Quotes About Gorbachev

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

The words spoken by the leader of the free world can expand the frontiers of freedom or shrink them. When Ronald Reagan called on Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall', a surge of confidence rose that would ultimately breach the bounds of the evil empire.

The essential meaning of perestroika for Gorbachev and his supporters was creating and acting on alternatives to failed and dangerous policies at home and abroad.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

In that case, do not expect to be rescued by the Red Army," Gorbachev said.

They had to pay taxes on fruit trees whether or not they bore fruit, Gorbachev remembered, "so peasants cut down their orchards.

I used to dream about Gorbachev before he lost power. I'd go into a panic because I was meeting him, and I had nothing to wear. I'd ask my brother what to do, and he'd tell me to wear my dressing gown. I'd tell him I can't - it's too horrible. He'd tell me to wear his as well. So I'd meet Gorbachev wearing two dressing gowns.

Although at the time I didn't realize this, the Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev had begun promoting 'glasnost' or political openness throughout the Soviet Union, and everywhere Ukrainians were debating the justice of Soviet domination over our country. Finally, the citizens of Ukraine were beginning to realize that Moscow was destroying their environment and endangering their lives.

Gorbachev was still in power, and Soviet troops marched on the streets of many cities. The Soviet economy had crashed, and the government was rationing the most basic products, such as sugar, milk, butter, flour, and meat. Automobiles sat unused in garages because there was no gasoline to purchase. It was an economic mess so terrible that only a fiction writer could have dreamed up so frightful a scenario.

President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), announced in 1983 and calling for a nationwide missile defense using very sophisticated technology, both angered and, I believe, terrified the Soviets. As I joked at the time, there appeared to be only two people on the planet who actually thought SDI would work—Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviets were under enormous economic pressure by that time and knew they could not compete with such a system.

Whatever his reasons, Gorbachev had the intelligence to admit Communism was not working, the courage to battle for change, and, ultimately, the wisdom to introduce the beginnings of democracy, individual freedom, and free enterprise. As I said at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, the Soviet Union faced a choice: Either it made fundamental changes or it became obsolete. Gorbachev saw the handwriting on the Wall and opted for change.

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.

Those who remember Washington's cold war culture in the 1980s will recall the shocked reactions to Reagan's intervention. People interested in foreign policy were astonished when in 1985 he met alone at Geneva - alone, not a single strategic thinker at his elbow! - with the Soviet Communist master Gorbachev.

A man writing a letter is a man in the act of thinking, and it was an exercise Reagan obviously enjoyed. After his first meeting with Gorbachev, for example, he sent a 'Dear Murph' letter about it to his old friend George Murphy, a former senator and actor who had once played Reagan's father in a film.

Dad's astute knowledge of foreign policy impressed Gorbachev during the time of the Berlin Wall when Dad refused to gloat during the reunification of Germany.

The opportunities that Gorbachev created for international relations have also been missed, perhaps even lost - here, however, primarily because of the United States.

Reagan's defense buildup and SDI, so ridiculed at the time, pressed Gorbachev, while his economy was collapsing, to make arms deals and improve relations with the West, which contributed to the unraveling of his empire.

Putin regards Stalin as a great tsar; he is a great tsar. Asked who the worst tsars were, he said Nicholas II and Gorbachev.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.

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.

I performed six concerts all over the U.S.S.R. during the time of Gorbachev. The entire audience was Russian. There were no Indians. Period. The audience turned out in large numbers and gave standing ovations to all my songs. They knew each song. That was an amazing experience.

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.

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.

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