Vladimir Zhirinovsky



Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky (Russian: Владимир Вольфович Жириновский), né Eidelstein (Russian: Эйдельштейн) (25 April 1946 – 6 April 2022) was a Russian ultranationalist politician and the leader of the populist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) since its creation in 1992 until his death. He was a member of the State Duma since 1993 and leader of the LDPR group in the State Duma from 1993 to 2000, and from 2011 to 2022.

Quotes

 * Are you getting bored doing interviews? That's work. It's the most responsible, representative and solemn work there is — like sport. Anyone who does not aim for the Olympic Games or championships should not be in the sports industry.
 * "Zhirinovsky: 'Europe, you shall tremble!'" in DW News (11 March 2018)


 * Ukraine is falling apart anyway. Poland should take the western part, Hungary should take the Carpathian Mountains, Romania should take Bukovina and Bessarabia. We'll take the whole of Novorossiya. Ukraine has no future.
 * "Zhirinovsky: 'Europe, you shall tremble!'" in DW News (11 March 2018)


 * It's better if the West sees us as the enemy and imposes restrictions on us everywhere. Sanctions, sanctions and more sanctions. Then we'll rise up and develop more quickly.
 * "Zhirinovsky: 'Europe, you shall tremble!'" in DW News (11 March 2018)


 * The policy of my party is to make Russia stronger and to restore to it some of its original territories. The West wants Russia to remain as it is now, that is why they have launched these canards. They want to cut my political base by confusing my supporters. The fact is, more than what I can do in Russia, they are worried by the influence I could have in their internal politics. But I want them to realise that if they persist in their policy of weakening Russia, and continue to support the drunken traitors who run our government, everything will end in agony and anarchy. It won't be good for Russia. It could be much worse for the West.
 * "Next, we'll build a railway line connecting Moscow to New Delhi: Vladimir Zhirinovsky" in India Today (15 March 1995)


 * Unlike the left, we do not trot out any far-fetched or unachievable promises. Our program is straightforward and clear – there should not be any homeless, unemployed or hungry. This is the minimal goal, while the maximum goal is to make a major leap forward.
 * "TASS exclusive: Zhirinovsky's first interview as presidential candidate" (29 December 2017)


 * It is necessary to ensure the accelerated development of roads. We have a vast territory and the possibility to move people and goods quickly across it is a guarantee for the economy’s success. Trains should move at a speed of 400km/h similar to what has long been in place in China and Japan.
 * "TASS exclusive: Zhirinovsky's first interview as presidential candidate" (29 December 2017)


 * We have just another chance to see that the system of government in the United States is not presidential, the country is actually a warped parliamentary republic, since Congress makes all the decisions. If so, there is a need to amend the Constitution so the Congress can elect a president. It would be cheaper and faster.
 * "Firebrand Russian MP slams Trump as 'not fit' to be US president" in TASS (8 November 2017)


 * The West will have to choose: either to come to terms with Russians, or to receive a retaliatory blow. This retaliatory blow will not be by means of war. We will resort to the same weapon: nationalism.
 * "A Few Minutes with Vladimir Zhirinovsky" in Christian Science Monitor (24 December 1993)


 * All men lie to you. When they tell you that they love you, it’s a lie… All men hate you, ladies, they hate you. Because you prevent men from thriving… This is why all the crimes committed in the world are women’s fault.
 * "The Best of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Clown Prince of Russian Politics" in VICE


 * I grew up in a world where there was no warmth - not from my parents, not from my friends or teachers. I felt somehow superfluous, forever in the way, an object of criticism.
 * "OBITUARY Vladimir Zhirinovsky, dark showman of the Russian far right" in Reuters


 * My name Vladimir means 'rule the world'. Let us Slavs rule the world in the 20th century.
 * "OBITUARY Vladimir Zhirinovsky, dark showman of the Russian far right" in Reuters


 * All of humanity knows me. My name is in encyclopedias, in registers and databases. Books have been written; films recorded. I’m happy, I’m satisfied.
 * "Aging Rebel: Vladimir Zhirinovsky Is Enjoying Another Moment" in The Moscow Times (2 September 2016)


 * The LDPR doesn’t act against the country, we don’t say: something’s wrong with this country. We say: Our country has problems.
 * "Aging Rebel: Vladimir Zhirinovsky Is Enjoying Another Moment" in The Moscow Times (2 September 2016)


 * Democrats in Russia have three paths open to them: the grave, emigration or prison.
 * "Aging Rebel: Vladimir Zhirinovsky Is Enjoying Another Moment" in The Moscow Times (2 September 2016)


