Mikhail Gorbachev

The most puzzling development in politics during the last decade is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe.

America must be the teacher of democracy, not the advertiser of the consumer society. It is unrealistic for the rest of the world to reach the American living standard.

Imagine a country that flies into space, launches Sputniks, creates such a defense system, and it can’t resolve the problem of women’s pantyhose. There’s no toothpaste, no soap powder, not the basic necessities of life. It was incredible and humiliating to work in such a government.

More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life.

I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. So nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals. Being at one with nature.

If people don’t like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

We’re numb. We’re numb to 500 kids getting killed in Chicago last year. We’re numb that there were dozens of police shootings in the beginning of July. We’re numb to places on the earth where we don’t live. Our life is OK, but it’s OK for other people’s lives to not be OK.

If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you’re saying, because it’s too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you’ve resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, ‘You’re an asshole,’ which maybe he or she is, and if you don’t say, ‘That’s idiotic,’ when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.

What kind of city are we living in, if we encourage the development or ownership of large, expensive properties for investment and land banking… while people are sleeping on the streets?

Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs.

Rational discussion is useful only when there is a significant base of shared assumptions.

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done.

At the time of the First World War there was a fringe of dissidents, Bertrand Russell for example, who were in jail; Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknicht, in jail; Eugene Debs, in jail. That’s the standard picture throughout history. We find it right now.

Legal aid is fundamentally important in a democratic, civilised society.

My habit is at the beginning of the year, I look at a blank calendar and then we put everything for the kids first like potlucks, sporting events, parent-teacher conferences, doctor’s appointments, and vacations. Second is me. When do I want to work out? When do I want to hang out with my girlfriends? What trips do I want to take? When can I take a long weekend? Put that on there. And then once all that’s done, everything else can come around that. It’s amazing because it forces you to say “no” because you’ve already blocked out the time.

The problem with me is that I am fifty or one hundred years ahead of my time. My speed is very fast. Some ministers have had to drop out of my government because they could not keep up.

A reporter’s ability to keep the bond of confidentiality often enables him to learn the hidden or secret aspects of government.

So…should we take our guns, go out in the street and start destroying Chase Manhattan bank. Well if you want to get killed in five minutes that’s a good suggestion. Other than that it has absolutely nothing to do with the world so there is not any point in even discussing it.

We shall fight against them, throw them in prisons and destroy them.

What happened to the confidence and ideals of the European dream? The EU was set up to protect freedom. It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving.

As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me.