The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.
LEON TROTSKYIs it possible to fulfill this task, is it possible to achieve the definite victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
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Revolutionary realism tries to draw the maximum advantage from every situation – that is what makes it revolutionary – but at the same time it does not permit us to set ourselves fantastic aims – that is what makes it realistic.
LEON TROTSKY -
The party that leans upon the workers but serves the bourgeoisie, in the period of the greatest sharpening of the class struggle, cannot but sense the smells wafted from the waiting grave.
LEON TROTSKY -
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY -
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
LEON TROTSKY -
When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.
LEON TROTSKY -
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
LEON TROTSKY -
England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.
LEON TROTSKY -
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY -
In 1917 there was not a single Bolshevik who considered possible the realization of a socialist society in a single country, and least of all in Russia.
LEON TROTSKY -
You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you.
LEON TROTSKY -
Only in the Fall of 1924 did [Joseph] Stalin discover that it is especially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, which can by its own forces build up a socialist society.
LEON TROTSKY -
Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.
LEON TROTSKY -
The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.
LEON TROTSKY -
Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.
LEON TROTSKY -
Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.
LEON TROTSKY -
Our party’s most outstanding mediocrity.
LEON TROTSKY -
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
LEON TROTSKY -
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY -
The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
LEON TROTSKY -
The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls ‘inspiration.’
LEON TROTSKY -
As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the “sacredness of human life” remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.
LEON TROTSKY -
Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!
LEON TROTSKY