你聽說過她的名字，你甚至可能看過關於她的電影，但你真的瞭解瑪格麗特·撒切爾（Margaret Thatcher）的全部故事嗎？
讀化學專業出身的她，是如何邁入政壇的？時值英國民生凋敝，撒切爾大刀闊斧做了哪些改變？撒切爾主義又是什麼？
這位昔日英國政壇強人、有著"鐵娘子"之稱的女政治家撒切爾夫人——
有人讚頌她一手力挽狂瀾挽救了英國，她是將"大"字重新放到"不列顛"之前的救世主；也有人抨擊，她是讓英國社會陷入分裂的罪人。
無論是非功過，撒切爾都給英國乃至世界刻下了不可磨滅的印記。
中英全文
If you think the world is a mess now, that just means you weren't around in the 1970s. In Britain, where I grew up, the low point was known as "the winter of discontent," a line borrowed from Shakespeare's Richard III.
如果你覺得現在這個世界一團糟，那說明你沒經歷過1970年代。在我的家鄉英國，這一段低谷期被稱為"不滿之冬"，這個短語出自莎士比亞劇作《理查三世》。
The inflation rate in 1975 was 27 percent. The trains were always late. The payphones were always broken. Nothing worked. Worst of all were the recurrent strikes. Strikes by coal miners. Strikes by dockers. Strikes by printers. Strikes by refuse collectors. Strikes even by gravediggers. It felt as if there was no way back.
1975年，通貨膨脹率為27%。火車總是晚點，公用電話永遠是壞的，諸事不順，每況愈下。最糟糕的是罷工頻發，煤礦工人罷工、碼頭工人罷工、印刷工人罷工、垃圾收集員罷工，甚至連掘墓人也罷工。境況已是無路可退。
And then came Margaret Thatcher. Between May 1979, when she entered 10 Downing Street as prime minister, and November 1990, when she stepped down, she changed everything.
這時，瑪格麗特·撒切爾出現了。自1979年5月，她步入唐寧街10號出任首相那天起，直至1990年11月卸任下臺為止，她改變了一切。
Born on October 13, 1925, she was an improbable savior. Nothing in her middle-class childhood suggested the future ahead of her. A diligent student, she got into Oxford as a chemistry major. She worked for a small plastics company after leaving college but was rejected for a position at the British chemical giant ICI because, as the personnel report stated, "This woman is headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated."
出生於1925年10月13日的她，似乎毫無可能成為"英國的救世主"。普通中產階級家庭的童年生活，並未預示著她會擁有多美好的未來。她學習勤奮刻苦，考入牛津大學，主修化學專業。畢業後，進入一家小型塑膠製品公司工作，卻被英國化工巨頭帝國化學工業的職位拒絕，因為人事報告是這麼形容她的："這位女性倔強固執，自行其是，剛愎自用達危險級別。"
She needed all three of those attributes when she entered the world of politics as a Conservative candidate in 1950. After several failures, she finally entered Parliament in 1959. For the next two decades, she steadily worked her way up through the party ranks.
而她在1950年作為保守黨候選人步入政壇時，最需要的正是這三種特質。屢次落選後，她終於在1959年成為下議院議員。接下來的20年間，她穩步在保守黨內晉升。
As early as 1975, Thatcher had come up with a wonderful line about the opposition Labour Party: "They've got the usual Socialist disease—they've run out of other people's money." This she contrasted memorably with what she called "the British inheritance": "A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master …" This was the essence of Thatcherism, and it was just the tonic that the patient—the British economy—needed.
早在1975年，撒切爾就拋出過一句擲地有聲的妙語，諷刺政治對手英國工黨："他們患上那種社會主義常見病——花光別人的錢。"同時指出這與她所稱頌的"英式遺產"形成鮮明對比，即:"人們有權按自己的意願工作，有權消費自己的收入，有權擁有財產，有權成為國家的主人，而非奴僕。"這是撒切爾主義的精髓所在，恰好也是英國經濟這位"病患"所需的一劑良藥。
It's fashionable nowadays to argue that there was no Thatcher miracle in the 1980s. Not only is that demonstrably false, it misses an essential point: Thatcherism wasn't just about raising productivity or creating jobs. Just as important was the goal of defeating inflation and restoring prosperity to the middle class. This it emphatically achieved.
