“Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth.” 
-Natan Sharansky, Soviet dissident
(Natan Sharansky, “The prisoner’s conscience,” Jewish World Review, June 8, 2004) 

“There was one day, however, on which we threw caution to the wind…That was the day that the official Communist Party newspaper spewed its wrath upon President Ronald Reagan, who dared accuse the Soviet Union of being the “Evil Empire.” That was the day when we knew that the days of communism were numbered, that communism would be defeated, because finally the spade had been called a spade. There was finally a clear, moral position; there would no longer be any confusion between the world of evil and the world of good.” 
-Natan Sharansky, Soviet dissident
(Natan Sharansky, “Democracy for Peace,” speech to the American Enterprise Institute World Forum, June 20, 2002) 

“It was the great brilliant moment when we learned that Ronald Reagan had proclaimed the Soviet Union an Evil Empire before the entire world. There was a long list of all the Western leaders who had lined up to condemn the evil Reagan for daring to call the great Soviet Union an evil empire right next to the front-page story about this dangerous, terrible man who wanted to take the world back to the dark days of the Cold War. This was the moment. It was the brightest, most glorious day. Finally a spade had been called a spade. Finally, Orwell's Newspeak was dead. President Reagan had from that moment made it impossible for anyone in the West to continue closing their eyes to the real nature of the Soviet Union. 

“It was one of the most important, freedom-affirming declarations, and we all instantly knew it. For us, that was the moment that really marked the end for them, and the beginning for us. The lie had been exposed and could never, ever be untold now. This was the end of Lenin's "Great October Bolshevik Revolution" and the beginning of a new revolution, a freedom revolution--Reagan's Revolution.” 
-Natan Sharansky, Soviet dissident
(Interview with Sharanksy, “The View from the Gulag,” Weekly Standard, June 21, 2004) 

“President Reagan’s rhetoric has badly shaken the self-esteem and patriotic pride of the Soviet political elites.” 
-Seweryn Bialer, Sovietologist, upon his return from the U.S.S.R. shortly after the speech.
(Steven Knott, “Reagan’s Critics,” National Interest, Summer 1996) 

“By describing the Soviet Union as ‘the focus of evil,’ President Reagan has singlehandedly deployed the one weapon for which the Soviets lack even a rudimentary defense: the truth.” 
-CIA report
(Steven Hayward, Age of Reagan: Lion at the Gate, unpublished book, to be released later this year by CrownForum) 

“He may have been impolitic, but he was not wrong.” 
-Strobe Talbott
(Strobe Talbott, The Russians and Reagan (New York, Vintage, 1984))