Mikhail Gorbachev Quotes

Socialism is practical, in the best sense of the term; a living, vital force of inestimable value to society.

But Socialism, alone, can bring self-determination of their peoples.

Socialism makes war upon a system not a class…. Labour should capture power, not destroy it.

When capitalism changes, so must socialism.

I think democratic socialism will ultimately prevail in this country because it makes an enormous amount of sense.

We approach closer and closer to socialism.

Socialism is... not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems.

I am convinced that the path to a new, better and possible world is not capitalism, the path is socialism.

… that veiled sister of communism – legalistic socialism

The ideas of socialism are not modern ideas.

As a poodle may have his hair cut long or his hair cut short, as he may be trimmed with pink ribbons or with blue ribbons, yet he remains the same old poodle, so capitalism may be trimmed with factory laws, tenement laws, divorce laws and gambling laws, but it remains the same old capitalism. These “humanitarian parts” are only trimming the poodle. Socialism, one and inseparable with its “antirent and anticapital parts,” means to get rid of the poodle..

The people weren't quite ready for a socialist production system.

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.

I even believed in a third way; I thought it was possible to put a human face on capitalism. But I was wrong. The only way to save the world is through socialism, but a socialism that exists within a democracy; there's no dictatorship here.

People have to take socialism and anyone running on a socialist platform incredibly seriously.

Socialism, as I understand it, is a system of democracy. Without democracy, there is no socialism.

Socialism's not a word that I use. I say 'social democracy' because I don't think the government needs to own all the means of production.

Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.

There are words bandied about that are being misused - words like 'socialism,' words like 'communism,' words like 'fascism.'

We who are members of the Communist Party repudiate the exclusive identification of democracy with capitalism. We declare that democracy can be widened, take on new aspects, become truly a rule of the people, only when it is extended to the economic life of the people.

I am against the use of capitalist mechanisms to build socialism.

Well, what are you socialists going to do about me?

We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.

The act … is communistic in its purposes and tendencies and is defended here upon principles as communistic, socialistic—what should I call them—populistic as has ever been addressed in any political assembly in the world.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that to-day is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.