Heroes Of The Soviet Union

"A man who knew his job as he spent a long time commanding a regiment and who earned great respect from everybody."

"The engagements in which Zhukov won his reputation were so massive that, inevitably, many outstanding Soviet military men were involved- either under Zhukov's command or in coordinated and associated movements. There was then, and there continued for years to be, a raging competition for military glory in these engagements. Deep lines of political cleavage and quarrels also underlay the military disputes. Not only military glory was involved; political intrigue, intra-Party quarrels, high-level Kremlin politics were at issue. The principal military rivals of Zhukov were his fellow marshals, Ivan S. Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, V. I. Chuikov, A. I. Yeremenko, Semyon Timonshenko, and to a lesser extent men like K. K. Rokossovsky, V. D. Sokolovsky, and the staff chiefs, A. M. Vasilevsky, Boris Shaposhnikov and, later on, S. M. Shtemenko. Rivals of a different category were Stalin's cronies, men like Voroshilov and Budenny, and police generals such as L. Z. Mekhlis and G. I. Kulik."

"By seizing the formerly little-known Height 102.0 – the Mamayev Hill - the Red Army fought its way to the fascists' den – Berlin. We are proud to say that our victory in Stalingrad radically changed the whole situation in the Second World War. And this victory meant that our Motherland had withstood one of the most difficult tests in its history."

"Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south."

"Why I should be in Romania in the name of unknown to me goal. There was a time when I led soldiers to battle, thinking I was doing my duty as a Russian patriot. However, I understood that we have been cheated, that people needed peace. The old army and Soviet Union are not compatible, therefore, my military career had to end. With no remorse, I could go back to my favorite occupation, working in the field."

"According to one account, his chief of staff reported to him on looting and damage. 'Comrade Marshall,' he said, 'the soldiers are not behaving themselves. They break furniture, mirrors and dishes. What are your instructions in this connection?' Vasilevsky, perhaps the most intelligent and cultivated of all Soviet commanders, was apparently silent for a few moments. 'I don't give a fuck,' he said eventually. 'It is now time for our soldiers to issue their own justice.'"

"While thinking when sober, our success at reaching our goals by using the First Baltic Front troops, the Memel operation, it can't be disregarded, that they [the troops] not only honorably accomplished their powerful strategic operation, but also an infusion of victory for the Soviet armed forces and an entrance into the final stages of the war."

"We have won on the Arlov, Kursk, Belgorod, and Kharkov grounds. We won because the country was being defended not only by the army but by the entire Soviet people. The Socialist economy, Soviet political structure, and Marxist-Leninist ideology proved their unarguable excellence against the Fascist economy, Fascist political structure, and Fascist ideology of Germany."

"Whatever we saw in October 1941, cannot be compared to anything that we had seen prior, when our forces retreated from the Dniepr borders. Now, things like this no longer happen. Now, we can frown by ourselves."

"There is no point in hiding that before the war we mostly learned to attack, and did not pay enough attention to such an important manoeuvre as retreat. Now we have paid for this. It turned out that the commanders and the staff were not sufficiently prepared to prepare and execute the retreat manoeuvre. Now, in the second week of war, we had in fact to learn from the beginning the most difficult art - the art of the execution of retreat."

"What's bad about my biography? My father was a worker, my brothers, too, and I have always honestly served my country."

"What do you want to have me shot for, Semyon Mikhailovich? If you don't find me suitable as chief of the operations department, then give me a combat division. I am a commander; I can command a division. But what would be the advantage of having me shot?"

"Eastern Prussia was a battlefield during World War I years. And right from here, on September 1, 1939, began the spark of fire for the coming of the second world war. And in 1941, Eastern Prussia invaded Soviet soil with a powerful military onslaught, unleashing a grip of heavy burden, tragedy, and torture into the Soviet pre-Baltic and also the inhabitants of Leningrad, Pskov, and the Novgorod regions. Right from the very first days of the second world war, Eastern Prussia was completely transformed into a diabolic system of concentration camp strongholds for captured military people, and became a cruel prison for the young and females, who were brought from many European countries. In the first place, from the Soviet Union. And, aha! Now, after the winter of 1945, Soviet forces captured the descendants of these royal hounds in their very own doghouse!"

"When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"

"What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth.... The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots.... When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black."

"Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и преумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!"

