"A persuasive way of understanding the collapse of Communism in Europe and the Soviet Union is to think of nineteenth- or twentieth-century slum clearance. For in many respects the Soviet Empire was a slum of continental proportions. Beyond the grotesque architectural assertions of an alien ideology, public housing – almost all housing – consisted of anomic and primitive concrete barracks where the smells of cabbage, damp and low-grade tobacco combined. Rivers and lakes were polluted by chemicals, with the Pleisse river in East Germany alternately turning first red then yellow."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Michael Burleigh Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror, New York: NY, HarperCollins Publishers (2007) p. 415
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
30 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Dissolution of the Soviet Union →
Related Quotes
"The list of NATO's deficiencies was long, including, after the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse, the feckless abandonment…"
"Nothing better illustrated the realities of the Soviet collapse than the fate of Sergei Krikalyev, a Soviet cosmonaut…"
"The most obvious fact of the Soviet collapse is that it happened through natural causes. The Soviet Union was not, li…"
"The Marxist prediction that capitalism would ultimately collapse and be replaced by socialism (Khrushchev’s tactless …"
"Gorbachev was never willing to leap directly to a market economy in the way that Deng Xiaoping had done. He reminded …"
"I firmly came out in favor of the independence of nations and sovereignty for the republics. At the same time, I supp…"
"Fate had it that when I found myself at the head of the state it was already clear that all was not well in the count…"
"However, work of historic significance has been accomplished. The totalitarian system which deprived the country of a…"
"The totalitarian system in the Soviet Union and in most of its satellites is breaking down, and our nations are looki…"
"The rush of events in the Soviet Union, Germany, eastern Europe and China in the late 1980s and the very early 1990s …"