Leonid Brezhnev quotes

Leonid Brezhnev was a Soviet politician who led the USSR as General Secretary of the Communist Party for nearly two decades. His leadership was marked by political stability, increased military strength, and a period of economic stagnation known as the "Era of Stagnation." He played a key role in shaping both domestic policies and the Soviet Union’s international relations during the Cold War. Here are 37 of his quotes:

Of late, attempts have been made in the USA - at a high level and in a rather cynical form - to play the "Chinese card" against the USSR. This is a shortsighted and dangerous policy.

Leonid Brezhnev

We Communists have got to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. But we are going to continue massive military programs. . . (soon) we will be in a position to return to a much more aggressive foreign policy designed to gain the upper-hand. . .

Leonid Brezhnev

It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war.

Leonid Brezhnev

Detente is a readiness to resolve differences and conflicts not by force, not by threats and sabre-rattling, but by peaceful means, at the conference table.

Leonid Brezhnev

Soviet people are better off materially and richer spiritually.

Leonid Brezhnev

I shall add that only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor from it. No matter what the attacker might possess, no matter what method of unleashing nuclear war he chooses, he will not attain his aims. Retribution will inevitably ensue.

Leonid Brezhnev

Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.

Leonid Brezhnev

The most important thing in my life, its leitmotif, has been the constant and close contacts with working people, with workers and peasants.

Leonid Brezhnev

We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe.

Leonid Brezhnev

As you know, I am not a writer but a Party functionary. But like every Communist I consider myself to have been mobilized by Party propaganda and deem it my duty to participate actively in the work of our press.

Leonid Brezhnev

We bow our heads in respect for those Soviet women who displayed exceptional courage in the severe time of war. Never before but during the days of the war the grandeur of spirit and the invincible will of our Soviet women, their selfless dedication, loyalty and affection to their Homeland, their boundless persistence in work and their heroism on the front manifested themselves with such strength.

Leonid Brezhnev

Every man must be made to realize that further retreat is impossible. He must realize with his mind and heart that this is a matter of life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the people of our country...the Nazi troops must be stopped now, before it is too late.

Leonid Brezhnev

Our militant union with peoples which still have to carry on an armed struggle against the colonialists constitutes an important element of our line in international affairs.

Leonid Brezhnev

The rout of fascism, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, generated a mighty tide of socio-political changes which swept across the globe.

Leonid Brezhnev

When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country ... this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries.

Leonid Brezhnev

The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win.

Leonid Brezhnev

Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends: The energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and the minerals treasure house of Central and Southern Africa.

Leonid Brezhnev

We want the world socialist system to be a well-knit family of nations, building and defending the new society together, and mutually enriching each other with experience and knowledge, a family, strong and united, which the people of the world would regard as the prototype of the future world community of free nations.

Leonid Brezhnev

The substance of socialist democracy lies in efficient socialist organisation of all society for the sake of every individual, and in the socialist discipline of every individual for the sake of all society.

Leonid Brezhnev

The defeat of Nazi Germany signified the victory of progress over reaction, humanity over barbarism and the victory of socialism over imperialist obscurantism. This victory opened the road for advancing the revolutionary struggle of the working class, a national liberation movement on an unprecedented scale and the destruction of the shameful colonial system.

Leonid Brezhnev

Modern science and technology have reached a level where there is the grave danger that a weapon even more terrible than nuclear weapons may be developed. The reason and conscience of mankind dictate the need to erect an insuperable barrier barrier to the development of such a weapon.

Leonid Brezhnev

Modern production sets rapidly rising demands not only on machines, on technology, but also and primarily on the workers, on those who create these machines and control this technology. For ever larger segments of workers specialised knowledge and a high degree of professional training, man's general cultural standard, are becoming an obligatory condition of successful work.

Leonid Brezhnev