 * There is no ideal system just as there are no ideal persons, ideal families or ideal cities, we have to get away from ideals.
 * "Aging Rebel: Vladimir Zhirinovsky Is Enjoying Another Moment" in The Moscow Times (2 September 2016)


 * At 04:00 on 22 February you'll feel [our new policy]. I'd like 2022 to be peaceful. But I love the truth, for 70 years I've said the truth. It won't be peaceful. It will be a year when Russia once again becomes great.
 * "Putin's ultranationalist ally and clown Zhirinovsky dies at 75" in BBC


 * There is no such thing as Russian fascism. You won't find a single Russian who considers Russians to be a superior race and who advocate expulsion of aliens.
 * "A Few Minutes with Vladimir Zhirinovsky" in Christian Science Monitor (24 December 1993)

Quotes about

 * When Leninism committed suicide, essentially nothing took its place. Except "transition" and "reform." In 1983, one perceptive scholar, surveying the ostensible hollowing of Communist ideology, had predicted that Russian nationalism "could become the ruling ideology of the state." A decade later, warnings about nationalism became highly fashionable. But such prophecies went unfulfilled. To be sure, Boris Yeltsin sought to rally liberal nationalists with his campaign for Russia's rebirth, which, however, turned out to be more collapse. Hardline nationalists drifted toward the re-established, aging Communist Party, whose cynical leader, Gennady Zyuganov, had conveniently been away "on vacation" when the president bombed the parliament in October 1993, and returned to fill the void in the "opposition." A chauvinistic grouping, led by the media clown Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also garnered a limited protest vote, for a time, while a handful of avowedly fascist associations, some affiliated with the reconstituted Communists, engaged in sporadic acts of violence, most of which went unpunished. But the pundits, mesmerized by the rhetoric and confusing the existence of chaos with the possible onset of powerful dictatorship, were wrong: the much-feared red-brown (Communist-fascist) coalition failed to materialize.
 * Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000 (2008), pp. 188-189
 * Vladimir Zhirinovsky, sincerely, in his own way, in special, unique ways, tirelessly fought for the authority of Russia.
 * Dmitry Medvedev, Statement on Death, 2022, as quoted by AP News
 * When the post-Soviet experiment in electoral democracy and market economics turned out disastrously for Russia after 1991, movements like Pamyat (“memory”) revived this rich Slavophile tradition, now updated by open praise for the Nazi experiment. The most successful of a number of antiliberal, anti-Western, anti-Semitic parties in Russia was Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s badly misnamed Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), founded at the end of 1989, with a program of national revival and unification under strong authority combined with wild-eyed proposals for the reconquest of Russia’s lost territories (including Alaska). Zhirinovsky came in third in the Russian presidential election of June 1991, with more than 6 million votes, and his LDP became the largest party in Russia in parliamentary elections of December 1993, with nearly 23 percent of the total vote. Zhirinovsky’s star faded thereafter, partly because of erratic behavior and bizarre statements (plus the revelation that his father was Jewish), bt mainly because President Boris Yeltsin held the reins and ignored parliament. For the moment Russia limped along as a quasi-democracy under Yeltsin and his handpicked successor, the former KGB agent Vladimir Putin. If the Russian president were to lose credibility, however, some extreme Right leader more competent than Zhirinovsky would be a much more plausible otucome than any kind of return to Marxist collectivism.
 * Robert Paxton. The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage; 2007.
 * Founder and longtime leader of one of the country’s oldest political parties, he did a lot for the establishing and development of Russian parliamentarism and domestic legislation, and sincerely strove to contribute to solving the most important national problems. And always, in any audience, in the most heated discussions, he defended the patriotic position, the interests of Russia.
 * Vladimir Putin, Statement on Death, 2022, as quoted by AP News
 * Zhirinovsky is an evil caricature of a Russian patriot. It's as if someone wanted to use this figure to show Russian patriotism to the world as a repulsive monster. Apart from the financial support he received, the reason Zhirinovsky had so much success in the elections is that by that time all the democratic parties, groups and leaders had completely abandoned Russia's national interests. They remained indifferent to the cruel poverty and hopelessness which has afflicted the majority of the population as a result of Yegor Gaidar's technocratic reform--after so many years of communism, yet another heartless experiment performed on the unfortunate people of Russia.
 * Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the New Russia and Ukraine (May 1994), by Paul Klebnikov, in the (9 May 1994), issue of Forbes magazine