Soviet Union Quotes

• General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Patriotic, Europe

  Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, delivered 12 June 1987, West Berlin

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• Anyone who doesn't regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.

  Vladimir Putin

  Regret, Heart, Brain

  "Spy who came in from the cold" by Tom Parfitt, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2007.

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• Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.

  Ann Coulter

  Differences, America, Self

  Ann Coulter (2003). “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism”, p.28, Crown Forum

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• Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.

  Joseph Stalin

  Unions, Outstanding, Ussr

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• The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

  Vladimir Putin

  Demise, Unions, Provocative

  Speech on national TV, April 25, 2005.

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• That the existence of the Soviet Union has an international revolutionary significance is a commonplace equally recognized by friends and foes.

  Leon Trotsky

  Unions, Revolutionary, Existence

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Victory, Unions

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Two, Enemy

  During a panel discussion in ABC News Viewpoint following the TV movie "The Day After", November 20, 1983.

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• The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.

  Leon Trotsky

  Fall, Mean, Culture

  Leon Trotsky (1937). “The revolution betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it going?”, Doubleday, Doran

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• The Soviet Union tried for 70 years to plant Marxism with bayonets in Eastern Europe. Today there are more Marxists on the Harvard faculty than there are in Eastern Europe.

  George Will

  Years, Europe, Unions

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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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• If you think that the people of the Soviet Union have any desire themselves, and moreover, by force, to alter the face of surrounding states, then you are badly mistaken.

  Joseph Stalin

  Thinking, People, Desire

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• If you are in Brazil and you grew up in a right-wing dictatorship, you think Marxism is liberating. But if you grew up in Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union is controlling everything and killing people, then you think capitalism is liberating. Neither of those two things are true and it doesn't take a lot brains to understand this.

  Jose Padilha

  Thinking, Wings, Two

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• When you read about the end of the Soviet Union, it's always about the "death of socialism." They never say "the death of democracy." But it makes about the same sense.

  Noam Chomsky

  Democracy, Unions, Socialism

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• Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe, being under the control of the USSR, would call their states "people's republics." The sham that is currently going on in the states of the former Soviet Union is due to the fact that the politicians in power are eager to polish up their image abroad.

  Garry Kasparov

  Country, Europe, People

  Source: www.rferl.org

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• Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

  Ronald Reagan

  Wall, Memorable, Europe

  Remarks at Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin, Germany, 12 June 1987

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• After the demise of the Soviet Union, we had many problems of our own for which no one was responsible but ourselves: the economic downfall, the collapse of the welfare system, the separatism, and of course the terror attacks that shook our country. In this respect, we do not have to look for guilty parties abroad.

  Vladimir Putin

  Country, Party, Terror Attacks

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• The Soviet Union was pretty much what Lenin and Trotsky said it was.

  Noam Chomsky

  Unions, Said, Trotsky

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• If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

  Ronald Reagan

  Party, Political, Unions

  Ronald Reagan (2004). “Speaking My Mind: Selected Speeches”, p.424, Simon and Schuster

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• It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

  Dalai Lama

  Running, Country, Long

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• In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Country, Democracy, Literature

  FaceBook post by Fran Lebowitz from Jul 27, 2012

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• Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and beliefs had been shaken.

  Xi Jinping

  Party, Important, Unions

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• When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

  Jimmy Carter

  War, White, House

  "Interview: President Jimmy Carter Talks About His New Bible and Christian Beliefs". Interview with Katherine T. Phan, www.christianpost.com. March 30, 2012.

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• After every major conflict - World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the fall of the Soviet Union - what happened was that we ultimately hollowed out the force, largely by doing deep across-the-board cuts.

  Leon Panetta

  War, Fall, Cutting

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• Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.

  Vladimir Putin

  Military, War, Years

  Interview with Matthew Chance, edition.cnn.com. August 29, 2008.

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