Soviet Economy Quotes

The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad.

[Russian] Prices for manufactured goods are from two to three times higher [than the world prices]…. our industry is not commercially profitable. At the same time, every private small industry or merchant, notwithstanding the very unfavorable conditions under which he works within the Soviet system, continues to operate and succeeds in making a profit.

Even today the Soviet Union cannot even feed itself.

The Communist bloc of old was a study in the failure of failure. Losers in the Soviet economy were the people at the end of the long lines for consumer goods. Worse losers were the people who had spent hours getting to the head of the line, only to be told that the goods were unavailable.

Perestroika is nothing more than refined Stalinism.

Contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, the Soviet economy is proof that a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.

Lenin's ideal was to build a nation's production effort according to the model of the post office.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

Perestroika is our last chance. If we stop, it will be our death.

The Soviet Union represents a threat in terms of might. It is a joke in terms of its economy and what it has to offer the Third World - a laughingstock to countries that are looking for an economic-development model.

By the 1970s, Western sanctions had hollowed out the Soviet economy. Ultimately, however, what brought down the Soviets was their inability to repair the catastrophic damage that began with the meeting of Igor Gouzenko and the RCMP.

We were appreciating as early as 1978 that the Soviet economy was in serious trouble. We didn’t make the leap that we should have made – I could have made, that the economic trouble would lead to political trouble. We thought that they would tighten their belt under a Stalin-like regime and continue marching on.

I would guess that he [Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev] would ultimately fail—that is to say, that he will not be able to reform the Soviet economy. And when that happens, he's likely to be replaced by somebody who will be far more hostile [to the U. S.].

My parents were Muscovites. They worked at the Kaliber factory.

The Soviet union was quite good at developing heavy industry, transportation, and large scale enterprises. It was very bad at producing consumer goods including the food that people must eat. That was its great economic weakness.

It was to be a short visit for the G-shevs. More than four days in the U.S. and Raisa's VISA card bill would shatter the fragile Soviet economy.

What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth...The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilizing resources for rapid growth.

It is one of the many ironies of this period that, at a time when the intelligentsia were excoriating Mellon for tax-evasion, and contrasting the smooth-running Soviet planned economy with the breakdown in America, he was secretly exploiting the frantic necessities of the Soviet leaders to form the basis of one of America's most splendid public collections