His devotion to his people and faith was a source of inspiration to all Americans. Accordingly. it would be tragic if our elation at Anatoly Shcharanskys release allowed us to forget the 2/2 million Jews who remain behind. In 1979. 51.320 Soviet Jews were permitted to emigrate. 1.140 were allowed to leave in 1985. and more recent figures are equally depressing. Some 400.000 Soviet Jews have begun the difficult process of requesting exit visas. 20.000 have been refused. 380.000 remain in bureaucratic limbo. In March 1986. 47 Jews were permitted to leave the Soviet Union. This marked a precipitous drop from the 84 who left in February. and represented and emigration rate far below the rate of visa applications. which itself is depressed by the constant harassment of applicants. The Government of the Soviet Union is the single largest and most powerful threat to human liberty in the world. Other regimes are more murderous than the U.S.S.R. is today. but none are as powerful or as devoted to the construction of a totalitarian world in which the individual has no status save what the state finds convenient to accord.
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