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The term evil empire was applied to the former Soviet
Union by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the latter stages of the Cold War.
Reagan first used the term in his speech to the United Kingdom House of Commons on June 8,
1982. Reagan again used the term in a 1983 speech in
Orlando, Florida.
Reagan critics argued that, by attempting to assume moral superiority in the Cold War, the U.S. was further inflaming
East-West tensions and enhancing the risk of nuclear conflict.
Reagan's description of the former Soviet Union as totalitarian and
"evil," however, was staunchly supported by many U.S. conservatives. A global controversy
grew around Reagan's use of the phrase; for instance, The Heritage Foundation's Michael Johns authored a
lengthy defense in the conservative magazine, Policy Review. In "Seventy Years of Evil: Soviet Crimes from Lenin to
Gorbachev," Johns cited 208 acts by the former Soviet Union that, he argued, supported Reagan's allegation that the former Soviet
Union had acted repeatedly in ways that were fundamentally evil.
Strengthened by this support, Reagan never retracted his description of the former Soviet Union as an "evil empire," despite
repeated requests to do so.
Some radicals have turned this term against the United States. For
example, the rock group Rage Against the Machine
released an album with this name (see Evil Empire
(album)).
Some consider the term a reference to the Star Wars series of movies, which
pitted the Rebel Alliance against the Empire of the evil Darth Vader, especially since Reagan was reportedly a big fan of the movies.
Within hacker culture, the term is sometimes used referring to the
software company Microsoft.
See: nuclear deterrent, Gorbachev
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