Soviet Union

Explore 17 quotes about Soviet Union

An evil empire.

Ronald Reagan

On the Soviet Union.

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Topic

Soviet Union Cold War

Speaker

Ronald Reagan

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1983 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Reagan, Ronald. "The Evil Empire." National Association of Evangelicals. 8 Mar. 1983, Sheraton Twin Towers Hotel, Orlando, FL, USA.

Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.

Nikita Khrushchev

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Cold War

Speaker

Nikita Khrushchev

Statement Type

Prophecies and predictions Threat

Language

Russian

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Khrushchev, Nikita. Quoted in "Foreign News: We Will Bury You!" Time Magazine, 26 Nov. 1956. Originally stated while addressing western ambassadors. Reception at the Polish embassy. 18 Nov. 1956, Moscow, Russia.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

Winston Churchill

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Topic

Cold War Soviet Union

Speaker

Winston Churchill

Source

Sinews of Peace

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Churchill, Winston. "Sinews of Peace." 5 Mar. 1946, Westminster College, Fulton, MO, USA. Speech.

Current Citation

Churchill, Winston. "The Soviet Danger: The Iron Curtain." Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Great Speeches, edited by David Cannadine. Penguin Classics, 2007.

There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.

Gerald Ford

More information about this quote

Topic

Cold War Soviet Union American politics

Author

Gerald Ford

Source

Presidential debates

Medium

Political debate

Statement Type

Political gaffe

Language

English

Time

1976 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Ford, Gerald. Debate with Jimmy Carter. The Second Carter-Ford Presidential Debate. 6 Oct. 1976, Palace of the Fine Arts Theater, San Francisco, CA, USA.

I decided it is better to scream. This pitiful sound, which sometimes, goodness knows how, reaches into the remotest prison cell, is a concentrated expression of the last vestige of human dignity. It is a man's way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died. By his screams he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help and calling for resistance. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Hope Against Hope

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Topic

Soviet Union

Author

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Source

Hope Against Hope

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

Russian

Time

1970 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Against Hope. The Chekov Press/Atheneum, 1970, ch. 11.

In your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire.

Ronald Reagan

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union

Speaker

Ronald Reagan

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1983 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Reagan, Ronald. "Evil Empire." Annual convention of National Association of Evangelicals. 8 Mar. 1983, Orlando, FL, USA.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.

Vladimir Putin

Read an English translation of this speech in Russian

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Russia International politics Politics

Speaker

Vladimir Putin

Source

2005 Address to Russian Parliament

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

Russian

Time

2005 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Putin, Vladimir. "Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation." 25 Apr. 2005, The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia.

We are now brought face to face with a tyranny which holds out the threat of becoming, thanks to "the conquest of nature" and in particular of human nature, what no earlier tyranny ever became: perpetual and universal.

Leo Strauss

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Cold War Totalitarianism

Author

Leo Strauss

Source

On Tyranny

Genre

Philosophical literature

Language

English

Time

1948 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Strauss, Leo. On Tyranny: An Interpretation of Xenophon's Hiero. The Free Press, 1948.

The astonishing thing is not that so many of us went to concentration camps or died there, but that some us survived. Caution did not help. Only chance could save you.

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Hope Abandoned

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Topic

The gulag Soviet Union

Author

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Source

Hope Abandoned

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

Russian

Time

1972 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Abandoned. Collins & Harvill Press/Atheneum Books, ch. 6.

The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union

Speaker

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. Address to the Delegates of the American Youth Congress. 10 Feb. 1940, Washington, DC, USA.

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn. For in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like the leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

George H.W. Bush

Inaugural Address of George H.W. Bush

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Read this speech at UVA's Miller Center website

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Topic

Cold War Soviet Union

Speaker

George H.W. Bush

Source

Inaugural Address of George H.W. Bush Presidential inaugural address

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1989 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Bush, George H. W. "Inaugural Address." 20 Jan. 1989, West Front, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

It was the supreme expression of the mediocrity of the apparatus that Stalin himself rose to his position.

Leon Trotsky

More information about this quote

Topic

Stalin Soviet Union

Author

Leon Trotsky

Source

My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

Russian

Time

1930 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Trotsky, Leon. Моя Жизнь [My Life]. Charles Scribner's Sons/Thornton Butterworth, 1930, ch. 40.

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.

Mikhail Gorbachev

More information about this quote

Topic

Stalin Soviet Union Cold War

Speaker

Mikhail Gorbachev

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

Russian

Time

1987 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Gorbachev, Mikhail. Speech on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. 2 Nov. 1987, Moscow, Russia.

You know, when Khruschev was forced out, he sat down and he wrote two letters and gave them to his successor. He said, "When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter." Well, soon enough, this guy found himself in a tight place so you open the first letter which says blame everything on me. So he blamed the old man, it worked like a charm. When he got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter. It said, "Sit down, and write two letters."

Traffic

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More information about this quote

Topic

Leadership Politics Soviet Union

Speaker

General Ralph Landry

Actor

James Brolin

Source

Traffic

Medium

Film

Genre

Crime (film) Drama (film) Crime Drama

Language

English

Time

2000 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Traffic. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Compulsion Inc.,/Bedford Falls Productions/USA Films/Initial Entertainment Group, 2000.

If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teaching of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle.

Nikita Khrushchev

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Marxism Cold War

Speaker

Nikita Khrushchev

Language

Russian

Time

1955 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Khrushchev, Nikita. Quoted in New York Times. 18 Sept. 1955. Originally an impromptu speech at a dinner for visiting West German dignitaries. 17 Sept. 1955, Moscow, Russia.

The Soviet Union has indeed been our greatest menace, not so much because of what it has done, but because of the excuses it has provided us for our failures.

J. William Fulbright

Quoted in Observer

More information about this quote

Topic

Soviet Union Cold War

Speaker

J. William Fulbright

Source

Sayings of the Year Observer

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1958 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Fulbright, James William. "Sayings of the Year." Observer, 21 Dec. 1958.

The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.

George F. Kennan

More information about this quote

Topic

Cold War Soviet Union

Author

George F. Kennan

Source

The Sources of Soviet Conduct

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1947 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kennan, George Frost [published as "X"]. "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." Foreign Affairs, July 1947.