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Mikhail Gorbachev
94 quotes
“I began to feel the desire for something more; I wanted to do something to make things better.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his ambitions as a youth, in an Academy of Achievement interview (28 October 2000)
“If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 101 Best Ways to Get Ahead: Solid Gold Advice from 101 of the World's Most Successful People (2004) by Michael E. Angier and Sarah Pond, p. 30
“With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with USA Today (5 April 2006)
“The Soviet Union could have been preserved and should have been preserved. ... I wanted to decentralize the Soviet Union and give the maximum amount of rights to the republics as guaranteed under the constitution, while preserving in the center the most important functions such as defense, diplomacy, coordination.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with USA Today (5 April 2006)
“Initially, we were under illusions that we could make the system work. But as early as the fall of 1986, all of us had to start shedding those illusions. We had talked of perestroika (restructuring) but nothing was changing. ... But change was not easy. Even new politicians resisted change because they were used to central planning. By 1988 we decided we needed political reform: free elections, the separation of powers, a multiparty system, recognition of market economics as a necessary tool to modernize our society and to create incentives within the economic system.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with USA Today (5 April 2006)
“The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Turning point at Chernobyl", Japan Times (21 April 2006)
“Americans have a severe disease — worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ABC News (12 July 2006)
“I express the very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the death of Boris Yeltsin, in "Russia's former president Yeltsin dies: Kremlin" in Reuters (23 April 2007)
“We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with The London Daily Telegraph (7 May 2008)
“The day after I announced that I was stepping down, I was scheduled to come to the Kremlin for an interview with a Japanese reporter. I got a call beforehand from one of my assistants, who said that Yeltsin was in my office with his entourage, finishing off a bottle of whiskey. These people were almost like savages, celebrating their big victory over a bottle in my office. I told myself: That office has been desecrated. I will never set foot in that room again.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with Esquire (10 September 2008)
“We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not the masters, of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Planet Savers : 301 Extraordinary Environmentalists (2008) by Kevin Desmond, p. 248
“I was probably too liberal and democratic as regards Yeltsin. I should have sent him as ambassador to Great Britain or maybe a former British colony.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with The Guardian (17 August 2011)
“In 1954 transfer of Crimea, when Crimea were part of the Soviet Union, the Crimean people had not been asked at the time, whereas in the 2014 referendum they had.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mikhail Gorbachev Hails Crimea Result as 'Happy Event' NBC News 18 March 2014
“As long as weapons of mass destruction exist, primarily nuclear weapons, the danger is colossal. All nations should declare... that nuclear weapons must be destroyed. This is to save ourselves and our planet.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-50265870/mikhail-gorbachev-tells-the-bbc-world-in-colossal-danger Mikhail Gorbachev tells the BBC: World in ‘colossal danger’, BBC World News,(4 November 2019)
“We created perestroika to lead the country out of a dead end. In order for the state and economy to flourish, we needed good relations not just with our neighbors, but with the entire world. We didn't need the Iron Curtain. We wanted to get rid of the wall of mistrust between East and West - and all other walls, for that matter, between states, groups of people and individuals.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with Der Spiegel (8 November 2019)
“United States "grew arrogant and self-confident" after the collapse of the Soviet Union, resulting in "a new empire. Hence the idea of NATO expansion".”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Gorbachev says U.S. became "arrogant" after Soviet Union collapsed CBS News 24 December 2021
“What we need today is precisely this: political will. We need another level of leadership, collective leadership, of course. I want to be remembered as an optimist. Let us assimilate the lessons of the 20th century in order to rid the world of this legacy in the 21st – the legacy of militarism, violence against the peoples and nature, and weapons of mass destruction of all types.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Opinion: Mikhail Gorbachev's haunting words on what the world really needed. by David A. Andelman, CNN on MSN (31 August 2022)
“Some of my critics reproach me to this day for not having insisted on a legally binding stipulation [in 1990] that would have prevented NATO from expanding into Eastern Europe in the future. But such a demand would have been absurd, even preposterous, because the Warsaw Pact still existed at the time. We would have been accused of destroying it with our own hands.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The mutual trust that emerged with the end of the Cold War was severely shaken a few years later by NATO's decision to expand to the east. Russia had no option but to draw its own conclusions from that.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play. We did not write the play, we are not staging it and we do not know what the author intends. Anyone could take the rifle from the wall at any time.