Evil empire
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 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. As 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.
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.
Within hacker culture, the term is sometimes used referring to the software company Microsoft.
See: nuclear deterrent, Gorbachev
For the album by Rage Against the Machine, see Evil Empire (album).