symbol of the Cold War and of the ideological confrontation between East and West was the landmark of tyranny and totalitarianism. I am sure we all had the same experience that day: We doubted our eyes and ears. After all, only a few weeks earlier the now-deposed East German leader Erich Honecker had stubbornly predicted that the Berlin Wall would still be standing in fifty, or even one hundred, years.

That very day I was visiting Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, together with the cultural attaché of the Soviet embassy. Suddenly, as we were meeting in his office, Arnaud received the news that the Berlin Wall had fallen. The Soviet attaches response to the news was very cute. He asked, "Which way?" Remarkably, his question was right to the point. Not only did 2.7 million East Berliners cross the border to the West for a taste of freedom, but thousands of West Berliners crossed the border to East Germany to test the new freedom that had been granted. To put it simply, the Berlin Wall, the most brutal symbol of the Cold War, has collapsed.

We have been conducting these conferences for several years now, and a major area of discussion and concern has been the problem of communism and the aggressive behavior of the Soviet Union. However, in recent months the world situation has dramatically changed. A wave of democratization has swept over Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union itself.

In our own hemisphere the Nicaraguan people, when given a chance to make their feelings known, decisively rejected Castro-style communism and elected the courageous Mrs. Chamorro to be their president. A whirlwind of change is happening in the world, and no one really knows what tomorrow may bring.

Yet one thing is absolutely certain: The era of communism, which has caused so much destruction and suffering over the past 70 years and claimed the lives of 160 million innocent people, is quickly coming to an end. Some describe the situation of communism today as "brain dead." Mr. Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika are the Soviet version of Chapter 11. The Soviet communists are simply bankrupt. They have run out of ideas, and they have run out of cash.

In 1775, Patrick Henry proclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death." His ringing declaration helped inspire his fellow countrymen to victory in the American revolution. Two hundred some years later, as we watch millions of long-oppressed people preferring liberty to life, we are reminded of what America means to them, as well as to us. Even the Iron Curtain could not withstand the overwhelming will of the people. A new era has dawned, with freedom ringing from Berlin to Budapest to Warsaw.

We live at a turning point in modern history. The sacrifices that Americans made to oppose communism's advance in Korea, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America have borne fruit. The totalitarian era is rapidly coming to a close.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us ask why communism has failed. For 70 years communism has been a great menace to human freedom and to the very survival of our way of life. But, all of a sudden, communism is falling apart. We must seriously question why this is happening. The American Leadership Conference, which has been known as the best forum for exposing the true nature of communism and for setting forth an alternative solution, has a very clear answer to that question. In the next two days you will hear more about it.

But tonight, let me summarize in essence the reason why communism has failed. As you know, when we say communism, we are referring to what was advocated by Karl Marx and successfully implemented by Lenin as Marxism-Leninism. In the past 70 years since the Soviet Union established a totalitarian state, their claim to legitimacy has centered around the belief that Marxism-Leninism was the scientific truth. They had absolute confidence that science would prove them right-that only communism was scientific and that science would relegate God and religion to mythology. During this period the one word that bolstered communism again and again was the word "scientific." Everything else was either utopian or superstition. But, in fact, the most fundamental reason why communism failed is that it is neither scientific nor the truth.

The communist philosophy stands on the supposedly scientific assumption that the essence of the universe is matter. Only matter exists and is real. The eternal spirit, or soul, is said to be an illusion. This is the foundation of dialectical materialism, the metaphysics of Marxism. In this view, there is no room for God. To Marxists, God is really an entity that man created, not the other way around. Man created God, God did not create man. This fundamental militant denial of God remains the backbone of the communist ideology. Therefore, to them, religion is the opium of the masses. The denial of God is based on their confidence in science to provide infinite power.

However, when the communists speak about science, they refer to the science of the 17th and 18th centuries. In those days the greatest scientists, such as Newton and others, believed the universe consisted of unbreakable ultimate micro-particles. Communism borrowed the science of that era and came to conclude that the essence of the universe was matter.

Yet we are living in the latter part of the 20th century. Science has made phenomenal progress in the past 100 years, especially in totally new areas such as quantum physics. I have in my hand a book titled God and the New Physics and, as you might imagine, it is a very interesting book. Discussion about God is usually connected to the realm of religion, and physics is usually the domain of science. If this book had been written by a clergyman, it would not have had much significance.

But this book was written by a nuclear physicist, Dr. Paul Davies, who makes a most extraordinary claim. He writes, "In my opinion, science offers a surer path to God than religion." What an amazing statement! In 20th century science the concept of matter has been revolutionized. There is no such thing as an "ultimate particle" in the universe. Matter has been broken down into pieces, to the extent that matter as such disappears and becomes energy. Albert Einstein set forth the equivalence of energy and matter in his formula E=mc², which opened the way for a modern-day scientific revolution. Matter and energy are interconvertible and interchangeable.