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As president, I fought for the unity of the country until the very end. I fought by political means – it is important to emphasize this – and I tried to win over Soviet citizens and my colleagues, the leaders of the Union republics. Even today, I believe that the integrity of the country could have been preserved and that a new Union was in everyone's interest. But the coup weakened my position, and the leadership of Russia, the largest republic of the USSR, under Boris Yeltsin decided to dissolve the Soviet Union instead. The country fell apart, the state collapsed.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps I lost as a politician, perhaps my self-confidence played a trick on me because I did not recognize the double threat – from zealots and radicals, and from reactionaries in my immediate surroundings. Nonetheless, perestroika won. A relapse into the past is out of the question.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Never before has so terrible a threat loomed so large and dark over mankind as these days. The only reasonable way out of the existing situation is agreement of the confronting forces on an immediate termination of the race in arms, above all, nuclear arms, on Earth and its prevention in space. An agreement on an honest and equitable basis without attempts at outplaying the other side and dictating terms to it. An agreement which would help all to advance toward the cherished goal: the complete elimination and prohibition of nuclear weapons for good, toward the complete removal of the threat of nuclear war. This is our firm conviction.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (11 March 1985)
“For a number of years the deeds and actions of party and government bodies trailed behind the needs of the times and of life. The problems in the country's development built up more rapidly than they were being solved. The inertness and stiffness of the forms and methods of administration, the decline of dynamism in our work and an escalation of bureaucracy - all this was doing no small damage. Signs of stagnation had begun to surface in the life of the society. The situation called for change, but a peculiar psychology - How to improve things without changing anything? - took the upper hand. But that cannot be done, comrades. Stop for an instant, as they say, and you fall behind a mile.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the 27th Party Congress, Moscow (25 February 1986)
“We are witnessing most profound social change. Whether in the East or the South, the West or the North, hundreds of millions of people, new nations and states, new public movements and ideologies have moved to the forefront of history. Broad-based and frequently turbulent popular movements have given expression, in a multidimensional and contradictory way, to a longing for independence, democracy and social justice. The idea of democratizing the entire world order has become a powerful socio-political force. At the same time, the scientific and technological revolution has turned many economic, food, energy, environmental, information and population problems, which only recently we treated as national or regional ones, into global problems. Thanks to the advances in mass media and means of transportation, the world seems to have become more visible and tangible. International communication has become easier than ever before.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the UN General Assembly (7 December 1988)
“There are different interpretations of perestroika in the West, including the United States. There is the view that it has been necessitated by the disastrous state of the Soviet economy and that it signifies disenchantment with socialism and a crisis for its ideals and ultimate goals. Nothing could be further from the truth than such interpretations, whatever the motives behind them. Of course, perestroika has been largely stimulated by our dissatisfaction with the way things have been going in our country in recent years. But it has to a far greater extent been prompted by an awareness that the potential of socialism had been underutilized. We realize this particularly clearly now in the days of the seventieth anniversary of our Revolution. We have a sound material foundation, a wealth of experience and a broad world outlook with which to perfect our society purposefully and continuously, seeking to gain ever greater returns — in terms of quantity and quality — from all our activities.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Having conditioned myself for a new political outlook, I could no longer accept in the old way the multi-colored, patchwork-quilt-like political map of Europe. The continent has known more than its share of wars and tears. It has had enough. Scanning the panorama of this long-suffering land and pondering on the common roots of such a multi-form but essentially common European civilization, I felt with growing acuteness the artificiality and temporariness of the bloc-to-bloc confrontation and the archaic nature of the "iron curtain." That was probably how the idea of a common European home came to my mind, and at the right moment this expression sprang from my tongue by itself.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now it is up to all of us, all the participants in the European process, to make the best possible use of the groundwork laid down through our common efforts. Our idea of a common European home serves the same purpose too. It was born out of our realization of new realities, of our realization of the fact that the linear continuation of the path, along which inter-European relations have developed until the last quarter of the twentieth century, is no longer consonant with these realities. The idea is linked with our domestic economic and political perestroika which called for new relations above all in that part of the world to which we, the Soviet Union, belong, and with which we have been tied most closely over the centuries.