Anastas Mikoyan quotes

Anastas Mikoyan was a Soviet statesman and politician of Armenian descent, who played a key role in Soviet governments for several decades. A close associate of several Soviet leaders, he was known for his adaptability and diplomatic skills. He influenced major policies and reforms, and remained active in politics through the eras of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. Here are 14 of his quotes:

Stalin's methods did not help.

Anastas Mikoyan

If Stalin could only see us now, with the American Ambassador here, he'd turn in his grave.

Anastas Mikoyan

All peoples enjoy freedom, and freedom for the development of their culture... There is no Jewish problem in the Soviet Union at all... I have many friends who are Jews.

Anastas Mikoyan

Like Lenin Comrade Stalin is a leader of a higher type. He is a mountain eagle, without fear in the fight, who boldly leads the bolshevik party on unexplored roads toward the total victory of Communism.

Anastas Mikoyan

We are watching the Germans closely; we are not forgetting what they did to us during the war.

Anastas Mikoyan

The principle of collective leadership is elementary for a proletarian party and for a party of the Lenin type. Nevertheless, we must emphasize this old truth, because for about 20 years we have had practically no collective leadership; there flourished the cult of the individual which was condemned first by Marx and then by Lenin. And this, of course, could not but reflect negatively on the position of the party and its work.

Anastas Mikoyan

We think we have got freedom of the press. When one millionaire has ten newspapers and ten million people have no newspapers-that is not freedom of the press.

Anastas Mikoyan

We are accused of all sorts of terrible things, of us wanting to undermine your market, of dumping and so forth. There was no such talk before, but when you had your recession, there were people who wanted to put the whole blame on the Russians. All these fables of us being such terrible devils are not well founded. We want to trade in earnest and well.

Anastas Mikoyan

One former member of [the antiparty] group [Molotov] became an ambassador. True, the country [Outer Mongolia] may not be large, but it is an ambassadorship. I do not want to mention names, but you have some former Secretaries of State. I do not know where they are today, but they are not ambassadors. A second member of the group [Kaganovich] is now head of the state asbestos trust. Is that punishment, to head up a big monopoly? ... It is better to confess to one's errors than to persist in them.

Anastas Mikoyan

We cannot, after all, ignore the fact that the cold war is being fostered from the U. S. No one will deny that American bases around our country are not being reduced; in fact they are being strengthened. All of this is bound to cause suspicion, and it is bound to cause the Soviet leaders to be cautious and vigilant.

Anastas Mikoyan

There are no U. S. flyers in our country. The bodies were handed over to the Americans. We have no other bodies of flyers or living flyers in the Soviet Union. If we had, why should we try to hide them?

Anastas Mikoyan

If Soviet Union were to fire over this zone with nuclear weapons directed at France, or if, conversely, the Americans or the French were to fire over this territory with nuclear weapons towards Russia, the resulting radioactive clouds would be driven into this territory by the west winds from the one side, and the east winds from the other, and the Soviet Union could certainly not request the winds to keep to a specific path.

Anastas Mikoyan