"There are Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia but that does not mean they are there to solve the country's internal problems." 23.11.89

Soviet Defence Minister Dmitri Yazov

"Gorbachev had deceived us and only a radical change will save him from the abyss."

"The economic and political crisis has come to a head; the people's patience is coming to an end and an explosion could occur at any time." (1990)

"Russia is a single, indivisible state." pre November, 1991.

To Jacques Delors: "The Russian people still support me - but their patience has its limit." 30/5/92.

On Communism, in off-the-cuff address to US Congress, June 1992: "It has collapsed never to rise again, we are here to assure you it will never rise in our land again!"

"Without a doubt, what he has achieved will go down in history. I don't like grandiose words, but what Gorbachev started deserves them. He could just have continued exactly like Brezhnev and Chernenko. The country's natural resources and the patience of its people would probably have lasted for his term in office, so that he could have lived a happy, fulfilling life at the head of a totalitarian state. He could have covered himself in awards, and the people would have written him songs and poems. Despite this he chose a completely different path and began to climb a mountain whose summit we cannot yet see. No-one knows how the excitement will end, whether an avalanche will take us all, or whether this giant's mountain will yet be conquered."