Romanians now lived for much of the time without running water, heating or electricity. They queued for everything. Eventually, the reality caught up with the theatre. ibid.
The central committee building was stormed. Ceaucescu fled by helicopter. ibid.
The Ceaucescus were found guilty of corruption and the destruction of the Romanian economy and were shot. ibid.
Out of the past, a secret plan to lock up thousands of Canadians whose crime was their support for radical ideas … a programme so draconian it even shocked the politician supposedly in charge of it. A tale of paranoid security from yesterday that resonates with activists today. The Fifth Estate: Enemies of the State, CBC 2010
Its work conducted for the most part by undercover cops and spies. It’s about a shocking programme that we’d never heard about until recently. A secret scheme that was in place for more than thirty years. It’s a story about how people in authority were prepared to use fear to justify repression in the name of public safety. ibid.
1950: A secret gathering in Ottowa … In the time of crisis – a preemptive strike against people deemed to be the enemies of Canadian democracy … The plan was called Profunc – targeting prominent functionaries and groups believed to be pro-Soviet ... approved in its broadest outlines by the government of Canada. ibid.
Canada has its own dark history of internments … It didn’t take much to get on the list of targets. ibid.
It’s important to remember that, in the 1930s, a lot of people in the West looked at communism as a pretty good idea. That was partly because they didn’t know how bad things were on the communist side of the world, but it was also partly because things were bad in the West. Chrystia Freeland
Meeting Gobachev by a German is burdened by History. The Nazi invasion left Russia a devastated country with some 25 million dead. Mikhail Gorbachev witnessed the war as an adolescent. Meeting Gorbachev, Werner Herzog reporting, Sky Documentaries 2020
He was 87 years now … [born] 1931 as the son of peasants … All of his family has been laid to rest … He lived much of his time with his maternal grandparents who treated him with tenderness. ibid.
‘I entered politics in my final year of school. That’s when I joined the communist party.’ ibid. Gorbachev
‘He proposed, as we all remember, Perestroika and Glasnost. He really believed that he could reform communism.’ ibid. Lech Walesa
‘The proposals to end the Cold War first came from the Soviet Union.’ ibid. Gorbachev
134,926. ‘I still believe we need to keep moving forward, and rid the world of nuclear weapons – just as Reagan and I proposed.’ ibid.
‘We were able to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons … I believe we can resume our cooperation and nuclear disarmament.’ ibid.
‘Some people were in a rush. They wanted to seize power and they had plans of their own.’ ibid.
The Communist Party is not a political party. It is a criminal conspiracy. Roy Cohn, cited Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn, Sky Documentaries 2020
... the total annihilation of all opposition, the downfall of all existing governments, all economies and all societies... a regimented breed of Pavlovian men whose minds could be triggered into immediate action by signals from their masters ... W Cleon Skousen, The Naked Communist
We should not sit back and wait for our boys and girls to be indoctrinated with materialistic dogma and thereby make themselves vulnerable to a Communist conversion when they are approached by the agents of force and fear who come from across the sea. ibid.
Communist-oriented revolutionary groups have been spearheading the wave of protests and violence directed toward Brigham Young University and the Mormon Church [using] Marxism and Maoism as their ideological base and terror tactics as their method. W Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on the Mormons
‘I’ve been greatly impressed by what I see. I believe, sir, that history will record you as a great builder for the benefit of mankind. Messengers from Moscow I: West, US Ambassador to Stalin, Warner Bros film, BBC 1995
During the War Stalin wasn’t just our ally, he was our hero. He was Uncle Joe and he was leading the Russians to victory. ibid.
Within a few years he had become the enemy accused of seeking to bring the whole of Europe under communist domination. ibid.
It was a death sentence for 50,000 Polish communists, just some of the 9,000,000 people Soviet and foreign who disappeared during the Great Terror. ibid.
From the middle of the war onwards, small groups of European communists left Moscow to build up Stalin’s power in their native lands. ibid.
Soviet documents now showed the rapes continued at least until 1947. ibid.
In December 1949 Stalin was to be 70 years old. Just a couple of months earlier in October ’49 Germany had been divided. NATO blocked Stalin’s power to the West. Messengers from Moscow II: East
Mao respected Stalin; he had no reason to trust him. ibid.
Mao accepted the treaty terms out of weakness. After decades of war China was exhausted and his enemies were still at large. ibid.
1950: Communist North Korean troops invaded South Korea. ibid.
It was the Chinese who saved North Korea. ibid.
Krushchev now saw Mao as a danger to peace; Mao saw Krushchev as a traitor to Communism. ibid.
The Great Leap Forward as a disaster. Food supplies collapsed … The greatest single catastrophe of the twentieth century. ibid.
‘Internationalist duty is when you help friends in other countries to stand up for their independence and liberty.’ Messengers from Moscow III: South, Soviet soldier
‘Fulfilling its international duty the Soviet Union is giving all possible aid to heroic Vietnam …’ ibid. newsreel
In the late ’50s a new world was opening up for the Soviet Union – the Third World. ibid.
At the time the Soviet media barely mentioned the [Cuban] revolution. ibid.
The mid-70s was the high point of detente. The Soviet Union was talking peace with the West. But its leaders thought they might just be winning the war against capitalism and imperialism. Messengers from Moscow IV: North
Few things in the Soviet Union were quite what it seemed. ibid.
The Soviets never had any intentions of honouring their promises about human rights. ibid.
The Soviet Union was crumbling economically and politicly. ibid.