When it is recognized that all matter is composed of formless energy, we come to the common sense conclusion that there must be a purpose and will behind the universe that channeled energy into the orderly universe we observe around us. Science is based on the assumption that there is an orderly relationship between cause and effect. Thus, a highly ordered effect cannot emerge from a random cause. Scientists have to recognize, therefore, that before the universe began it must have been preceded by a purposeful will or mind. To use a more philosophical term, we call this the first cause. In religious terms, this is God, the Creator. Einstein himself declared, "I want to know how God created the world. I want to know His thoughts. The rest are details."

Ladies and gentlemen, what I am trying to say is simply that the existence of God is no longer just a religious topic. It has virtually become the scientific conclusion of the 20th century and will be even more so in the 21st century. So-called "scientific socialism" is based on the science of the 17th and 18th centuries. From a 20th-century scientific point of view, it is nothing more than superstition, now clearly headed for the dustbin of history. I say it again, communism is failing because its theory is neither scientific nor true.

I would like to elaborate on one more important reason for the grand failure of communism. Communism must fail because it opposes human nature itself. What do I mean? The Creator gave man a natural dispositionnamely, we are all born with ambition or desire. First, we want to better ourselves. Second, we have a natural desire to create. Third, we have the ambition of ownership. These natural characteristics of the human being should not be confused with the human greed we frequently see manifested in human affairs. All human progress is prompted by our efforts to satisfy these basic ambitions: the desire to better oneself spiritually, morally, and economically; the desire to create; and the desire to own.

In order to have human nature function fully, we need a certain environment. For one thing, the opportunity must exist to pursue one's own happiness. Second, people need liberty to create. Finally, the right of ownership must be protected by society. Communism denies all of these and suppresses the innate ambition of the human being.

The Communist Manifesto states that the very essence of communism is the abolition of private property. When communism denies the human being as simply the most sophisticated form of matter, it affords no protection for freedom; and when there is no individual dignity, there can be no pursuit of happiness. In other words, communism declares war on human nature.

Yet human nature will always win. There is no power that can even slightly diminish the nature given man by God. Today's grand failure of communism is not so much a credit to the people of the free world as it is a credit to God. From day one, the communist system was destined to fail because it goes against the law of nature and the law of God.

Consider another critical point. In the 18th century, almost simultaneously, there were two revolutions in the Western world. One was the French revolution of 1789, proclaiming liberty, equality, and fraternity. The absolute rule of Louis XVI was ended by his death on the guillotine, and a great deal of blood was shed. But did that revolution secure liberty, equality, and fraternity for the people? No. The end result was another absolute ruler, Napoleon. Furthermore, their revolution became the model used by Lenin to establish a communist state.

The other major revolution of the 18th century was the American revolution of 1776, which resulted in the birth of a great nation and a world power that has enjoyed more than 200 years of prosperity. What is the essential difference between these two revolutions? The answer is very simple. One revolution evolved with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, and the other in defiance of anything greater than man.

The Declaration of Independence reads, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The secret of America's success lies in these few, well-chosen words. The American revolution was a God-centered revolution. It declared to the world the sacred human rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all of which come from Almighty God, not from government, not from the Constitution, and not from the communist party.

Furthermore, it made clear the purpose of government. The Declaration states, "In order to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." From this statement we can better understand what is the purpose and role of government. The government does not exist to further its own interests. The government's sole purpose is to safeguard and protect the God-given, inalienable rights of the people. The Declaration made it abundantly clear where the power of the government derives, stating, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." This is the basis of democracy. These few sentences say it all, and contain the secret of the American success story.

Alexander Hamilton declared that "our sacred rights are... written by the hand of Divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." John Adams warned Americans, "if we will not be governed by God, we will be ruled by tyrants." George Washington said, "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible." These sentiments of the American founders that I quoted stand in stark contrast to the words of Lenin, who said, "There is no disease worse than that of believing in God."

As we witness the events of the latter part of the 20th century, we must conclude that the God-centered vision is the one that will endure.

But at the same time we must ask ourselves what the condition of America is today. Even at this moment of great historical transformation, we cannot simply raise our glasses in a champagne toast. I must honestly tell you that the cause of the failure of the communist world is at our door as well. We cannot be content with self-congratulation.

America now faces a test of faith. As we have become alienated from our spiritual heritage, America's moral foundation has eroded. At her birth, America's founding fathers recognized certain self-evident truths that united them. Today these self-evident truths have been replaced with the belief that no person's view of life is any more accurate than anyone else's. That is, there is no truth. Nothing is absolute. As a result, instead of people enjoying freedom within the bounds of moral law, we see efforts to overturn all notions of morality, leading many into license and depravity. The liberties many Americans seek today are a far cry from what Patrick Henry was willing to die for.

Accepting the Templeton Prize for progress in religion, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate, put it bluntly: "If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Bolshevik revolution that destroyed more than 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat, `Men have forgotten God.' That is why all this has happened."

He identified the forsaking of God as the principal trait of the entire 20th century, which is being sucked into the vortex of atheism and self-destruction.

It is one thing, Solzhenitsyn observed, that millions of human beings have been corrupted and spiritually devastated by an officially imposed atheism, such as in the Soviet Union, but it is another that the tide of atheistic secularism has progressively inundated the West so that the very concepts of good and evil have themselves been ridiculed. This is precisely the case in modern-day America.

