Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev; born 2 March 1931) is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 when the party was dissolved. He served as the country's head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. He was the only General Secretary in the history of the Soviet Union to have been born after the October...
ProfessionWorld Leader
Date of Birth2 March 1931
CityPrivolnoye, Russia
leadership hundred
It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.
perfection people achievement
Now that we are rid of this syndrome of imposing the communist model on people, now that we've given them the chance to get rid of this dogma, I have to tell you Americans that you've been pushing your American way of life for decades. You thought it was perfection itself, the ultimate achievement of human thought... There has to be a different approach... Americans have to be more modest in their desires. We have to stimulate human qualities in people rather than greed.
taken decision would-be
Sometimes, the decisions have to be taken in minutes, even seconds, and there would be no time to make the right decision. We understood that this could have ended in catastrophe.
moving choices together
Though representatives of many ethnic groups came together in the United States, English became their common language. Apparently, this was a natural choice. One can imagine what would have happened if members of each nation moving to the U.S. had spoken only their own tongues and refused to learn English.
economic-models america what-if
I remember Secretary of State [George] Shultz one day saying that America is an economic model for the world. I replied to him that America represents 5 percent of the world's population and consumes 30 percent of the world's energy. What if everyone in the world lives like Americans? Where do we get the energy for this standard of living?
heavy paid
I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.
writing capricious creatures
History is a capricious creature. It depends on who writes it.
race command-and-control decision
We could still have continued the arms race, but the arms race was pointless, and it was another reason we decided to start perestroika. It was senseless to continue to accumulate weapons. We had enough weapons to destroy life on Earth 1,000 times, and therefore it was very clear to us that the arms race could spiral out of control. A conflict could have started, as both the Americans and the Soviets realized, not out of a wrong political decision but because of a failure in the command-and-control systems.
used humans human-beings
Nature is reminding us that it used to exist without human beings.
party people guilt
The guilt of Stalin and his immediate entourage before the Party and the people for the mass repressions and lawlessness they committed is enormous and unforgivable.
environmental would-be revolutionary
Humankind has no option but to protect and live in harmony with its natural environment. However, it would be regrettable if in putting an end to revolutionary extremism, we should then come to environmental extremism. We should not forget that all extremes are the same.
late
History punishes those that come late to it.
keys race dollars
I certainly wouldn't say that we loved the arms race. Trillions of dollars were used to stoke it. For our economy, which was smaller in size than the American economy, it was a burden. But one cannot agree with the statement that the arms race played the key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
government order citizens
A new world order is taking shape so fast that governments as well as private citizens find it difficult just to absorb the gallop of events.