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.

Leonid Brezhnev

Categorized in : War Add Suicide

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

Leonid Brezhnev

election historical winning

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

technology military hands

The highest peace is the peace between opposites.

Leonid Brezhnev

highest opposites inspirational

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

differences war mean

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

Leonid Brezhnev

eye war country

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

socialist-countries country people

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

southern house two

There is nothing more practical than a good theory.

Leonid Brezhnev

practicals theory

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

struggle class believe

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

fate home europe

Soviet people are better off materially and richer spiritually.

Leonid Brezhnev

soviet better-off people

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

Leonid Brezhnev

agriculture technology war

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

Leonid Brezhnev

peasants important people

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

cynical usa play

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

Leonid Brezhnev

unions self running

We should not pour muck on ourselves.

Leonid Brezhnev

should

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

zero real europe

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

armament military europe

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

heart men country

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.

Leonid Brezhnev

persistence loyalty war