Chapter 92 postscript

When the historic Bristol Hotel reopened in May 1993.I visited Warsaw as a VIP.Viewed from an appropriate standpoint, it is a meaningful event.The Bristol Hotel was once one of the great hotels in Europe.It opened in 1901 and is owned by a company.The main shareholder of the company is the pianist and Polish President Paderewski. Before 1914, Guan was famous for the first-class meals in Europe and the elegance in the upper class.When Poland fell into disaster under the rule of Nazism, so did the Bristol Hotel. It closed its doors in the early 80s.Now it has been fully restored to its former glory with the help of a British company and I was delighted to officiate at its re-opening.It was felt as a sign that the sublime way of life had returned to its natural home in Europe.I also officially inaugurated my foundation's offices in Warsaw, which I hope will help consolidate democracy and a free economy in the post-communist world.

But there was a deeper reason to make my visit memorable.It coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.That Saturday afternoon, I took a walk through the now razed area, guided by the oldest survivor of the uprising.It later took me to pictures of the Nazis destroying the city's Jewish neighborhood.It was a painful experience.These horrific events took place in my own life when I was a young student at Oxford, and I feel them all the more. The next morning I said mass at the Church of the Holy Cross.The atmosphere in the church was very pious, and the ceremony was carefully arranged, which was very different from the formal pious service of the Anglican Church and the very simple service of the Grantham Methodist Church.Every corner is full of people.The choir sang a Polish hymn unfamiliar to me, which added to the excitement, because I did not understand its lines: thus forcing me to try to imagine from the music what the congregation was asking God for.Although I was new to all this, it gave me a sense of comfort: I was one of many in the friendship of believers who crossed borders and denominations.

However, when the priest stood up to preach, I felt suddenly the center of attention.People turned to look at me and smiled at me. After the priest finished his sermon, the ceremony continued.After Mass, I was invited to stand in front of the altar.When I stood on the altar, rows of children presented me with small bouquets, and their parents applauded. In my long struggle with the Soviet Union, I have always believed that my strongest allies were the ordinary people of the Eastern Bloc.While real differences separate countries and people of different cultures, our basic needs and desires are very similar: a good job, a loving family, a better life for our children. A good day, a country where people control their own destiny.

When a reader gets to this point with my two autobiographies, he will have finished a record of a busy, productive, and generally enjoyable life.I hope this will remain the case for some time to come.But writing an autobiography not only forces me to do more introspection, but even to see my life as some kind of finished work, as if the deadlines imposed by the publisher are more important, so, a living politician What is the epitaph that can reasonably be pursued?The question itself has been answered — not a satisfactory answer.But to draw a fair conclusion, one must first ask: What is the best thing a person can achieve in life?

We are told, with good reason, that all human achievement is built on sand.Our victories and our misfortunes are fleeting.We cannot foresee the future, let alone determine it, and the most we can achieve in our private lives is to give our children better prospects, but it is up to them to continue to make a difference in those prospects.Likewise, as Prime Minister, the most I could aspire to achieve then was to give my successor a better country than the one I inherited in the disaffected winter of 1979.I try to do that.Although there have been some setbacks, I can claim that I have achieved a lot. 1--990 The British people are freer, richer, less suffering from internal strife and enjoying better prospects for world peace than at any time since the First World War.But in politics there is no final victory.Will these achievements be eternal?Will these achievements go backwards?Will some new controversy or cloud, now smaller than a hand hold, undo these achievements in the future?

Naturally, I am interested in such questions.I have at least the average human ego, but have no answers other than the most general (and most frustrating) below: They are human achievements and thus built on sand. However, this depression must meet two qualifications.First, the big political struggle changed the direction of history, and subsequent conflicts may at some point seem to reverse the outcome.But in fact, they take place on a different battlefield that has been forever changed by the early victories.So the final situation may include many of the features that the recent victors had originally opposed.Eventually, a Labor government could come to power in the UK.However, even if it came to power, it is unlikely to re-nationalize industries that were privatized in the 1980s, restore the 1979 top tax rate of 98 percent, and cancel all union reforms, let alone Said to implement some of the proposals contained in the 1983 Labor Party election manifesto.In some central European countries, former communists (under various banners) have returned to power, but they show no sign of restoring a centralized economy or police state, let alone resurrecting the Warsaw Pact.What Ronald Reagan and I achieved in the 1980s is likely to change in the future in ways that do not match our interests.But it will never change back to what we were against exactly.

My second qualification is that our experiences are past and therefore cannot be modified.Just like a life is over, it can never be changed, whether it is for the better or for the worse.The young Jews who were killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising will never finish their studies, raise a family, serve their communities, or make decisions about their own lives.The Soviet Union existed for 74 years. For hundreds of millions of people, that period was their entire life. For those who survived to see the "Velvet Revolution" in 1989 and the Soviet Union's abortive coup in 1991, freedom was regained. An experience that no one else can ever take away from them.

But after 1979, due to the weakening of socialism and the expansion of freedom, they have been able to realize their ambitions.Some will no longer be held back from full functioning by the power of unions; some will be able to buy a house for the first time, private pensions and shares in privatized companies - reserves for their children; Finding a good private school or a bed in a private hospital was no longer the privilege of the rich, who could pay for it; at the height of philanthropy in the 1980s, some were able to share their new affluence with others; Income taxes are reduced, and all people enjoy greater freedom and more control over their lives.A future government may limit the reforms that have brought these new lives to people - whether in the East or the West, but it can never erase the experience of freedom that people have had, or make them forget that this freedom can only be had under the sun .In the film "Ninochoff", the heroine in Moscow receives a letter under censorship, which is filled with black lines from greetings to signatures, but as one character in the film says: "They cannot Check our memory."

Of course, no human mind, or any computer imaginable, can calculate how much joy, achievement, and virtue these experiences have brought together, or their opposites.therefore.Only on Judgment Day will we be able to fully explain how my political activism has affected the lives of others.It made me feel daunted and uneasy.But it comforts me that when I stand there and listen to the verdict, I think that there are at least the people of the Holy Cross Church in court as witnesses to my character.