Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes
The Soviet model was defeated not only on the economic and social levels, it was defeated on a cultural level. Our society, our people, the most educated, the most intellectual, rejected that model on the cultural level because it did not respect the man. It oppressed him spiritually and politically.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian President, Quoted in Foreign Affairs, July / August 2011
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Despite the fact that many Americans saw communists and socialists as of the same ilk, socialists were very suspicious of communists—especially the “party discipline” and the lack of individual freedom, while the communists saw the socialists as just another form of fascism and attacked it violently. Later, the party line against socialists softened as Cold War communist strategy solicited assistance from the socialist, unaligned nations.
This was a big factor that made the Red Scare so damaging.
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. Before the Russian Revolution large factories did not have to be very efficient as the labor was paid so little. After the Revolution, the workers were paid more and the inefficient procedures became even more disorganized with the workers in control for the first time without any management experience. At the same time, the small privately owned manufacturing businesses were making a profit with no help from the government. This was an embarrassment that the Communists eventually solved by shutting down the private businesses that were such an embarrassment. Russian manufacturing was never world class and efficient under the Soviets even after the post Revolution crises.
Vladimir Lenin. While Lenin was of this view, Stalin and other hard liners disagreed. They not only imposed their brand of communism on their own people via force with terrible consequences for any dissidents, but the Soviet Army imposed Communism on most of the states of Eastern Europe, and those states in turn used their Armies and secret police to impose it on their own citizens.
This quotation was extremely damaging to Russian Communism at the time. Goldman had been extremely supportive of the initial Russian Revolution and was an enthusiastic Marxist. She was not the typical conservative who would attack the revolution no matter what the outcome.
Harriman at that time was the United States Ambassador to Russia and one of President Roosevelt’s closest advisers. There were those who claimed that the Roosevelt administration was very naïve about the potential danger of Stalin. This statement as well as others like it, show that the administration was not so naïve and ignorant.
This is one of the great historical quotations. He was, in the 19th century, referring to the past 1000 years of Russian history. The quote has been used many times since then to describe various states and nations and over much shorter periods of time. China and modern North Korea are good examples.
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.