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are convinced that it is high time talks on tactical nuclear systems were initiated among all interested countries. The ultimate objective is to completely eliminate those weapons. Only Europeans who have no intention of waging war against one another are threatened by those weapons. What are they for then and who needs them? Are nuclear arsenals to be eliminated or retained at all costs? Does the strategy of nuclear deterrence enhance or undermine stability? On all these questions the positions of NATO and the Warsaw Pact appear to be diametrically opposed. We, however, are not dramatising our differences. We are looking for solutions and invite our partners to join us in this quest.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated. As a young man, I really took to heart the Communist ideals. A young soul certainly cannot reject things like justice and equality. These were the goals proclaimed by the Communists. But in reality that terrible Communist experiment brought about repression of human dignity. Violence was used in order to impose that model on society. In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nature Is My God" - interview with Fred Matser in Resurgence No. 184 (September-October 1997)
“I see the decision to award me the Nobel Peace Prize also as an act of solidarity with the monumental undertaking which has already placed enormous demands on the Soviet people in terms of efforts, costs, hardships, willpower, and character. And solidarity is a universal value which is becoming indispensable for progress and for the survival of humankind. But a modern state has to be worthy of solidarity, in other words, it should pursue, in both domestic and international affairs, policies that bring together the interests of its people and those of the world community. This task, however obvious, is not a simple one. Life is much richer and more complex than even the most perfect plans to make it better. It ultimately takes vengeance for attempts to impose abstract schemes, even with the best of intentions. Perestroika has made us understand this about our past, and the actual experience of recent years has taught us to reckon with the most general laws of civilization.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I began my book about perestroika and the new thinking with the following words: "We want to be understood". After a while I felt that it was already happening. But now I would like once again to repeat those words here, from this world rostrum. Because to understand us really — to understand so as to believe us — proved to be not at all easy, owing to the immensity of the changes under way in our country. Their magnitude and character are such as to require in-depth analysis. Applying conventional wisdom to perestroika is unproductive. It is also futile and dangerous to set conditions, to say: We'll understand and believe you, as soon as you, the Soviet Union, come completely to resemble "us", the West. No one is in a position to describe in detail what perestroika will finally produce. But it would certainly be a self-delusion to expect that perestroika will produce "a copy" of anything.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A period of transition to a new quality in all spheres of society's life is accompanied by painful phenomena. When we were initiating perestroika we failed to properly assess and foresee everything. Our society turned out to be hard to move off the ground, not ready for major changes which affect people's vital interests and make them leave behind everything to which they had become accustomed over many years. In the beginning we imprudently generated great expectations, without taking into account the fact that it takes time for people to realize that all have to live and work differently, to stop expecting that new life would be given from above.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Progress towards the civilization of the 21st century will certainly not be simple or easy. One cannot get rid overnight of the heavy legacy of the past or the dangers created in the post-war years. We are experiencing a turning point in international affairs and are only at the beginning of a new, and I hope mostly peaceful, lengthy period in the history of civilization. With less East-West confrontation, or even none at all, old contradictions resurface, which seemed of secondary importance compared to the threat of nuclear war. The melting ice of the Cold War reveals old conflicts and claims, and entirely new problems accumulate rapidly.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All members of the world community should resolutely discard old stereotypes and motivations nurtured by the Cold War, and give up the habit of seeking each other's weak spots and exploiting them in their own interests. We have to respect the peculiarities and differences which will always exist, even when human rights and freedoms are observed throughout the world. I keep repeating that with the end of confrontation differences can be made a source of healthy competition, an important factor for progress. This is an incentive to study each other, to engage in exchanges, a prerequisite for the growth of mutual trust. For knowledge and trust are the foundations of a new world order.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am an optimist and I believe that together we shall be able now to make the right historical choice so as not to miss the great chance at the turn of centuries and millenia and make the current extremely difficult transition to a peaceful world order. A balance of interests rather than a balance of power, a search for compromise and concord rather than a search for advantages at other people's expense, and respect for equality rather than claims to leadership — such are the elements which can provide the groundwork for world progress and which should be readily acceptable for reasonable people informed by the experience of the twentieth century. The future prospect of truly peaceful global politics lies in the creation through joint efforts of a single international democratic space in which States shall be guided by the priority of human rights and welfare for their own citizens and the promotion of the same rights and similar welfare elsewhere. This is an imperative of the growing integrity of the modern world and of the interdependence of its components.