1943 was the year the tide turned in the Second World War. The German sixth army surrendered at Stalingrad in January after losing 100,000 men. Great Crimes & Trials s2e10: Stalin’s Purges, BBC 1994
He was never as close to Lenin as he later had himself portrayed. ibid.
When Lenin died two years later he left a will warning against Stalin’s power. ibid.
Stalin ordered an assassin to follow Trotsky to Mexico and murder him with an ice-pick. ibid.
He set about eliminating potential challenges to his total authority. A reliable estimate is that a fifth of officers of the Red Army were liquidated. And he purged every section of the Communist Party. ibid.
Stalin sought adoration. Birthday presents were obligatory. Every town had to put up his statue. He basked in such designations as Father of the People and Greatest Genius in History. Actually a cynical opportunist, he was prepared to make a deal with his enemy Nazi Germany. ibid.
8If anyone believes that our smiles involve abandonment of the teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin he deceives himself. Those who wait for that must wait until a shrimp learns to whistle. Nikita Khrushchev, speech 17th September 1955
I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape-recording what you’re saying. Richard Nixon
We are anxious to live in harmony with the Russian people. John F Kennedy
A warning to the American people: not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets. Not to see a distorted and distant view of the other side. Not to see conflict as inevitable. Accommodation as impossible. And communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats. No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. John F Kennedy
It is therefore our intention to challenge the Soviet Union not to an arms race but to a peace race. John F Kennedy
The spectre of Marxist-Leninist controlled governments with ideological and political loyalties to the Soviet Union poses a direct challenge to which we must respond. They are the focus of evil in the modern world. Ronald Reagan
There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans …
A freeze would reward the Soviet Union for its enormous and unparalleled military buildup. It would prevent the essential and long overdue modernization of United States and allied defenses and would leave our ageing forces increasingly vulnerable. And an honest freeze would require extensive prior negotiations on the systems and numbers to be limited and on the measures to ensure effective verification and compliance. And the kind of a freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to verify. Such a major effort would divert us completely from our current negotiations on achieving substantial reductions. Ronald Reagan, speech 8th March 1983
The guilt of Stalin and his immediate entourage before the Party and the people for the mass repressions and lawlessness they committed is enormous and unforgivable. Mikhail Gorbachev, speech 2nd November 1987
Towards the end of 1966 the CIA intercepted a memo indicating that the Soviets were ready to put men on the moon. Nine cosmonauts had been training for several years. They had even landed Lunar 9 on the moon in January 1966. Dark Side of the Moon, 2002
Ultimately, our objective is to welcome the Soviet Union back into the World Order. Perhaps the world order of the future will truly be a family of nations. George H W Bush, A&M University 1989
In 1969 Richard Nixon renounced the use of biological weapons for the United States ... Even at its peak the US offensive programme paled compared to the Soviet Union’s. The Soviets had a massive, extensive, sophisticated top-secret programme which employed tens of thousands of scientists and engineers in numerous research and production facilities. Doctor Joanne Cono, propaganda spokeswoman Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The United States had been blaming social and political upheaval on the Soviet Union for the previous forty-six years ... The bloated military budget vs the peace dividend. Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States IX: Bush and Clinton – American Triumphalism – New World Order, Showtime 2012
Gorbachev: his goals – to dismember and liquidate the USSR matched the goals of the American leadership. ibid.
The Hunt for Red October – the Hollywood tale of a rogue Soviet commander who steals a nuclear submarine and heads for the West. But the film is not pure fiction. In 1975 at the height of the Cold War a Soviet naval officer started a real-life mutiny just as ambitious and equally dangerous. Instead of a submarine called Red October he stole a state of the art warship called the Century. He sailed the ship out of Soviet waters and risked triggering a Third World War. The True Story: The Hunt for Red October, 2009
With the captain imprisoned, the first stage of [Valery] Sablin’s plan was complete. ibid.
It was the political officer, not the captain, who stole the ship. ibid.
The Russians called it the Tournament of Shadows. The British remember it ... as the Great Game. Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart I, BBC 2012
In the late 1870s Russians again appeared in Kabul, and a new generation of British hawks decided the only response was again to invade. ibid.
The new Communist President ... announced a new manifesto of staggering ambition: secular education, equality for women. Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart II, BBC 2012
A few months after the Afghan communists took power 12,000 Afghans had been arrested, put in Kabul prisons and then executed. ibid.
Half as many [Soviet] soldiers died again following the decision to withdraw. By the time they leave, there’s nobody there to greet them. ibid.
The West’s ugly sister. Ugly and dumb. Because somehow the communist block failed to grasp the appeal of an item of clothing that could easily have come to symbolise that virtues of the hard-working proletariat. Niall Ferguson, Civilisation: Is the West History? V Consumerism, Channel 4 2011
The Czechs called jeans Texas-skis – Texan trousers. ibid.
Tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. ibid.
Their resistance to the West’s consumer society was weaker. ibid.
The collapse of communism: maybe it really was blue jeans and rock-n-roll and roll. ibid.
The West’s way of dress had done for Soviet communism. ibid.
With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn’t know that then. Ken Follett
Putin probably, almost certainly, thinks that one of the great disasters of the 20th century was the demise of the Soviet Union. It’s very obvious that he’s trying to work its way back and maintain something similar to that sort of institution. Alan Greenspan
Today’s Russia is not to be compared with the Soviet Union of back then. Angela Merkel
I think the greatest gift of the Soviet Union to modern civilization was the dethronement of the clergy and the refusal to let religion be taught in the public schools. W E B du Bois
Forty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, these nuclear submarines were locked in battle against the Soviet Navy. Their crews were bound by a code of silence. The Silent War, BBC 2013
Submarine crews were now on the frontline of the Cold War. ibid.
In 1966 the Royal Navy joined the nuclear club. ibid.
The Hunter Killer was smaller and stealthier than a missile submarine. ibid.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s the nuclear balance between East and West was constantly shifting. And the front line of the Cold War was now hidden beneath the ocean. This was a war of espionage and intimidation. The Silent War II, BBC 2013
There seemed to be no end to Soviet investment and technological innovation. ibid.
The visit to the Soviet Union was a coup for Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher: The Downing Street Years III: Midnight in Moscow, Twilight in London, BBC 1993
Five years later the writer of that letter was somewhere in this intimidating landscape, prisoner of bandits whose language he couldn’t speak ... Gareth Jones had trespassed into a snakepit of international intrigue ... What came back from China was his ashes. Hitler, Stalin and Mr Jones, BBC 2012
The story of an extraordinary life has emerged. ibid.