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Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

Leon Trotsky

Religions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government.
LEON TROTSKY

Government Ignorance Religion Tragedy
In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Existence Record Revolution
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Effect Finding Man Production Vehicle
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
LEON TROTSKY

Believe Force Gravity
Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
LEON TROTSKY

Death Employee Starve
The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A ‘neutral’ position is tantamount to support of imperialism.
LEON TROTSKY

Colonial Imperialism Struggle Support War
With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in “giving a hiding” to the classes that were previously supreme, before forcing them to recognize the new order and to submit to it.
LEON TROTSKY

Respect
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKY

Communist Form Maintain Violence
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Philosophy
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Distance Organization Point Violence
All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.
LEON TROTSKY

Capital Catastrophe Moral Party Revolution Social Society Survive
To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and to establish the power of the proletariat in one country still does not signify the full victory of Socialism.
LEON TROTSKY

Establishment Power Socialism Victory
As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!
LEON TROTSKY

Beautiful Breathe Fight Future Happiness Hope Horizon
In the appendix to my History of the Russian Revolution I give a detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshevik party on the October revolution. This study, I hope, will make it impossible in the future to ascribe to [Vladimir] Lenin the theory of Socialism in a single country.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Detail History Hope Ideas Impossible Myself Revolution Willing
Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.
LEON TROTSKY

Change Endurance Relative World
The Soviet Union needs thinking and critical friends, such as are capable not only of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of not shrinking in the hour of defeat and danger.
LEON TROTSKY

Capable Criticism Dangerous Defeat Thinking

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

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Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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