Soviet Quotes - Page 10

• It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of human history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens.

  Ronald Reagan

  Running, Presidential, Tides

  Ronald Reagan, Michael Reagan (2016). “The Last Best Hope: The Greatest Speeches of Ronald Reagan”, p.100, Humanix Books

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• While public school history courses in the United States stress the horrors of the German Nazi murder of 6 million Jews and Josef Stalin's pogroms against racial minorities and political dissidents in the Soviet Union, the facts that the U.S. Army's solution to the 'Indian Problem' was the prototype for the Nazi 'Final Solution' to the 'Jewish Problem' and that the North American Indian Reservation was the model for the twentieth century gulag and concentration camp, are conveniently overlooked.

  Jonathan Ott

  Stress, School, Army

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• Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they'd both unite against an invasion from Mars.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Alarms, Mars, Invasion

  "Not Even a Hedgehog" by Christopher Hitchens, www.slate.com. June 7, 2004.

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• Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Breakup, Regret, War

  "The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan". Le Nouvel Observateur Interview, www.globalresearch.ca. January, 1998.

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• According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  Military, Army, Reality

  "How Jimmy Carter & I Started the Mujahideen". www.liveleak.com. January, 1998.

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• The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Unions, Emigration, Humanitarian

  "In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks" by Adam Nagourney, www.nytimes.com. December 10, 2010.

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• Poor Dimitri Shostakovich: In the Soviet Union, he was condemned as being too radical; in the West, for being too conservative. He could please no one but the musical public. He revenged himself on both by writing a short piece called 'March of the Soviet Police.'

  Edward Abbey

  Writing, Police, Musical

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.41, RosettaBooks

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• It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.

  George F. Kennan

  Russia, Usa, America

  "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, July 1947

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• The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed 'window of vulnerability,' which we now know not to exist.

  John F. Kerry

  Military, Administration, Assumption

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• In lieu of those checks and balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. In an Orwellian twist, Bush's order calls this Soviet-style abomination 'a full and fair trial.'

  William Safire

  Order, Judging, Style

  "Essay; Seizing Dictatorial Power" by William Safire, www.nytimes.com. November 15, 2001.

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• Sometimes I do readings and people can’t stop laughing, but I’m reading about pretty tragic things. I think Soviet humor is a desperate humor, rather typical of very different nations, of Jewish people, Ukrainians, and of course, Russians. It’s despair - just keep laughing, until you are dead.

  Alina Bronsky

  Reading, Thinking, People

  "Hammer and Tickle". Interview with Stephen Heyman, tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com. April 16, 2011.

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• Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. All would be sickened by the thought of wearing a swastika. None objected, however, to wearing the hammer and sickle on a T-shirt or a hat. It was a minor observation, but sometimes, it is through just such minor observations that a cultural mood is best observed. For here, the lesson could not have been clearer: while the symbol of one mass murder fills us with horror, the symbol of another mass murder makes us laugh.

  Anne Applebaum

  People, Laughing, Would Be

  Anne Applebaum (2007). “Gulag: A History”, p.15, Anchor

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• What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

  Zbigniew Brzezinski

  War, Europe, Important

  "The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan". Le Nouvel Observateur Interview, www.globalresearch.ca. January, 1998.

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• I don't think that the Soviet Union and China are accidents, aberrations; I think they follow from Marxism-Leninism. I think that Leninism comes out of Marx's basic convictions.

  Murray Bookchin

  Thinking, Aberration, Unions

  Source: reason.com

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• The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed - socialism doesn't work.

  Rand Paul

  Fundamentals, Unions, Reason Why

  "Kentucky Tonight", KET, June 16, 1998.

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• Japan announced that it would not comply with this declaration [ 1956]. Later on, the Soviet Union also declared that the declaration could not be fulfilled unilaterally, by the USSR alone.

  Vladimir Putin

  Japan, Unions, Soviet Union

  Source: www.rt.com

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• The freedoms we have in Russia are just leftovers. Freedom of travel, which was completely nonexistent in the Soviet Union; artistic freedom - so far, that's doing fine too, virtually everything can be published. Although with some books that are too edgy politically, or are especially undesirable, the authors are already running into difficulties. Theaters that produce provocative plays, or clubs that host undesirable events often find themselves on the receiving end of fire safety inspections and fines.

  Vladimir Voinovich

  Running, Book, Safety

  Source: www.thedailybeast.com

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• The countries that have risen and separated out as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union are, on the whole, following freer economic policies. Most of these states have freer government and less restrictions on trade.

  Milton Friedman

  Country, Government, Unions

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• We have a freer world because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes in China. Those two have been the main contributors to freedom in our time.

  Milton Friedman

  Two, World, Unions

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• American democracy and the Soviet system may peacefully exist side by side and compete with each other. But one cannot evolve into the other.

  J. Stalin

  Democracy, May, Sides

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• [2015] it's a time that there's a clash of ideologies, similar to the Cold War. I think that a story like this has been waiting to be told, and I think it's a fresh look at the whole earth-shattering business of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  Steven Knight

  War, Thinking, Waiting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Growing up, I didn't know very much about my heritage and the Soviet Union and things of that nature. But when I saw the Soviet Union play hockey for the first time, to me, it was profound.

  Gabe Polsky

  Growing Up, Hockey, Play

  Source: collider.com

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• The Soviet Union is going to have a human-rights explosion. You'll have hundreds of thousands of dissidents.

  Andrew Young

  Rights, Unions, Explosions

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• One ironic thing is that although (the Soviet Union) was one of the most oppressive systems, with no respect for the individual, it somehow produced the freest hockey on the planet. These guys, when they got on the ice, it was like watching jazz. They could do anything. I find that a paradox. It's interesting because I think the North American style was a lot less free. It was not encouraged to be creative.

  Gabe Polsky

  Hockey, Thinking, Ice

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• I think that in this globalised world, the local is going to become more and more important - it is a paradox. You see it in Western Europe more and more. Eastern Europe is still coming out of the Soviet uniform cultural era, but this kind of separation and nationalism is very obvious now in Western Europe.

  Robert Dessaix

  Thinking, Europe, Important

  Source: www.compulsivereader.com

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