When you forsake God, either in the name of communism or in the name of atheistic humanism, the result will be the same: self-destruction.

I was recently with Reverend Moon in the Soviet Union where he met with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Mr. Gorbachev discussed his hopes for the future of his country under the policies of glasnost and perestroika, and Reverend Moon encouraged him and offered his support for real change in the USSR. But in essence, what does real change mean?

To put that question into perspective, let me quote from an important book published a few years ago entitled USSR: The Corrupt Society, by former Soviet attorney Konstantin Simis. Simis writes:

Even if the ruling elite undertook a decisive battle against corruption, such an attempt would be doomed to failure, since at the root of the general corruption of the Soviet Union lies the totalitarian rule of the Communist Party, single-handedly ruling the country. This power is checked neither by law nor by a free press. And the nature of any unrestricted power is such that it inevitably corrupts those who wield it, and constantly generates the phenomenon of corruption. So it is that corruption has become the organic and unchangeable essence of the Soviet regime and can be eliminated only by a root change in the means of government.

And now, finishing this book, I ask myself: What next? What is the future of my country? And I answer my own question with bitterness: The Soviet government and Soviet society cannot rid itself of corruption as long as it remains Soviet. It is as simple as that.

This means that the Soviet Union cannot fundamentally change itself as long as it remains communist. The real solution lies in total de-communization, which means, first, they must allow God and religious freedom to flourish. Second, they must allow genuine self-government to prosper in a pluralistic society. Third, they must move beyond a state-controlled economy. Unless the Soviet Union changes in these three fundamental ways, Mr. Gorbachev's perestroika will never succeed.

We are truly living in a special time and, yet, we may be living in a most dangerous time as well. We simply cannot rest on our laurels until the transformation of communism is complete.

I am afraid that America too is facing a crisis. Today our major threat is no longer an external one. There are new enemies on the horizon. Deadly enemies. They are drug abuse, racial violence, and the other results of moral degradation. It is Americans, not Iranians or Russians, who are killing fellow Americans every day. We have fallen prey to an invasion not of foreign troops on our soil but of evil and hatred in the soul of our people.

Dr. Allan Bloom, a professor at the University of Chicago, wrote the best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind. His book is a powerful indictment of relativism, and its reputation is partially due to its eye-opening conclusions. Bloom believes the United States is sinking into a kind of moral illiteracy. The disease, he says, is everywhere, but it is most dangerously prevalent on America's college campuses. Here the elite educated to rule the country have become something similar to what the ancients called the mob, dedicated not to learning or to serving their fellow man but to the exercise and fulfillment of their passions. Hedonism, promiscuity, the refusal or inability to distinguish between good and evil-these characterize the best and the brightest among today's youth.

All these things are happening because we are departing from the fundamental principles and founding spirit of this nation. The question of whether or not we will endure and prosper depends on what action we take at this historical crossroads. Providence and history dictate that when a people cease to be in reliance upon God and His will, they perish. Our task is to rekindle the American spirit. The restoration of our nation requires a bold moral vision and a sense of where history is headed. As Americans we must begin anew, as we began once before, by reaffirming our devotion to and our humility before God, and in so doing bring about a revolutionary rebirth of freedom, justice, and peace for all mankind. Can we do it? Certainly we can. In western movies John Wayne always comes on the scene at the bleakest hour.

That is the very purpose for which we convened this conference. The program presents a philosophical framework that precisely deals with the very reality of God. It is a God-centered worldview, one which beautifully highlights the contrasts between communism and the American ideology. It totally exposes the lies and deceptions of communism while offering a clear philosophical basis for freedom under God.

We stand here today in place of the founding fathers of this country. What we need is new momentum, a new awakening. What is called for is a new American revolution, one that goes back to the very roots of America.

Our founding fathers boldly declared "One Nation Under God," and it came to pass. Today the American ideal must be moved into a new dimension because we live in a different age. No nation is an island. We have to think in terms of the survival and prosperity of all peoples of the world. Our expanded dream must be that of "One World Under God."

Communism's collapse has brought about a great vacuum of ideology in a large part of the world and something must fill that vacuum. Before we rush to them with aid in the form of dollars, we must fill that vacuum with a vision, a dream-the dream of God and true self-government. America has that dream, but before we can effectively use it we must rededicate ourselves to God, liberty, and a true system of values. We have a great model before us, the founding fathers of this country. We would do well to follow their example. What did they do? First, they had faith in Almighty God; they believed in the firm protection of Divine Providence. Second, they firmly pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to accomplish this noble goal. To me, they are a most inspiring model.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must do no less. Each of us in this room is called to be a Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, or Madison. United in this purpose and spirit we can become the founding fathers of a new America.

I would like to conclude my remarks by quoting the famous utterance of Victor Hugo: "More powerful than an invading army is an idea whose time has come." Ladies and gentlemen, the American Leadership Conference is an idea whose time has come.

God bless you and thank you very much.

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