Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.
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.’
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.
If current technological processes continue without change, the environment will change, and we, the human species, will either have to mutate or even die, to disappear, as many species have disappeared.
Sometimes when you stand face to face with someone, you cannot see his face.
Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can’t resolve the problem of women’s pantyhose. There’s no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.
I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw the way that, for example, our wheat fields suffered as a result of dust storms, water erosion and wind erosion; I saw the effect of that on life – on human life.
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.
I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.
If not me, who? And if not now, when?
I am a Communist, a convinced Communist! For some that may be a fantasy. But to me it is my main goal.
Americans have a severe disease – worse than AIDS. It’s called the winner’s complex.
A society should never become like a pond with stagnant water, without movement. That’s the most important thing.
Sometimes it’s difficult to accept, to recognise one’s own mistakes, but one must do it. I was guilty of overconfidence and arrogance, and I was punished for that.
My life’s work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.
I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.
What about Jesus Christ? I say that he was a precursor of idealists; a precursor of socialists.
America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.
The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
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.
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