Perestroika was an impossible idea on the face of it. The Party was setting out to employ its structures of command to make the country, and itself, less command-driven. A system whose main afflictions were stagnation and inflexibility was setting out to change itself. Worst and probably intractable was the fact that people who had spent their lives securing power and individual leverage were expected to devise change that would dismantle the hierarchy of levers and might dislodge them. The system resisted change instinctively.. Masha Gessen
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. - Unknown

  2. In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want;... - Karl Marx

  3. The first duty of a man is to think for himself - Unknown

  4. You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker - Malcolm X

  5. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. - Vladimir Lenin

More Quotes By Masha Gessen
  1. It turned out that capitalism alone could make people not only rich and happy but also poor, hungry, miserable, and powerless.

  2. When you lose your freedom, you lose, first and foremost, the opportunity to choose the company you keep.

  3. Perestroika was an impossible idea on the face of it. The Party was setting out to employ its structures of command to make the country, and itself, less command-driven. A system whose main afflictions were stagnation and inflexibility was setting out to change itself. Worst...

Related Topics