Soviet Quotes - Page 24

• The chief task was to stop the arms race before it brought utter disaster. However, after the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, any rationale for having nuclear weapons disappeared.

  Joseph Rotblat

  Race, Tasks, Nuclear

  Joseph Rotblat, Daisaku Ikeda (2007). “A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat”, p.130, I.B.Tauris

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• They say that the Soviet delegates smile. That smile is genuine. It is not artificial. We wish to live in peace, tranquility. But if anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself poorly. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle.

  Nikita Khrushchev

  Believe, Teaching, Waiting

  Speech at dinner for visiting East German dignitaries, Moscow, 17 Sept. 1955

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• I spent my life studying communism and Soviet systems.

  Madeleine Albright

  Study, Communism

  "Albright works to rethink NATO" by Laura Rozen, www.politico.com. February 22, 2010.

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• Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

  Russell Baker

  War, People, Culture

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• Soviet regime in a way deprived me from my childhood in my homeland, because my father was in military, and after the Yalta agreement he was sent to teach in military academy in Riga, and I was born then.

  Mikhail Baryshnikov

  Father, Military, Agreement

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• The serious problem is the education of the peasantry. The peasant economy is scattered, and the socialization of agriculture, judging by the Soviet Union's experience, will require a long time and painstaking work. Without socialization of agriculture, there can be no complete, consolidated socialism.

  Mao Zedong

  Agriculture, Long, Judging

  Zedong Mao (1972). “Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung”, p.29, China Books

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• In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on.

  Marshall Fritz

  Girl, Wise, Country

  "The Separation of School and State Alliance". Interview with Mary Leggewie, www.homeschoolchristian.com. June 3, 1999.

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• Russia can fall apart. It's not because of the oil prices ... It's because what sticks a country together is a common interest of people. It has to be economically and socially profitable - beneficial - for people to be together. They should understand how they benefit from a large country. And if they start to feel like a large country is a source of problem, then the country collapses as the Soviet Union collapsed.

  Ilya Ponomarev

  Country, Fall, People

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.

  George Galloway

  Thinking, Support, Unions

  "Saddam and me". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. September 16, 2002.

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• The clearer and deeper the public opinion of the world, in the first instance the opinion of the working masses, will understand the contradictions and the difficulties of the socialist development of an isolated country, the higher will it appreciate the results achieved. The less it identifies the fundamental methods of Socialism with the zigzags and errors of the Soviet bureaucracy, the less will be the danger that, by the inevitable revelation of these errors and of their consequences, the authority, not only of the present ruling group, but of the workers' State itself, may decline.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Errors, Appreciate

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• The Soviet Union needs thinking and critical friends, such as are capable not only of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of not shrinking in the hour of defeat and danger.

  Leon Trotsky

  Thinking, Hymns, Singing

  Source: www.marxists.org

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• The rise of fascism in Europe sent most Americans home. Some black American communists who had emigrated to the Soviet Union perished in Stalin's purges of the late 1930s.

  Darryl Pinckney

  Home, Black, Communist

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The Russians will always find a pretext for their aggression. It was Putin who said in 2005 that the biggest geopolitical disaster of the last century was the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin wants to bring Ukraine back into the Russian sphere of influence. That is why he tried everything in order to stop the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

  Arseniy Yatsenyuk

  Influence, Disaster, Aggression

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet Politburo do not have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Powerful, Mean, Gun

  Margaret Thatcher (1997). “The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher”, HarperCollins

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• They said Reagan was too dangerous. It was Reagan who ended the Soviet Union without firing a shot.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Unions, Shots, Said

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• ...the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant...has painfully affected the Soviet people, and shocked the international community. For the first time, we confront the real force of nuclear energy, out of control.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Real, People, Community

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• Under Lenin the Soviet Union was like a religious revival, under Stalin like a prison, under Khrushchev like a circus, and under Brezhnev like the U.S. Post Office.

  Jimmy Carter

  Religious, War, Office

  Jimmy Carter (2013). “Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President”, p.229, University of Arkansas Press

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• Every infantryman in the Soviet Army carries with him a small spade. When he is given the order to halt he immediately lies flat and starts to dig a hole in the ground beside him.

  Viktor Suvorov

  Military, Lying, Army

  Viktor Suvorov (1987). “Spetsnaz: The Story Behind the Soviet SAS”

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• Nest of Soviet fellow travelers clacking busybodies in a Soviet jellyfish front, sitting here in Leesburg oozing out their funny little propaganda and making nuisances of themselves.

  Lyndon LaRouche

  Nuisance, Sitting, Nests

  "Ex-Aide: LaRouche Extravagant". Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1988.

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• Whatever the drawbacks and failures I am convinced that in years to come humanity will look back to Soviet achievements as a source of profound inspiration

  Ronnie Kasrils

  Inspiration, Years, Profound

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• I have information about things that our government has lied to us about. I know. For example, to say that since the fall of the Soviet Union we ceased all of our intimate relationship with Bin Laden and the Taliban - those things can be proven as lies, very easily, based on the information they classified in my case, because we did carry very intimate relationship with these people, and it involves Central Asia, all the way up to September 11.

  Sibel Edmonds

  Lying, Fall, Government

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• With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.

  Mikhail Gorbachev

  Country, Army, Russia

  "Gorbachev: Soviet Union 'should have been preserved'". Interview with Louise Branson, usatoday30.usatoday.com. April 5, 2006.

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• And the big question for the West, of course, and to the Europeans is, what other countries, which were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, should be incorporated into western institutions?

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, West, Should

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• It was one thing to contain the Soviet Union in Europe because Britain, France, and Germany were all willing to join in. But will Japan and other Asian countries be willing to join in the containment of China?

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Country, Japan, Europe

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• When we hear (as we sometimes do) that (Russia's) economic output is about half the level of a decade ago or that real incomes have fallen sharply, it is worth recalling that economic statistics under the Soviet Union were hardly more reliable than any other official statements. Moreover, a country that produces what no one wants to buy, and whose workers receive wages that they cannot use to buy goods they want, is hardly in the best of economic health.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Country, Real, Russia

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