Soviet Quotes - Page 12

• Having lived in a collapsed empire before - I lived in Russia right after the Soviet Union collapsed - you can see a lot of the classic signs of an empire that's on its way out.

  Matt Taibbi

  Russia, Unions, Empires

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. July 11, 2008.

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• I believe that renunciation of the Soviet Union was an expression of the free will of the Russian people.

  Vladislav Surkov

  Believe, Expression, People

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The language of these Soviet show trials... could only be understood in the Aesopian imagery of the closed Bolshevik universe of conspiracies of evil against good in which 'terrorism' simply signified 'any doubt about the policies or character of Stalin.' All his political opponents were per se assassins. More than two 'terrorists' was a 'conspiracy'.

  Simon Sebag-Montefiore

  Character, Two, Evil

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• The Soviet assumption that all other political life-forms and beliefs were inherently and immutably hostile was the simple and central cause of that Cold War.

  Robert Conquest

  War, Simple, Political

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• When [Vladimir] Putin, a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB, became Russia's president on December 31, 1999 - eight years after the failed coup attempt against (then Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev, and eight years after the people had torn down the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the hated founder of the KGB, in Moscow - it was admittedly a shock. Nevertheless, I decided to give Putin a chance. He seemed dynamic and capable of learning. But I had to bury my hopes after just a few months. He proved to be an autocrat - and, because the West let him do as he pleased, he became a dictator.

  Garry Kasparov

  Kgb, Russia, Eight

  "Putin Needs Wars To Legitimize His Position". Interview with Erich Follath, www.spiegel.de. November 10, 2015.

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• Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Attitude, Military, War

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• I am a citizen of the Soviet Union and I think sharp measures need to be taken against anti-Soviet forces that are trying to make their way into the leadership. In addition, it is vitally important to maintain the lines of communication with Germany through Poland.

  Konstantin Rokossovsky

  Communication, Taken, Thinking

  "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev". Book by Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, 2007.

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• The Soviet Union tried to sell a set of ideas, very left wing, and focus on so-called peace. Vladimir Putin doesn't care who helps him to push his agenda. He is equally comfortable with the politics of Nigel Farage and Corbyn in Britain, Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France. Whether far left or nationalist, he doesn't care, as long as they support chaos and destruction and the undermining of existing institutions.

  Garry Kasparov

  Long, Focus, Support

  Source: www.gq-magazine.co.uk

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• Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by increasing armaments.

  Norman Mailer

  Unions, Armament, Soviet Union

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• If we could all take a sober look at our history, then we would no longer see this nostalgic attitude to the Soviet past that predominates among the less affected part of our society.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Attitude, Past, Looks

  Source: www.independent.co.uk

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• If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse.

  Cory Booker

  Civilization, Weakness, Looks

  "Brick Towers" by Cory Booker, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 11, 2005.

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• The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. When there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy. It "knows" who is to get something and who has to wait.

  Leon Trotsky

  Struggle, Order, Long

  Leon Trotsky, (2013). “The Revolution Betrayed”, p.88, Read Books Ltd

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• Reagan himself, for much of his life, was devoted against the elites. His antagonism to the Soviet Union is antagonism against oppression by the elites of the many.

  Eugene Jarecki

  Unions, Oppression, Antagonism

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• In the Soviet Union you weren't allowed to speak out against the government. In the US you cannot speak out against sponsors.

  Kalle Lasn

  Government, Speaks Out, Unions

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• Why not admit that the words separation and church do not even appear in the US Constitution, he added. Instead, they do appear in Article 52 of the Constitution of the Soviet Union.

  Tim LaHaye

  Scary, Church, Why Not

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• The fascinating thing to a dispassionate observer about the structure of life in the Soviet Union is that in their efforts to produce an unknown that we may let its ideologists call Socialism the Communist dictators have produced a brutal approximation of monopoly Capitalism, a system that has all the disadvantages of our own, with none of the palliatives which come to us from surviving competition and from the essential division of economic and political power which has so far made it possible for the humane traditions of the Western world to continue.

  John Dos Passos

  Effort, Political, Competition

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• In our society, more and more, people are running around offended by syllables, even. People are afraid to say anything. It reminds me of the days of the old Soviet Union, where people would have to go into the bathroom to say what they were really thinking.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Running, Thinking, People

  Source: www.golfdigest.com

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• The visual impact of a United States battleship springs from its ability to put Soviet ships on the bottom of the sea and to put devastating firepower ashore - nothing else.

  John Lehman

  Peace, Spring, War

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• The miracle of Grenada is how quickly the Cuban workers beat their plowshares into Soviet AK-47s.

  William Cohen

  Peace, War, Miracle

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• It is a modern tragedy that one of the Soviet Union's most intelligent and realistic leaders has served and died during the administration of the most ill-informed and dangerous man ever to occupy the White House.

  George McGovern

  War, Intelligent, Men

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• The Soviet Union, true to the Leninist principles of respect for the rights and national independence of all peoples great or small, has always been and is guided in its relations with other countries by the principles of mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-intervention in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefits, peaceful coexistence and economic cooperation.

  Kliment Voroshilov

  Country, Integrity, Rights

  "The Nineteen Days: A Broadcaster's Account of the Hungarian Revolution". Book by George R. Urban, 1957.

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• Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!

  Joseph Stalin

  War, Blood, World

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• The Soviet government sprouted and grew out of the habits, the psychology, and the condition of the Russian people. It fitted them. They understand it.

  Lincoln Steffens

  Government, People, Psychology

  Lincoln Steffens (1962). “The World of Lincoln Steffens”

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• In a strange way, I expected Russia to become more like America since the Soviet Union collapsed, but the reverse is true. America has become more like Russia: a kleptocratic society.

  Gary Shteyngart

  America, Russia, Unions

  "Russian revolution" by Ed Pilkington, www.theguardian.com. June 29, 2007.

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• During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model -- all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food.

  Thomas Sowell

  Country, Europe, America

  Thomas Sowell (2011). “Dismantling America and Other Controversial Essays (Large Print 16pt)”, p.306, ReadHowYouWant.com

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