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The fall of the WallI never knew the Soviet Union would collapse in such a simple way. It was 20 years ago last week the satellite countries of Europe broke through the barriers that had imprisoned them for a half century. The guards did not shoot, the Soviet military did not respond. The world watched the euphoria and dreamed of peace. Western leaders had reservations about such an abrupt change, as we had developed a comfortable, adversarial relationship and now our enemy was gone. For my whole life, born post WWII, the Russian-led Soviet empire had been our adversary. We saw them as godless communists who desired to expand their dominance across the globe. They saw us as self-indulgent capitalists bent on destroying them. We were both wrong. In a recent interview I had with Alexi Khrushchev, who came to Iowa in recognition of the 50th anniversary of his father's visit to the Garst farm, he said: "The Iron Curtain had two sides." He was right. We countered their moves directly, or in proxy wars, and finally raised the financial expenditure so high that they folded their hand. Although the wall was first breached in Hungary, Germany was the key to ending Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. Only the young were brave enough to challenge the system that had separated Berlin into two distinct sections. It shows just how adaptable people can be to live in a city, for 50 years, with a guarded concrete barrier running its full length. On one side is the equivalent of Los Angeles with the slums of Chicago on the other. The parties and commerce of West Berlin could be heard from the east where a police state watched every move and dominated every resident. In the summer of 1990, I organized a group of agrichemical dealers and farm broadcasters to tour Russia, Poland and Germany. It was an agricultural tour and we were very interested in the reaction of the people to the political changes since the previous fall. In Russia, there was quiet concern as the government looked to be collapsing. The ruble was worth a dime and the people feared change. In Poland we saw smiles and determination. The farmers had weathered the storm and were getting their land back that they had lost in the war. Poland may have been occupied, but they were never beaten, and all were eager to reinstate capitalism and get on with life. In East Germany, it was quiet, as the country seemed to be waiting for leadership. Their leaders had left, or gone underground, to ride out the changes that were inevitable. As we drove into Berlin, we had to make the bus driver stop at Checkpoint Charlie so we could take pictures. The famous spot where east confronted west no longer existed. When we got into the city, our first desire was to see the wall. It was mostly intact with breaches in strategic spots so traffic could get through. Taking a bus from one side to the other was like night and day. All manner of glitz and decadence on the west became grey concrete and small apartments on the east. The wall was spray-painted with bright colors on the west side and untouched on the east. West Berliners told us that in the first few months they would see a small group of easterners huddled together in the street looking into a restaurant where people were drinking, dining and laughing. One would go in and buy an item and bring it out to show the group. An enterprising West German businessman drove a truck load of bananas into East Berlin shortly after the wall was opened. He sold out in fifteen minutes as many people had not had a banana in their adult life. The Russians had told them that if they brought in bananas they would be starving an African child. It is now reported that Germany spent the equivalent of $2 trillion to re-unify the country. It has happened with much internal pain but little visible from the outside. Germans are Germans and the separation was artificial. They unified their people with a single government and moved ahead. Celebration on the 20th anniversary proved their success as the Brandenburg Gate was lit by fireworks. Is the world a better place in the post-Soviet era? We first said yes and now we are not so sure. In 1990, western leaders from Britain to Washington were not ready to turn loose of their predictable communist adversary. We had built our military to deter a Soviet attack. We had aligned our allies to do the same. Now, instead of a regime that had the weapons but not the will to use them we are faced with radical religious militants in the Middle East who have the will and are looking for the weapons. They counter our multimillion-dollar drones with young men and women wearing explosive vests. It appears they can replenish their arsenal faster than we can, and use our oil purchases to do so. An interesting twist is that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, to get rid of "destabilizing religious radicals" and we countered them by funding Osama bin Laden and his followers. That error in judgment led to the war in Afghanistan and contributed to two wars in Iraq. The Soviet Union bought our grain and brought periods of prosperity to American farmers. Now we buy Middle Eastern oil and know that nothing good is going to come of it. Editor's Note: This is Ken Root's 35th year as an agricultural reporter. He grew up on a small farm in central Oklahoma and started his career as a vocational agriculture teacher. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as a broadcaster and was the original host of AgriTalk. He has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Kansas City. Ken is now the lead farm broadcaster at WHO and WMT Radio based in Des Moines, Iowa. He has been a columnist for HPJ and Midwest Ag Journal for eight years.
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