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The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl.

— 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.