"But then I thought of the tremendous responsibility of being the first to accomplish what generations of people had dreamed of, the first to show man the way into space... Can you think of a task more difficult that the one assigned to me. It is not responsibility to a single person, or dozens of people, or even a collective. It is responsibility to all Soviet people, to all mankind, to its present and its future. And if I am nevertheless venturing on this flight, it is because I am a Communist, because I draw strength from unexampled exploits performed by my compatriots, Soviet men and women. I know that I shall muster all my will power the better to do the job. Realising its importance, I will do all I can to carry out the assignment of the Communist Party and the Soviet people. Am I happy to be starting on a space flight? Of course I am. In all times and all eras man's greatest joy has been to take part in new discoveries. I would like to dedicate this first space flight to the people of communism, a society which our Soviet people are already entering, and which, I am confident, all men on earth will enter."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Yuri Gagarin, statement made before the launch of the April 1961 Vostok 1 mission, as quoted in Soviet Man in Space (1961).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Soviet_Union
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Soviet Union
132 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Soviet Union →
Related Quotes
"The Soviet Union was able to generate rapid growth even under extractive institutions because the Bolsheviks built a …"
"The Soviet people have boundless trust in their Communist Party, they trust it because for the party there have never…"
"The Soviet state has successfully overcome many trials, including crucial ones, during the six and a half decades of …"
"The Soviet Union, and we stress this again, does not strive for military superiority, and we will do only what is abs…"
"Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great."
"You know, I never planned to leave. I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. You know, I played their game,…"
"The compound of bigness and communism made Soviet Russia very much an ogre in the 1920s and accentuated her isolation…"
"The rush of events in the Soviet Union, Germany, eastern Europe and China in the late 1980s and the very early 1990s …"
"In 1990 I went to a Cato Institute conference in what was then still the Soviet Union. We were told to bring our own …"
"In the Soviet Union it was illegal to take a photograph of a train station. Look what happened to them. They tried to…"