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and Cambodia as well, setting up brutal Communist dicta rships throughout the Indochinese peninsula. In Cambodia, the government of Pol Pot was responsible r the deaths of a quarter of the nation's population.
That same year, Angola and Mozambique ( rmer Portuguese colonies in A ica) came under Communist cont l, as the U.S., disillusioned and embi ered by Vietnam, re sed to give anti-Communist eedom ghet rs a aid. Communists also solidi ed their control over Ethiopia. Their only ilure in 1975 s in Portugal, where massive popular opposition arose to a Communist gove ment which had seized p r in the country of Fatima. On the anniversary of the July 13 apparition, thousands of r­ tuguese came to Fatima to beg Our Lady's intercession r eir country. That same day, anti-Communist uprisings erupted. They continued through­ out the summer, without any organized leadership except the spiritual inspi­ ration provided by Francisco Maria da Silva, e Archbishop of Braga. By September the Co unists had been rced out of the government and Portugal was saved.
But that ilure, though an important one, did not stop e Communists. In 1979 they invaded Afghanistan and in that same year set up a Marxist g ernment in the Central American country of Nicaragua. It was not until the mid-1980's, under President Reagan, that the U.S. began reversing its poli of detente to give aid to the eedom ghters resisting Co unism around the world.
The Counter- olution against Communism
The utter ilure of the Communist economic sys m to ed its people, e inability of a command economy to adapt to the computer age, the successes of the eedom ghters against Communist regimes, particularly in Afghanistan, and the consequent drains on the Soviet economy and mili­ tary morale, all led Mikhail Gorbachev, who took over as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1986, to announce his policies of glasnost (open­ ness) and perestroika (restructuring). When this tiny crack was opened in the prison door, the satellite states of Easte Europe did not hesita to push the door open wide and march right through. Gorbachev chose let them go, and the people of Easte Europe knew a degree of eedom r the rst time since World War II.