Mikhail Gorbachev

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.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

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.’

Starting reforms in the Soviet Union was only possible from above, only from above. Any attempt to go from below was suppressed, suppressed in a most resolute way.

Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth.

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.

Passivity may be the easy course, but it is hardly the honorable one.

The world is changed by idealists.

The writer is the engineer of the human soul.

One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government.

…the media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.

When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’

In the history of modern socialism this is a phenomenon, that the strife of the various trends within the socialist movement has from national become international.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

At the time of the First World War there was a fringe of dissidents, Bertrand Russell for example, who were in jail; Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknicht, in jail; Eugene Debs, in jail. That’s the standard picture throughout history. We find it right now.

The Obama policies [2016] are to try to pressure Mexico to keep Central American immigrants from coming anywhere near us. Who are the Central American immigrants? These are people fleeing from the wreckage left by US government policies.

Changing the big picture takes time.. and the best things to do is focus on the things that we can make in our lives if we’re doing all that. That becomes the collage of real change.

If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.

A fundamental goal of U.S. policy towards Latin America (and elsewhere), long-standing and well-documented, is to take control of the police and military so as to assure that the population will not act upon unacceptable ideas.

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.