Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union
By the end of perestroika Rasputin became publicly active. He criticized Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms from patriotic and nationalistic positions. His repetition (at the 1st Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union) of Stolypin's statement "You need great upheavals. We need a great country" («Вам нужны великие потрясения. Нам нужна великая страна») made it a phrase commonly used by the antiliberal opposition.