“Look at Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution and the slogans that they used: anti-imperialism; anti-colonialism; the struggle of the have-nots against the haves; the state monopoly over economy, which was very much patterned after the Soviet Union. All of these things did not come out of Islam. Islam is not that developed.” LooksStatesUsedStruggleEconomyRevolutionUnionsIslamSovietColonialismSoviet UnionImperialismMonopolySlogansKhomeini Author:Azar Nafisi
“Ukraine is a vital link for Europe: our energy transportation networks; our location between the European Union and Eurasia. We're the melting pot of Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. The democracy we founded with the Orange Revolution has to be an example for other post-Soviet states.” StatesEnergyChristianityDemocracyExampleRevolutionEuropeUnionsPostsOrthodoxCatholicismLinksPotSovietLocationOrangeUkraineMeltingTransportationEuropean UnionMelting PotOrthodox Christianity Author:Yulia Tymoshenko
“When you think of power, you think the state has power. When you look at it in terms of revolution, in terms of the state, you think of it in terms of Russia, the Soviet Union, and how those who struggled for power actually became victims of the state, prisoners of the state, and how that led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. We have to think of revolution much more in terms of transitions from one epoch to another. Talk about Paleolithic and Neolithic.” ThinkingLooksStatesTermRevolutionVictimUnionsRussiaPrisonerTransitionSovietSoviet UnionEpochDissolution Author:Grace Lee Boggs
“I think the big tragedy of the Cuban Revolution was that it became dependent on the Soviet Union, and it became dependent on the Soviet Union under a very reactionary bureaucratic regime led by Leonid Brezhnev.” ThinkingBigsRevolutionTragedyUnionsDependentSovietRegimesSoviet UnionCubanReactionariesCuban RevolutionBrezhnev Author:Tariq Ali
“In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.” YearsCountryPastExistenceRevolutionVictoryUnionsSpiteSovietOther CountriesSoviet Union Author:Leon Trotsky
“It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.” CountryExistenceRevolutionVictoryCapableUnionsMereSovietOther CountriesSoviet Union Author:Leon Trotsky
“The Russian revolution did not occur until a generation after Marx's death. He was not involved with it, or with what came after it. His works do not describe post-capitalist society, and a fortiori they do not recommend any part of what the Soviet Union did.” GenerationsRevolutionInvolvedUnionsPostsSovietCapitalistSoviet UnionRussian Revolution Author:Allen W. Wood
“The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.” FirstsSaidStatesBigsMovingGoalSecretDemocracyRevolutionPeriodsCapitalismClaimsMovedUnionsSocialismTendenciesRevolutionaryGermanyOrthodoxSovietExpectingSocialistThey SaidSoviet UnionMarxistMoved OnStalinismBolsheviks Author:Noam Chomsky
“Our tragedy today is not just that millions of people who called themselves communist or socialist were physically liquidated in Vietnam, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, not just that China and Russia, after all that revolution, have become capitalist economies, not just that the working class has been ruined in the United States and its unions dismantled, not just that Greece has been brought to its knees, or that Cuba will soon be assimilated into the free market - it is also that the language of the Left, the discourse of the Left, has been marginalised and is sought to be eradicated.” PeopleHas BeensStatesTodayLeftLanguageUnitedClassMillionsUnited StatesEconomyRevolutionTragedyUnionsIraqChinaRussiaKneesIranCommunistAfghanistanVietnamCapitalistSocialistWorking ClassDiscourseRuinedFree MarketGreeceIndonesiaCubaCapitalist Economy Author:Arundhati Roy
“I don't think we replaced the Soviet Union with Al Qaida. I think we replaced, we should have, Soviet Union with the merger of globalization and the IT revolution. I think it's that. That is the real challenge that we face today. Unlike the Soviet Union, it has no face, it has no missiles, but it is something that challenges every job, every city and every community.” ThinkingShouldRealTodayJobsFacesCommunityChallengesCitiesRevolutionShould HaveUnionsAlsSovietReplacedSoviet UnionGlobalizationMissilesMergers Author:Thomas Friedman