Aleksandr Lebed Quotes

It has been well over half a century and I'm glad to say we have taken the right path from authoritarianism to democracy and this is a road of no return.

One cannot wishfully expect automatic evolution to democracy.

It is a common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They mistake individual speeches for public policy.

Democracy is not an end but the means to the conquest of the new state. When the time comes, either Parliament submits or we will eliminate Parliament.

Undoubtedly, a democratic state without an alternative is a danger to democracy itself.

The idea that if governments open up and become more democratic they will fall is a false dilemma.

I have a lot of respect for countries where the practice of democracy is highly developed. I think, however, that each country has to have its own specific features of democracy.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy is always very difficult, and if you read a history of any country that went through this, it wasn't easy. And, you know, you don't end dictatorship one day and next day you have fully fledged democracy.

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior.

The Framers of the Constitution knew that free speech is the friend of change and revolution. But they also knew that it is always the deadliest enemy of tyranny.

Cuba wants to get rid of a dictator, and baseball needs a dictator.

It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia.

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation - namely, life, liberty and justice for all.

Asia's governments come in two broad varieties: young, fragile democracies - and older, fragile authoritarian regimes.

We believe that this is not right for a democracy to make revolutions the beacon of promoting democracy.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

I knew that if it ever got down to a choice between the Party and our traditional democratic structure I would fight the Party and our traditional democratic structure I would fight the Party to the bitter end.

From this day the presidency of Mexico ends. The dictatorship of Mexico begins.

America is essentially and radically a democracy, not in name merely but in deed.

If when I die I am still a dictator I will certainly go down into the oblivion of all dictators. If, on the other hand, I succeed in establishing a stable base for a democratic government, I will be remembered forever in every home in China.

In the United States, where the numerical majority have long been in full possession of collective despotism, they would probably be as unwilling to part with it as a single despot or an aristocracy.

This country has been without stern, sails and wind, and it needs someone at the helm. We are doomed to live in an authoritarian state until genuine democracy, which should not be confused with anarchy, can be set up.

The transition from authoritarianism to democracy is not as easy as it appears in position papers – it is a rambunctious affair.

Civil liberty and … martial law cannot endure together; the antagonism is irreconcilable; and, in the conflict, one or the other must perish.