目前有一種盛行的觀點認為，1980年代並不存在"撒切爾奇蹟"。這一說法不僅已被證實為誤，且忽略了一個關鍵要素：撒切爾主義，並不僅僅在於提高生產率或創造就業，同樣重要的還有戰勝通貨膨脹，以及為中產階級重塑繁榮。這無疑得到了實現。
Yet the event that, more than any other, defined Margaret Thatcher's premiership was not economic but military. The Falklands War against Argentina established her irrevocably in the public mind as the new Britannia, a warrior queen who gloried in victory. And, of course, it ensured a Conservative win in the 1983 election. There is no question that sending the Royal Navy Task Force to the South Atlantic took great political courage.
然而，定義撒切爾的首相生涯，且帶來深遠影響的關鍵性事件，並非經濟領域，而是軍事。對抗阿根廷的馬島戰爭，為她在公眾心目中牢牢樹立了"新不列顛尼亞"形象，這是一位戰績彪炳的女戰神。當然，這也確保了保守黨在1983年大選的勝利。毫無疑問，派遣英國皇家海軍特遣艦隊到南大西洋海域作戰，需要極大的政治勇氣。
Many in her own party pushed for a negotiated settlement. But the lady was not for turning—not because she was nostalgic for the days of empire, but because the invasion was, to her mind, morally and legally wrong. Not without reason did a Soviet magazine nickname Thatcher "the Iron Lady."
許多黨內人士都力促通過協商達成和解，但這位女士絕不妥協。並非是因為她懷念昔日的大英帝國，而是因為在她看來，阿根廷的入侵，無論在道義或法理上，都是錯誤的。一份蘇聯雜誌給撒切爾冠以"鐵娘子"之名，看來不無道理。
Along with her ideological soulmate, US President Ronald Reagan, she was unhesitating in her opposition to the Soviet Union. When the Soviets deployed intermediate range nuclear missiles in Eastern Europe, she fully supported—despite fierce opposition—Reagan's counter-move to send American cruise and Pershing missiles to Western Europe.
她與意識形態上的知己——美國總統里根一起，在蘇聯問題上毫無遲疑，堅持反對立場。當蘇聯在東歐部署中程核導彈時，她不顧一片反對聲音，全力支持里根的反制措施，將美國巡航導彈和潘興導彈派遣至西歐。
It's still terribly hard for those who opposed her to admit it, but Margaret Thatcher was right about most things. She was right that the British trade unions had become much too powerful. She was right that inefficient nationalized industries had to be privatized. And she was right that the West could win The Cold War. "I can't bear Britain in decline," she told a BBC interviewer in April 1979, "I just can't."
儘管那些反對她的人，迄今依然不願承認，但撒切爾在大多數問題上都做出了正確決策。她對英國工會組織會變得過於強大的判斷，是正確的；她對效率低下的國有企業必須私有化的主，是正確的；她對西方能夠贏得冷戰的看法，是正確的。"我無法忍受英國的衰落，"1974年4月，她在BBC採訪中說道："我就是不能"。
Nor could we. For much of the 1970s, that decline had looked irreversible. Yet Margaret Thatcher stopped the rot. She cured the economy of the disease of inflation and industrial unrest. She revived the idea of a property-owning democracy. And, with her courageous and principled foreign policy, she restored Britain's standing in the world.
我們也不能。在1970年代很長一段時間內，衰頹局面似乎已是無可挽回，但撒切爾阻止了形勢惡化。她挽救了因通貨膨脹和工業動盪而深陷囹圄的英國經濟；她復興了財產所有民主制的理念，此外憑藉堅定果敢的外交政策，她還恢復了英國在全世界的聲望。
Those of us who stood by her are entitled to feel proud that we were on history's winning side. But we should have no illusions about the humble supporting roles we played. She was the leader, proof that sometimes it really is a single individual who can change the course of history—in Margaret Thatcher's case, decidedly for the better.
我們這些曾給予她支持的人，一方面，有權為自己站在歷史勝利的一方感到自豪，另一方面，也不應過於放大自己作為謙遜支持者的角色。她是領導者，這證明了有時候，即便是單獨個人也可以改變整個歷史的進程。就撒切爾而言，她無疑引領歷史邁入了更好的方向。
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