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Soviet Quotes

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Soviet Quotes

“You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action. A plenary meeting of the Soviet must be called to decide on mass searches in Petrograd and the goods stations. To carry out these searches, each factory and company must form contingents, not on a voluntary basis: it must be the duty of everyone to take part in these searches under the threat of being deprived of his bread card. We can't expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot. Moreover, bandits must be dealt with just as resolutely: they must be shot on the spot.”

ActionFormCompanyDutyMassShotsBasesThreatMeetingsTerrorismBreadCardsSpotsGoodsStationsSovietFactoriesResortsDeprivedSpeculatorsBandits
Author:Vladimir Lenin
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“One of the signs of the imminent Apocalypse is the "bitterness of all waters," and anyone traveling through eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and its satellites-everywhere that the command economy operated, with its callous disregard for anything but narrow-focused abstract principle-could be forgiven for thinking that the Apocalypse was no longer imminent but in full cry. There's hardly a river, stream, or brook that isn't contaminated with the runoff from human misuse, whether industrial effluents, agricultural pesticides and herbicides, or worse.”

ThinkingHumansWaterPrinciplesEconomyCryEuropeRiversUnionsEnvironmentalFocusedCommandFormerAbstractStreamsBitternessSovietForgivenApocalypseSoviet UnionEasternDisregardBrooksSatellitesMisuseEastern EuropeCallousPesticidesHerbicidesCommand Economy
Book:Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource
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“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
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“The first year I was in office, only about 800 people came out of the Soviet Union, Jews. By the third year I was in office... second year, 1979, 51,000 came out of the Soviet Union. And every one of the human rights heroes - I'll use the word - who have come out of the Soviet Union, have said it was a turning point in their lives, and not only in the Soviet Union but also in places like Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Poland [they] saw this human rights policy of mine as being a great boost to the present democracy and freedom that they enjoy.”

PeopleYearsFirstsHumansSaidUseEnjoyDemocracySawsRightsPolicyMinesHeroOfficeThirdsUnionsHuman RightsJewSovietSoviet UnionTurning PointsBoostPolandHungaryCzechoslovakia
Author:Jimmy Carter
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“One of the greatest concerns that I had when I became President was the vast array of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union and a few other countries, and also the great proliferation of conventional weapons, non-nuclear weapons, particularly as a tremendous burden on the economies of developing or very poor countries.”

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Author:Jimmy Carter
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“Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts.”

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Author:Dwight D. Eisenhower
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“All important architecture of the last century was strongly influenced by political systems. Look at the Soviet system, with its constructivism and Stalinism, Weimer with its Modern style, Mussolini and, of course, the Nazis and Albert Speer's colossal structures. Today's architecture is subservient to the market and its terms. The market has supplanted ideology. Architecture has turned into a spectacle. It has to package itself and no longer has significance as anything but a landmark.”

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Author:Rem Koolhaas
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“I think that in this globalised world, the local is going to become more and more important - it is a paradox. You see it in Western Europe more and more. Eastern Europe is still coming out of the Soviet uniform cultural era, but this kind of separation and nationalism is very obvious now in Western Europe.”

ThinkingWorldKindStillsImportantEuropeWesternObviousSeparationLocalsErasNationalismParadoxComing OutSovietUniformsEasternEastern EuropeWestern Europe
Author:Robert Dessaix
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“It is sometimes said that one of the casualties of the general suspicion and mistrust that permeated the old Soviet Union was that the distinction between truth and other motivations to believe tended to break down. Upon hearing a purported piece of information, the reaction was not 'Is this true?' but 'Why is this person saying this? - What machinations or manipulations are going on here?' The question of truth did not, as it were, have the social space in which it could breath.”

BelievePersonsSaidSometimesMotivationSocialSpaceBreakPiecesInformationBreathsUnionsHearingReactionsDistinctionManipulationSovietSuspicionSoviet UnionBreaking DownMistrustCasualtiesAbsolutism
Author:Simon Blackburn
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“Don't believe Wikipedia, not everything written there is true. The Soviet Artists Union was not a communist party organization. It was a professional union, which did not protect you from the government if the government decided you were the enemy, but it did give you the possibility to work in your profession and survive.”

