Leonid Brezhnev Quotes

The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win.

We Communists have got to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology. But we are going to continue massive military programs. . . (soon) we will be in a position to return to a much more aggressive foreign policy designed to gain the upper-hand.

The highest peace is the peace between opposites.

Detente is a readiness to resolve differences and conflicts not by force, not by threats and sabre-rattling, but by peaceful means, at the conference table.

It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war.

When external and internal forces hostile to the development of socialism try to turn the development of a given socialist country in the direction of the restoration of the capitalist system, when a threat arises to the cause of socialism in that country ... this is no longer merely a problem for that country's people, but a common problem, the concern of all socialist countries.

When the Soviet Union came to be run by a valetudinarian mafioso like Brezhnev, the thing itself had fallen into self-contempt.

Our aim is to gain control of the two great treasure houses on which the West depends: The energy treasure house of the Persian Gulf and the minerals treasure house of Central and Southern Africa.

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

Whatever else may divide us, Europe is our common home; a common fate has linked us through the centuries, and it continues to link us today.

I shall add that only he who has decided to commit suicide can start a nuclear war in the hope of emerging a victor from it. No matter what the attacker might possess, no matter what method of unleashing nuclear war he chooses, he will not attain his aims. Retribution will inevitably ensue.

Communists have always viewed the national question through the prism of the class struggle, believing that its solution has to be subordinated to the interests of the Revolution, to the interests of socialism. That is why Communists and all fighters for socialism believe that the main aspect of the national question is unification of the working people, regardless of their national origin, in the common struggle against every type of oppression, and for a new social system which rules out exploitation of the working people.

We Communists have to string along with the capitalists for a while. We need their agriculture and their technology.

Soviet people are better off materially and richer spiritually.

The most important thing in my life, its leitmotif, has been the constant and close contacts with working people, with workers and peasants.

We are entirely for the idea that Europe shall be free from nuclear weapons, from medium-range weapons as well as tactical weapons. That would be a real zero option.

Of late, attempts have been made in the USA - at a high level and in a rather cynical form - to play the "Chinese card" against the USSR. This is a shortsighted and dangerous policy.

Every man must be made to realize that further retreat is impossible. He must realize with his mind and heart that this is a matter of life and death of the Soviet state, of the life and death of the people of our country...the Nazi troops must be stopped now, before it is too late.

We should not pour muck on ourselves.

We stand for the dismantling of foreign military bases. We stand for a reduction of armed forces and armaments in areas where military confrontation is especially dangerous, above all in central Europe.

One sits the whole day at the desk and appetite is standing next to me. "Away with you," I say. But Comrade Appetite does not budge from the spot.

We bow our heads in respect for those Soviet women who displayed exceptional courage in the severe time of war. Never before but during the days of the war the grandeur of spirit and the invincible will of our Soviet women, their selfless dedication, loyalty and affection to their Homeland, their boundless persistence in work and their heroism on the front manifested themselves with such strength.

As you know, I am not a writer but a Party functionary. But like every Communist I consider myself to have been mobilized by Party propaganda and deem it my duty to participate actively in the work of our press.

Believe me, after the destruction of Chinese nuclear sites by our missiles, there won't be much time for the Americans to choose between the defense of their Chinese allies and peaceful co-existence with us.

Brezhnev wasn't a minus for the history of our country, he was a huge plus, He laid a foundation for the country's economics and agriculture.

The rout of fascism, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, generated a mighty tide of socio-political changes which swept across the globe.

Our militant union with peoples which still have to carry on an armed struggle against the colonialists constitutes an important element of our line in international affairs.