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 TROTSKYIn 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.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
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If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
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He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
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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.
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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.
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The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].
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Revolutions are always verbose.
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Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.
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Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.
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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 -
The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.
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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.
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Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
LEON TROTSKY -
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
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Root out the counter revolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps… Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.
LEON TROTSKY -
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY -
You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on – into the dustbin of history!
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Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.
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Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
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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 -
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 -
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
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.
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There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
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Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
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The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
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A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
LEON TROTSKY