"Our people, with their genius and their heroic work, created the Vostok spaceship, wonderful in the world, and its very smart, very reliable equipment. From the start to the very landing, I had no doubt about the successful outcome of the space flight. I would like to sincerely thank our scientists, engineers, technicians, all Soviet workers who created such a ship which allows to confidently comprehend the secrets of outer space. Let me also thank all the comrades and the whole team that prepared me for the space flight. I am convinced that all my friends, pilot-cosmonauts, are also ready to fly around our planet at any time. It is safe to say that we will fly on our more distant routes on our Soviet spacecraft. I am immensely glad that my beloved Motherland was the first in the world to make this flight, the first in the world to penetrate the Cosmos. The first plane, the first sputnik [satellite], the first cosmic spaceship and the first space flight — these are the stages of the great path of my Motherland toward the mastering the secrets of the Nature."

"Ведь главная сила в человеке — это сила духа."

"I am a friend, comrades, a friend!"

"Dear friends, both known and unknown to me, fellow countrymen, men and women of all lands and continents! In a few minutes a mighty spaceship will take me into the far-away expanses of the Universe. What can I say to you in these last minutes before the start? I see my whole past life as one wonderful moment. Everything I have experienced and done till now has been in preparation for this moment. You must realise that it is hard to express my feelings now that the test for which we have been training ardently and long is at hand. I don't have to tell you what I felt when it was suggested that I should make this flight, the first in history. Was it joy? No, it was something more than that. Pride? No, it was not just pride. I felt very happy - to be the first in space, to engage in an unprecedented duel with Nature - could one dream of anything greater than that? 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. It is a matter of minutes now before the start. I say to you good-bye, dear friends, just as people say to each other when setting out on a long journey. I would like very much to embrace you all - people known and unknown to me, close friends and strangers alike. See you soon!"

"If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too!"

"Many people are interested in my biography. I have read in a newspaper that some irresponsible persons in the United States of America, who are distant relatives of the Gagarins princes and think that I am one of their offsprings. I have to disillusion them. I am a simple Soviet man. I was born March 9, 1934, to the family of a collective farmer. The place of my birth: Smolensk region, Gzhatsk district, the village of Klushino. I’ve never heard and don’t know any princes or nobility in my family tree. Before the revolution my parents were poor peasants. The older generation of my family, my grandfather and grandmother, were also poor peasants."

"Rays were blazing through the of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich."

"Anton Pervushin said, “In fact, Gagarin should be remembered for completely different words. I always remember that Yuri Gagarin said: ‘An astronaut cannot be suspended in space and not have God in his mind and his heart.’”"

"He was like a sound amplified by a mountain echo. The traveller is small, but the mountains are great, and suddenly they merge into a single whole. Such was Yuri Gagarin. To accomplish a heroic exploit means to step beyond one's own sense of self-preservation, to have the courage to dare what today seems unthinkable for the majority. And to be ready to pay for it. For the hero himself, his feat is the limit of all possibilities. If he leaves something "in reserve", then the most courageous deed thereby moves into the category of work: hard, worthy of all glorification, but — work. An act of heroism is always a breakthrough into the Great Unknown. Even given most accurate preliminary calculations, man enters into that enterprise as if blindfold, full of inner tension and ready for any outcome."

"Trying to describe the experience of going to space has been difficult from the very beginning. When Yuri Gagarin, the first man who went into space, returned to Earth, there was a huge reception in his honor. As his close friend and cosmonaut colleague Alexei Leonov tells it, then-premier Nikita Khrushchev cornered Gagarin "So tell me, Yuri," he asked, "did you see God up there?" After a moment's pause. Gagarin answered, "Yes sir, I did." Khrushchev frowned. "Don't tell any one," he said. A few minutes later the head of the Russian Orthodox Church took Gagarin aside. "So tell me, my child," he asked Gagarin, "did you see God up there?'" Gagarin hesitated and replied "No sir, I did not." "Don't tell anyone.""

"The people of the United States share with the people of the Soviet Union their satisfaction for the safe flight of the astronaut in man's first venture into space. We congratulate you and the Soviet scientists and engineers who made this feat possible. It is my sincere desire that in the continuing quest for knowledge of outer space our nations can work together to obtain the greatest benefit to mankind."

"I see no God up here."

"I looked and looked but I didn't see God."

"Let's go! (Russian: Поéхали, Poyekhali!)"