Mikhail Gorbachev quotes

Mikhail Gorbachev was a Soviet statesman and reformer, best known as the last leader of the Soviet Union. His policies of perestroika and glasnost profoundly changed the political landscape of Eastern Europe and contributed to the end of the Cold War. He received the Nobel Peace Prize and is remembered for promoting openness and restructuring in Soviet society. Here are 111 of his quotes:

I believe, as Lenin said, that this revolutionary chaos may yet crystallize into new forms of life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed for centuries. It is an invention of civilization.

Mikhail Gorbachev

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

Mikhail Gorbachev

My life's work has been accomplished. I did all that I could.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Dangers await only those who do not react to life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Our rockets can find Halley's comet, and fly to Venus with amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific and technical triumphs is an obvious lack of efficiency in using scientific achievements for economic needs, and many Soviet household appliances are of poor quality.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.

Mikhail Gorbachev

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

Mikhail Gorbachev

If the Russian word "perestroika" has easily entered the international lexicon, this is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring, i. e. progressive development, a fundamental change.

Mikhail Gorbachev

We desperately need to recognise that we are the guests, not the masters, of nature and adopt a new paradigm for development, based on the costs and benefits to all people, and bound by the limits of nature herself rather than the limits of technology and consumerism.

Mikhail Gorbachev

I began to feel the desire for something more; I wanted to do something to make things better.

Mikhail Gorbachev

For a new type of progress throughout the world to become a reality, everyone must change. Tolerance is the alpha and omega of a new world order.

Mikhail Gorbachev

With Yeltsin, the Soviet Union broke apart, the country was totally mismanaged, the constitution was not respected by the regions of Russia. The army, education and health systems collapsed. People in the West quietly applauded, dancing with and around Yeltsin. I conclude therefore that we should not pay too much attention to what the West is saying.

Mikhail Gorbachev

We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Certain people in the United States are driving nails into this structure of our relationship, then cutting off the heads. So the Soviets must use their teeth to pull them out.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The reform of our enormous state indeed demanded decentralization and redistribution of powers between the centre and the regions. But the local elites tried to paint this need in the exaggerated colours of 'national survival.'

Mikhail Gorbachev

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Have we not been able to cross the threshold of mistrust, though mistrust has not completely disappeared? Has not the political thinking in the world changed substantially? Does not most of the world community already regard weapons of mass destruction as unacceptable for achieving political objectives?

Mikhail Gorbachev

The more I reflect on the current world developments, the more I become convinced that the world needs perestroika no less than the Soviet Union needs it.

Mikhail Gorbachev

I view the award of the Nobel Prize to me as an expression of understanding of my intentions, my aspirations, the objectives of the profound transformation we have begun in our country, and the ideas of new thinking. I see it as your acknowledgment of my commitment to peaceful means of implementing the objectives of perestroika.

Mikhail Gorbachev