Leonid Brezhnev Quotes

• The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Winning, Historical, Election

  85 Copy quote

• The highest peace is the peace between opposites.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Inspirational, Opposites, Highest

  71 Copy quote

• We Communists have got to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. But we are going to continue massive military programs. . . (soon) we will be in a position to return to a much more aggressive foreign policy designed to gain the upper-hand.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Military, Technology, Hands

  "Kissinger: The Secret Side of the Secretary of State". Book by Gary Allen, 1976.

  76 Copy quote

• It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Country, War, Eye

  "Indefensible Weapons: The Political and Psychological Case Against Nuclearism". Book by Robert Jay Lifton and Richard A. Falk, p. 224, 1992.

  68 Copy quote

• Detente is a readiness to resolve differences and conflicts not by force, not by threats and sabre-rattling, but by peaceful means, at the conference table.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  War, Mean, Differences

  "Brezhnev Reconsidered". Book by Edwin Bacon, p. 99, 2002.

  68 Copy quote

• Soviet people are better off materially and richer spiritually.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  People, Soviet, Better Off

  "Our Friends Speak : Greetings to the 25th CPSU Congress", p. 268, 1976.

  38 Copy quote

• There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Theory, Practicals

  44 Copy quote

• When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country ... this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Country, Socialist Countries, People

  Speech at the 5th Congress of the Polish United Workers Party (12 November 1968), quoted in "The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy" by Matthew J. Ouimet, 2003.

  58 Copy quote

• Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends: The energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and the minerals treasure house of Central and Southern Africa.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Two, House, Southern

  49 Copy quote

• Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Home, Fate, Europe

  1981 Speech while visiting the Federal Republic of Germany, 23 Nov.

  44 Copy quote

• We Communists have to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  War, Technology, Agriculture

  39 Copy quote

• We should not pour muck on ourselves.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Should

  24 Copy quote

• I shall add that only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor from it. No matter what the attacker might possess, no matter what method of unleashing nuclear war he chooses, he will not attain his aims. Retribution will inevitably ensue.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Suicide, War, Add

  "Soviet Strategy and the New Military Thinking". Book by Derek Leebaert and Timothy Dickinson, p. 68, 1992.

  44 Copy quote

• Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Believe, Struggle, Class

  41 Copy quote

• When the Soviet Union came to be run by a valetudinarian mafioso like Brezhnev, the thing itself had fallen into self-contempt.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Running, Self, Unions

  53 Copy quote

• The most important thing in my life, its leitmotif, has been the constant and close contacts with working people, with workers and peasants.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  People, Important, Peasants

  Sputnik: Digest, p. 48, 1967.

  34 Copy quote

• Believe me, after the destruction of Chinese nuclear sites by our missiles, there won't be much time for the Americans to choose between the defense of their Chinese allies and peaceful co-existence with us.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  War, Believe, Peaceful

  21 Copy quote

• Of late, attempts have been made in the USA - at a high level and in a rather cynical form - to play the "Chinese card" against the USSR. This is a shortsighted and dangerous policy.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Play, Usa, Cynical

  "Peace, Détente, and Soviet-American Relations: A Collection of Public Statements". Book by Leonid Brezhnev, p. 222, 1979.

  31 Copy quote

• One sits the whole day at the desk and appetite is standing next to me. "Away with you," I say. But Comrade Appetite does not budge from the spot.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Food, Cooking, Doe

  25 Copy quote

• We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Military, Europe, Armament

  "Voices of Tomorrow : The 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union". Book by Jessica Smith, p. 30, 1971.

  24 Copy quote

• Every man must be made to realize that further retreat is impossible. He must realize with his mind and heart that this is a matter of life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the people of our country...the Nazi troops must be stopped now, before it is too late.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Country, Heart, Men

  Statement made in World War II, as a commissar on the southern front, as quoted in "Leonid I. Brezhnev: Pages from his Life" by Academy of Sciences of the USSR, p. 49, 1978.

  26 Copy quote

• As you know, I am not a writer but a Party functionary. But like every Communist I consider myself to have been mobilized by Party propaganda and deem it my duty to participate actively in the work of our press.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Party, Propaganda, Communist

  "Reprints from the Soviet Press", p. 5, 1977.

  23 Copy quote

• We are entirely for the idea that Europe shall be free from nuclear weapons, from medium-range weapons as well as tactical weapons. That would be a real zero option.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Zero, Real, Europe

  "Nuclear War: The Search for Solutions". Book by Leonard V. Johnson, 1985.

  33 Copy quote

• We bow our heads in respect for those Soviet women who displayed exceptional courage in the severe time of war. Never before but during the days of the war the grandeur of spirit and the invincible will of our Soviet women, their selfless dedication, loyalty and affection to their Homeland, their boundless persistence in work and their heroism on the front manifested themselves with such strength.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Loyalty, War, Persistence

  24 Copy quote

• Brezhnev wasn't a minus for the history of our country, he was a huge plus, He laid a foundation for the country's economics and agriculture.

  Leonid Brezhnev

  Country, Agriculture, Foundation

  10 Copy quote

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