Composition

Ronald Reagan begins his 1982 “Evil Empire” speech by talking about “a terrible political invention – totalitarianism”. In the first part of the speech, he introduces the main topic: the contrast between totalitarianism and democracy. His speech aims to give arguments on why totalitarianism must collapse and democracy is the only acceptable political movement in a free world. The speech did not originally have a title, but it later became known as the “Evil Empire” speech after Reagan’s comments on the faults of the Soviet Union.

In the second part of the speech, Reagan talks about the clues that predict the collapse of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. He mentions, among others, the failure of the agricultural sector and the pressure of the ...