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Destiny so ruled that when I found myself at the helm of this state it already was clear that something was wrong in this country. We had a lot of everything - land, oil and gas, other natural resources - and there was intellect and talent in abundance. However, we were living much worse than people in the industrialized countries were living and we were increasingly lagging behind them. The reason was obvious even then. This country was suffocating in the shackles of the bureaucratic command system. Doomed to cater to ideology, and suffer and carry the onerous burden of the arms race, it found itself at the breaking point.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Supreme Soviets of the Republics rejected the Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States, drafted by the USSR State Council under the guidance of the country's President, and swallowed the poisoned fruit of the Belovezh scheme instead. The intelligentsia remained silent. The media were thrown into disarray. My appeals to the deputies of the Supreme Soviet and to the people, my warning that the disintegration of the Soviet Union was fraught with dire consequences, went unheeded - society was bewildered and unable to appraise the crisis. Destructive forces in the country exploited the confusion, usurping the people's right to decide their own future. It was what I had feared most of all.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Frequently I have heard criticism and even accusations directed against me for my policy towards the countries of Eastern Europe. Some say that Gorbachev did not defend socialism in those countries, that he more or less 'betrayed his friends'. Others, on the contrary, accuse me for having been too patient with Ceaușescu, Honecker, Zhivkov and Husák, who had brought their states to the brink of catastrophe. I firmly reject these accusations. They derive from outdated notions about the nature of relations between our countries. We had no right to interfere in the affairs of our 'satellites', to defend and preserve some and punish and 'excommunicate' others without reckoning with the people's will.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mikhail Gorbachev, Memoirs (1995)
Also quoted by: Erich Honecker
“The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period. This explains the Soviet Union's great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies is also explained by what we have said above. All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future — all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Preservation, renewal, and reform of the Union was my main political and, if you will, moral task in my position as president of the USSR. I consider it my greatest sorrow and misfortune that I did not succeed in preserving the country as a single whole. All my efforts were focused on trying to preserve that unity. Incidentally, more and more statements are heard today, including some by participants in the Belovezh accord, that the "soft form of Union Gorbachev proposed" might have protected our nations and nationalities from painful experiences. But, as the saying goes, the train has already left the station.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You have to consider that Reagan was twenty years older than I was. He was the age of my mother. So there was a generation gap. During one of our talks, he tried to lecture me and moralize. I said to him, "Mr. President, you are not my teacher, and I am not your student. You are not a prosecutor, and I am not a defendant. So let's not subject each other to lectures. Let's talk frankly and address the issues. If you want to lecture, we might as well wrap it up, because there's really nothing to talk about." He got a little upset. Not long after that, he said, "Why don't we go on a first-name basis? You call me Ron and I'll call you Mikhail." That was an important step.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with Esquire (10 September 2008)
“In the summer of 1989, neither Helmut Kohl nor I anticipated ... that everything would happen so fast. We didn’t expect the wall to come down in November. And by the way, we both admitted that later. I don’t claim to be a prophet. This happens in history: it accelerates its progress. It punishes those who are late. But it has an even harsher punishment for those who try to stand in its way. It would have been a big mistake to hold onto the Iron Curtain. That is why we didn’t put any pressure on the government of the GDR. When events started to develop at a speed that no one expected, the Soviet leadership unanimously – and I want to stress “unanimously” – decided not to interfere in the internal processes that were under way in the GDR, not to let our troops leave their garrisons under any circumstances. I am confident to this day that it was the right decision.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with Russia Beyond (16 October 2014)
“When I rose to the leadership of the USSR and looked into the situation of nuclear disarmament negotiations, I was baffled. Negotiations were taking place, diplomats and military officials were meeting regularly. They gave speeches to each other, hundreds of litres of beverages of various strengths were consumed at receptions, and meanwhile the arms race continued, arsenals increased and nuclear testing carried on. There was a terrible inertia, a vicious cycle it was impossible to escape. In the second half of the 1980s, the political leadership of both the USSR and the USA came to the realization that all of this could not go on indefinitely. I see here a parallel to the motto of perestroika: "We can no longer continue to live this way." Despite all the differences of opinion in my discussions on specific issues with Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz, we agreed that the nuclear arms race not only had to be stopped, it had to be reversed.”
Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source