“We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated.”

—  Mikhail Gorbachev

"Nature Is My God" - interview with Fred Matser in Resurgence No. 184 (September-October 1997) http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/184/gorbachev.htm
Context: We have retreated from the perennial values. I don't think that we need any new values. The most important thing is to try to revive the universally known values from which we have retreated.
As a young man, I really took to heart the Communist ideals. A young soul certainly cannot reject things like justice and equality. These were the goals proclaimed by the Communists. But in reality that terrible Communist experiment brought about repression of human dignity. Violence was used in order to impose that model on society. 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.

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Mikhail Gorbachev photo
Mikhail Gorbachev 65
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1931

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