Real Liberty

But we did not build this society in order to restrict personal liberty but in order that the human individual may feel really free. We built it for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks. It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. 

Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.

Interview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard

Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

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More on the USSR

Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad Barmaley Fountain

The Barmaley (Russian: Бармалей) is an informal name of a fountain in the city of Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad). Its official name is Children’s Khorovod (Round Dance). The statue is of a circle of six children dancing the khorovod around a crocodile. While the original fountain was removed in the 1950s, two replicas were installed in 2013.

Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

Sean Gervasi, 1992 lecture: The US Strategy to Dismantle the USSR

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Sean Gervasi, 1992 lecture: The US Strategy to Dismantle the USSR

Related RAND Corporation documents:

Economic factors affecting Soviet foreign and defense policy: a summary outline

The Costs of the Soviet Empire

Sitting on bayonets : the Soviet defense burden and the slowdown of Soviet defense spending

Moscow’s Economic Dilemma: The Burden of Soviet Defense

Exploiting ‘fault lines’ in the Soviet empire: an overview