"The meaning of peace is the absence of the opposition to Socialism." -Karl Marx
"Gentlemen, Comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about Glasnost and Perestroika and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal changes in the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans, and let them fall asleep." -Gorbachev (1987)
"More socialism means more democracy, openness and collectivism in everyday life." -Gorbachev (1988)
"Our vision of the European space from the Atlantic to the Urals in not that of a closed system. Since it includes the Soviet Union, which reaches to the shores of the Pacific, it goes beyond nominal geographical boundaries." -Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, delivered in Oslo,(1992)
(Note that Gorbachev, who had been out of office for six months, referred to the Soviet Union, not Russia.)
And in my opinion the moon is made of green cheese, but that doesn't necessarly make so, now does that?
(39)Editor's Note:
Furthermore, there is a crucial dialectical difference between Russia and China, connected with the strategists' ruse of fabricating a 'Break with the Past'. In his book Soviet Propaganda as a Foreign Policy Tool [Freedom House, New York, 1991], M. Leighton observed [page 14] that
... the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] must posit the existence of an external enemy in order to justify its monopoly of power. If the United States didn't exist as the arch foe, the Kremlin would have to invent it.This was the standard perception, the accuracy of which was taken for granted for generations - until the 'abolition of the enemy' was formalised in Paris on 19th November 1990 with the signing of the 'Declaration of Twenty-Two States' and the 'Charter of Paris'. Point One of the Declaration asserts that 'the signatories solemnly declare that, in the new era of European relations which is beginning, they are no longer adversaries, will build new relationships and extend to each other the hand of friendship'.
But NATO and the West had failed to notice, let alone understand, the meticulous Leninist use of language concerning the 'abolition' of the enemy by the Communist apparatus. For instance, Academician Georgiy Arbatov, one of Gorbachev's closest advisers, had referred in the June 1988 issue of 'Kommunist' to the forthcoming 'erosion of the image of the enemy' [see Note 16, page 32].
If he had meant that the enemy itself was to be erased, he would have said as much; but he did not. Thus the West mistook the image for the reality- just as this leading strategist had anticipated. If the Communist Party needed, as Leighton says, 'to posit the existence of an external enemy to justify its monopoly of power', it followed that the 'abolition of the image of the enemy' would need logically to be accompanied by the 'disappearance' of the Communist Party itself.
Hence the 'August coup' and its aftermath, which represented a 'Break with the Past', opening the way for 'convergence' as intended by the strategists. By contrast, since the West had not, since Nixon's detente with China, regarded China as 'the enemy', the reverse of this logic required no 'vanishing act' by the Chinese Communist Party.