IfsGivingBelieveGovernmentArtistPartyEnemyWrittenPossibilityProtectDecidedOrganizationUnionsDon't BelieveProfessionCommunistSovietProtect YouWikipediaCommunist Party
Author:Ilya Kabakov
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“Japan's diplomatic efforts could have had a broader international perspective. Relations with the U.S. are, of course, the cornerstone of Japan's diplomacy, but the U.S. acts on its global strategy. For instance, Washington suddenly got closer to China in the early 1970s as part of its strategy against the Soviet Union.”

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Author:Sadako Ogata
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“It is one of the many ironies of this period that, at a time when the intelligentsia were excoriating Mellon for tax-evasion, and contrasting the smooth-running Soviet planned economy with the breakdown in America, he was secretly exploiting the frantic necessities of the Soviet leaders to form the basis of one of America's most splendid public collections”

RunningAmericaFormLeaderEconomyPeriodsTaxesBasesIronyCollectionsSovietSmoothPhilanthropySplendidBreakdownFranticEvasionTax Evasion
Book:Modern times: the world from the twenties to the nineties
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“John Kerry and the other Democratic leaders are on the wrong side of history, as they were during the Reagan presidency. If they had won the day, and Reagan had failed, the Soviet Union would still exist, as would all the harm and suffering it unleashed, and American security would be far weaker as a result. And if they win this election thanks to a promise to undo the Reagan-Bush Doctrine, those cheering loudest will be the most evil-loving among us.”

IfsStillsWould BeSufferingEvilWinningSidesResultsLeaderSecurityPromiseElectionUnionsDemocraticHarmDoctrineThanksCheerSovietPresidencySoviet UnionJohn KerryUnleashedDemocratic Leaders
Author:Mark Levin
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“Communism wasn't a word that I thought of when I went to Cuba. The original Fidelistas were not Communists. They were graduate students at the university and law students. After the Fidelistas took over, they went to Washington and tried to get support from the U.S. government, which turned them down. They were in a desperate political and economic situation, so they took the offer from the Soviet Union. Communism was a matter of necessity.”

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Author:Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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“That which distinguishes the Soviet system both from other national systems and from the progressive schools of other countries is the conscious control of every educational procedure by reference to a single and comprehensive social purpose.”

CountrySchoolPurposeSocialConsciousEducationalProgressiveSovietOther CountriesProceduresComprehensive
Book:The Later Works of John Dewey 1927-1928: Essays, Reviews, Miscellany, and
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“The language of these Soviet show trials... could only be understood in the Aesopian imagery of the closed Bolshevik universe of conspiracies of evil against good in which 'terrorism' simply signified 'any doubt about the policies or character of Stalin.' All his political opponents were per se assassins. More than two 'terrorists' was a 'conspiracy'.”

TwoCharacterShowsPoliticalUniverseEvilLanguageDoubtPolicyUnderstoodTerrorismTerroristTrialsOpponentsSovietConspiracyImageryAssassinsBolsheviksPolitical Opponents
Author:Simon Sebag-Montefiore
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“The Soviet Union began by banishing God. The United States began as a community of people who wanted to worship God as they chose. . . Man does not live by bread alone. Those in the United States whose desire to create a strictly secular society is as strong as Lenin's was should study this Cold War lesson closely. Communism was defeated by an alliance spearheaded by 'one nation under God.'”

PeopleMenShouldDoeWarStatesWantedDesireStrongNationsCommunityUnitedUnited StatesStudyColdLessonsWorshipUnionsBreadCommunismLive BySovietSecularDefeatedCold WarSoviet UnionAlliancesWorship GodOne Nation Under GodSecular Society
Author:Richard M. Nixon
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“When the whole discussion of "developing a national idea" hastily began in post-Soviet Russia, I tried to pour cold water on it with the objection that, after all the devastating losses we had experienced, it would be quite sufficient to have just one task: the preservation of a dying people.”

PeopleIdeasWholeWould BeWaterLossDyingColdTasksRussiaDevelopingPostsDiscussionSufficientJust OneSovietPreservationObjectionsSoviet RussiaCold WaterDevastating Loss
Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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