Mikhail Gorbachev

[The Americans] should accept their part of the blame. Let them say so. We talked to them all the time, we were telling them that we want Afghanistan to be an independent country, that we are leaving, we are withdrawing from that country. But at that same time, our partners were working in secret with those forces with whom they are now fighting. It’s called the historical and political boomerang. I think God has some mechanism that he uses to punish those that make mistakes.

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.

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

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.’

Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.

It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a hawk who saw the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire.’

Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?

According to polls released by the Brookings Institution in August [2011], some Arabs agree with Washington and western commentators that Iran is a threat: 10%. In contrast, they regard the US and Israel as the major threats (77%; 88%).

Trumpism is one of many manifestations of the effects of the neoliberal policies of the past generation. These have led to extreme concentration of wealth along with stagnation for the majority.

To those who oppose us, we say, ‘Strike the woman, and you strike the rock.’

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.

We need business to understand its social responsibility, that the main task and objective for a business is not to generate extra income and to become rich and transfer the money abroad, but to look and evaluate what a businessman has done for the country, for the people, on whose account he or she has become so rich.

Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.

Some say we need to help (billionaire Roman) Abramovich and other Russian businessmen who have ended up in a difficult situation… I wouldn’t want to speak right now about those people who have broken various laws. I am speaking about people who acquired their capital through legal means. The former and the latter are better off being in Russia.

Both prisons and inner-city schools target a kind of superfluous population that there’s no point educating because there’s nothing for them to do. Because we’re a civilized people, we put them in prison, rather than sending death squads out to murder them.

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 said on the Department of Justice, I would stay uninvolved. Now I may get involved at some point if it gets worse.

As a research tool, the internet is invaluable.

The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.