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We created perestroika to lead the country out of a dead end. In order for the state and economy to flourish, we needed good relations not just with our neighbors, but with the entire world. We didn't need the Iron Curtain. We wanted to get rid of the wall of mistrust between East and West - and all other walls, for that matter, between states, groups of people and individuals.

— Mikhail Gorbachev

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More quotes by Mikhail Gorbachev

We are witnessing most profound social change.

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Progress towards the civilization of the 21st century will certainly not be simple or easy.

Nobel Address (1991)

In the name of Communism we abandoned basic human values. So when I came to power in Russia I started to restore those values; values of "openness" and freedom.

The [Berlin] wall can disappear when those conditions that created it fall away.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mikhail Gorbachev (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.