Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes
I will never abuse power if elected.... This country [Russia] can never again fall under the influence of a dictator.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian President, Speech, Moscow, May 25, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
With so many revolutionary rulers of new nations suppressing all opposition, the history of Ataturk and Turkey is unique. Ataturk was so popular and his People’s Party so successful that there was no opposition and Turkey had one party rule. However, Ataturk was determined to have Turkey become a parliamentary democracy as good as the Western nations of Europe. So a tradition of multi-party democracy was needed. So Ataturk actually went to his friend Fethi Okyar and asked him to start an opposition party and oppose the government. Fethi was a strong supporter of the revolution and generally was in concurrence with Ataturk and the People’s Party on everything. Ataturk however convinced him that they had to start a tradition that would take Turkey through the future, and he did create a new party-- Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası (Liberal Republican Party) and worked hard to find differences with the People’s Party and the Government. One immediate contribution was the oversight that the new party provided—a strong tradition that exists to this day in Turkey.
This is the argument—an essence of Fascism—of every dictator from Julius Caesar onward. See {640792} for more of his views on dictators.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a Russian and former Soviet politician. The eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, he was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. He was also the country's head of state from 1988 until 1991, serving as the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1988 to 1989, chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990, and president of the Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991. Ideologically, Gorbachev initially adhered to Marxism–Leninism, although he had moved towards social democracy by the early 1990s.
