Mikhail Gorbachev

I welcome David Cameron’s work. This idea, or programme, that he describes as a Big Society, as I understand it, means that the gaps between different groups of people should be bridged. I think this is a very democratic idea, and I support that.

What we need is Star Peace and not Star Wars.

On the day I became Soviet leader, in March 1985, I had a special meeting with the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries and told them: ‘You are independent, and we are independent. You are responsible for your policies, we are responsible for ours. We will not intervene in your affairs, I promise you.’

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

We could only solve our problems by cooperating with other countries. It would have been paradoxical not to cooperate. And therefore we needed to put an end to the Iron Curtain, to change the nature of international relations, to rid them of ideological confrontation, and particularly to end the arms race.

It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.

The U.S. and Britain are incapable of controlling all of Iraq.

We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

If the nation is not capable of preserving itself and reproducing, if it loses it vital bearings and ideals, then it doesn’t need foreign enemies – it will fall apart on its own.

As far as we are concerned, we Syria have not changed.

It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes.

The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the ‘engineering of consent’ by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.

Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one.

We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.

The Federal Government should be the last resort, not the first. Ask if a potential program is truly a federal responsibility or whether it can better be handled privately, by voluntary organizations, or by local or state governments.

Like all advanced societies, the U.S. has relied on state intervention in the economy from its origins, though for ideological reasons, the fact is commonly denied.

In 1995, Russia virtually gave Chechnya de facto statehood and independence even though, de jure, it didn’t recognize Chechnya as an independent state. And I would like to emphasize strongly that Russia withdrew all of its troops, we moved the prosecutors, we moved all the police, dismantled all the courts, completely, 100 percent.

There is not, nor should there be, an irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of an individual person and the interests of the collective.

The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.

President Hoover has done everything any one could do to bring about improvement in business and industry. Everything President Hoover has advised or tried to put into effect has been sound.

Stalin is the most popular figure in all of Russia.