A Quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Gorbachev's administration was amazingly politically naïve, inexperienced and irresponsible towards the country. It was not governance but a thoughtless renunciation of power. The admiration of the West in return only strengthened his conviction that his approach was right. But let us be clear that it was Mikhail Gorbachev, and not Boris Yeltsin, as is now widely being claimed, who first gave freedom of speech and movement to the citizens of Russia.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Quote Topics

Administration Admiration Approach Being Citizens Claimed Clear Conviction Country First Freedom Freedom Of Speech Gave Gorbachev Governance His Inexperienced Irresponsible Let Us Movement Now Only Politically Power Renunciation Return Right Russia Speech Thoughtless Towards Us West Widely

Quote Author

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Russian - Novelist
December 11, 1918 - August 3, 2008

I have Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to thank that a Russian writer can not only write anything he wants, but also publish it.

Vladimir Sorokin

Mikhail Gorbachev's historic leadership, which transformed Russia and international relations, cannot be fully understood without the diary-memoir of Anatoly Chernyaev, one of his most important advisers and closest confidants. Splendidly translated, edited, and introduced by Robert English and Elizabeth Tucker, his Six Years with Gorbachev is now available to everyone who wants to comprehend those final momentous events of the twentieth century.

Stephen F. Cohen

Donald Trump's interest in Russia dates back to Soviet times. In fact, there's extraordinary footage of him shaking hands with Mikhail Gorbachev. It comes from 1988, the peak of perestroika and Gorbachev's efforts to charm the American public.

Franklin Foer

Russia, despite its heavy flirtation with capitalism and some quite unsavory oligarchs, is still building its foreign policy on the Soviet ideals of internationalism, solidarity and logic. And even domestically, President [Vladin]Putin is slowly, step-by-step, restoring many important Soviet achievements that were torpedoed by a nitwit, and one gangster - [Mikhail] Gorbachev and [Boris] Yeltsin.

Andre Vltchek

If you read history, right, if you read [Mikhail] Gorbachev's memoirs, Gorbachev memoirs said the key thing in winning the Cold War was our insistence on nuclear defense, because they knew they couldn't match us.

Rudy Giuliani

I love art. I used to have a painting of Mikhail Gorbachev that was given to my family by Gorbachev.

Armie Hammer

Gorbachev gave us freedom of worship and freedom of speech and freedom to see what was going on and freedom to vote, but that freedom won't last unless it is underpinned by economic freedom.

Boris Yeltsin

If we talk about changes of power in Russia, that has occurred several times in the past century. After Stalin came Khrushchev, who implemented his legacy quite radically, one could say. But there was no blood, nonetheless. After Brezhnev came Gorbachev. I'm not talking about the ones who were in power for only a short period of time. Gorbachev, too, left a very radical legacy.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union, and within a few weeks the full-scale reformation he attempted to carry out both inside his country and in its cold war relations with the West, particularly the United States, began to unfold.

Stephen Cohen

An old Russian woman goes into Kremlin, gets an audience with Mikhail Gorbachev and says, In America anyone can go to the White House, walk up to Reagan's desk and say, 'I don't like the way you are running the country.' Gorbachev replied, You can do the same thing in the Soviet Union. You can go into the Kremlin, walk up to my desk and say 'I don't like the way Reagan is running his country.'

Ronald Reagan

I was named after the great emperor Cyrus as my father, Farokh Broacha, was a great admirer of the Persian emperor. Continuing the tradition, I have named my son after Mikhail Gorbachev, someone whom I admire. He gave his people freedom.

Cyrus Broacha

Boris Yeltsin's period was characterized by a no less irresponsible attitude to people's lives, but in other ways. In his haste to have private rather than state ownership as quickly as possible, Yeltsin started a mass, multi-billion-dollar fire sale of the national patrimony. Wanting to gain the support of regional leaders, Yeltsin called directly for separatism and passed laws that encouraged and empowered the collapse of the Russian state. This deprived Russia of its historical role for which it had worked so hard, and lowered its standing in the international community.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Russia is so feudal in its system of patronage and reward that it is virtually impossible for a leader to hand over power without controlling his successor or at least receiving an exemption from prosecution - something Mr. Putin granted his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

He [Mikhail Gorbachev] has, as many great leaders have, impressive eyes....There's a kind of laser-beam stare, a forced quality, you get from Gorbachev that does not come across as something peaceful within himself. It's the look of a kind of human volcano, or he'd probably like to describe it as a human nuclear energy plant.

Dan Rather

Stalin, of course, never went on trial, but his legacy did. In 1956, three years after his death, he was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev. And his crimes were even more explicitly exposed by Mikhail Gorbachev during the late '80s. Yet to many, Stalin remains more legitimate as a Russian leader than anyone since.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.