Russian Politician Quotes

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Putin

Mikhail Gorbachev

Nikita Khrushchev

Dmitry Medvedev

Boris Yeltsin

Alexander II of Russia

Do you realize that if Ukraine joins NATO and decides to take Crimea back through military means, the European countries will automatically get drawn into a military conflict with Russia? Of course, NATO's united potential and that of Russia are incomparable. We understand that, but we also understand that Russia is one of the world's leading nuclear powers, and is superior to many of those countries in terms of the number of modern nuclear force components.

The revolutionary proletariat will succeed making religion a really private affair, so far as the state is concerned. And in this political system, cleansed of medieval mildew, the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.

You must remember that we persecute nobody for religion. We regard religion as an error and fight it with education.

Mikhail Kalinin

Germany is our second biggest trade partner after China, but some time ago it was first. China is developing rapidly and has already become the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. At any rate, as you know, on 8 October China was recognised as such, but naturally the US economy is much bigger overall for the time being.

Dmitry Medvedev

This dream of absolute, universal equality is amazing, terrifying, and inhuman. And the moment it captures people's minds, the result is mountains of corpses and rivers of blood...

Vladimir Bukovsky

The savages set up gods to which they pray, and which they punish if one of their prayers is not answered... That is what is happening at this moment... Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotsky; another tomorrow...

You, gentlemen, are in need of great upheavals; we are in need of Great Russia.

At the present stage, the historic function of the Soviet Armed Forces is not restricted merely to their function in defending our motherland and the other socialist countries. In its foreign policy activity the Soviet state actively and purposefully opposes the export of counter-revolution and the policy of oppression, supports the national liberation struggle, and resolutely resists imperialist aggression in whatever distant region of our planet it may appear. The party and Soviet Government rely on the country's economic and defense might in fulfilling these tasks... The development of the external functions of the socialist armies is a natural process. It will continue.

Service is service, wherever it occurred. The defense of the fatherland is no small thing.

Rodion Malinovsky

It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to abolish itself from below.

Alexander II of Russia

We ceased to deal seriously with mobile combat. We relegated to oblivion the fundamentals of combat-in-depth tactics and of combined arms maneuvers which had been widespread before the Finnish campaign.

Sergei Biriuzov

We are going for the enemy's fortifications. Artillery is doing its share in every phase of the battle. Automatic weapons are so extensively used today that we cannot possibly limit our operation to silencing enemy gun emplacements. Drive them underground? No, we have to wipe them out! The artillerymen can no longer be guided merely by orders for the infantry. It is waging battle in its own right.

If the present White House leadership runs the gauntlet of common sense and the people's will for peace and challenges us by starting MX missile deployment, then the Soviet Union will respond by deploying a new intercontinental ballistic missile of the same class, with its characteristics in no way inferior to those of the MX.

Dmitriy Ustinov

We see now that infringement of freedom is necessary with regard to the opponents of the revolution. At a time of revolution we cannot allow freedom for the enemies of the people and of the revolution. That is a surely clear, irrefutable conclusion.

Nikolai Bukharin

I happened to read recently a remark by the American nuclear physicist W. Davidson, who noted that the explosion of one hydrogen bomb releases a greater amount of energy than all the explosions set off by all countries in all wars known in the entire history of mankind. And he, apparently, is right.

Nikita Khrushchev

My body is such that I remain sane even after drinking all my buddies under the table.

Gennady Yanayev

Our units were tired. There were many whining pessimists in the army. I threw these panicky people out of the army right away and set to work. I told our men we could not retreat beyond the Volga... I believe that nowhere else in this war was there such bloody hand-to-hand combat. Nowhere else were bayonets and hand grenades used so widely as in Stalingrad... Lieutenant General Rodimtzev's division was first to arrive there and received the fierce German blow. Rodimtzev told me: 'We will fight to the last man, but we shall not leave the city.'... Our soldiers had only one idea. Stalin had ordered us not to retreat.

By their critisism of the existing system, which repeats the Social-Democratic critisism almost word for word, the Bolshevik opposition is preparing minds... for the acceptance of the positive platform of Social-Democracy.... Not only among the mass of the workers, but among communist workers as well, the opposition is rearing the shoots of ideas and sentiments which, if skillfully tended, may easily bear social-democratic fruit.

There is no such thing as a gas market prices, because there is no such thing as gas market. What they are doing to Ukraine is obvious price discrimination.

Andrey Illarionov

If you feel that the Chief of the General Staff talks only rubbish, my place is not here. Better to give me a command at the front where I can be of better use!

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

Mikhail Gorbachev

Washington's adventuristic policy, whipping up international tension to the utmost, is pushing mankind towards nuclear catastrophe.

Konstantin Chernenko

If Hebrew was nobler and more dignified—the exterior of the coat—Yiddish was warmer and more comfortable—the lining of the coat.

Shmaryahu Levin

One blow from the German army and another from the Soviet army put an end to this ugly product of Versailles.

Vyacheslav Molotov

We believe this would be a huge mistake and we hope that this would never happen.