Brian Mulroney 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!

With his trademark courage and conviction, President Reagan led us out of the Cold War, spreading his vision of freedom, resulting in the release of millions of people from the yoke of communism.

Fall of the Berlin wall? Being there was fun. Nations that flaked off of the Soviet Union in southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus? Being there was not so fun.

It's a different outlook, and one that I understand. When you are a former member of the Warsaw Pact, when you have lived behind the Berlin Wall, when you have experienced the communist systems that existed in these countries, for them, the West represents hope.

All Americans and freedom-loving people around the world owe President Reagan our deepest gratitude for his strong, principled leadership that ended the Cold War and brought freedom to millions of people.

The fall of the Berlin Wall is very much a sequel, a continuation of the story about Eastern Europe emerging from war and Communism. The notion of presenting history as a story also appealed to me very much, since that is the way I look at the events I cover as a reporter.

I distinctly remember the vivacious optimism that inundated the United States when the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. This was not glee generated by the doom of an implacable enemy, but thrill germinated by the real possibilities that the future held for freedom.

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

The Iron Curtain may be a thing of the past, but Mother Russia is as mysterious as ever.

More than forty years of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe resulted in an unhappy and artificial division of Europe. It is this dark chapter of European history that we now have the opportunity to close.

I was very anti-Soviet and very pro-Russian..

Building up the arms did not cause the fall of Eastern Europe.

For hundreds of millions of people, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great triumph: The moment marked the end of hated dictatorships and the beginning of a better era. But for the KGB officers stationed in Dresden, the political revolutions of 1989 marked the end of their empire and the beginning of an era of humiliation.

Was the Soviet Union reformable? I would say no. They said, 'Okay, the Soviet Union isn't working.' They would say, 'No, it's great. We just need democracy, political pluralism, private property.' And then there was no Soviet Union. The European Union is the same.

Ronald Reagan succeeded in bringing down the Iron Curtain by showing strength and resolutely standing up to the Soviet Union. President Trump needs to be similarly resolute towards Putin.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did more to liberate people by defeating the Soviet Union and freeing eastern Europe than the Obamas, the Clintons, and Kerrys of this world ever have. They were all on the wrong side of that debate.

I remember the Soviet Union and when the Iron Curtain fell down in 1991. I was just 20 years old, and everybody had a dream to live in a modern democratic society, in a modern country. More than 15 years passed, and nothing changed. There's a saying I like very much: if you want a thing done well, do it by yourself.

History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees.

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

Even today, a majority of people surveyed say that they regret the fact that the USSR collapsed. But only 9 percent say that they would want it back.

My entire life was dedicated to defeating communism. I felt really great when Ronald Reagan helped us establish peace and the elimination of communism from Russia. We are now dealing with a national power, and, you know, it is a big power in the world. It's no longer being motivated by communist ideology that has it trying to overthrow democratic governments and replace them with atheistic communist dictatorships.

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

I graduated in 1989, and I'd focused almost entirely on the Soviet Union and communism ... so when the Berlin wall fell, I was, well, I was screwed.

The fall of the Berlin Wall really demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that there was a bad system, and what subsequently happened in the Soviet Union, that that system was a failure.

Today's Russia is not to be compared with the Soviet Union of back then.