I knew right from the start that those who carried me on their shoulders will hurl stones at me one day. How was I to tell the workers 'now you will all be jobless'? But we had no choice.

I made the right decisions, I set everything on the right course, the reforms are going in the right direction.

He who puts out his hand to stop the wheel of history will have his fingers crushed.

Dictators and oppressors should continue to fear me because I will be here for a long time.

As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs, to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world.

What until then seemed impossible to achieve has become a fact of life. We have won the right to association in trade unions independent from the authorities, founded and shaped by the working people themselves.