There is no justice in bureaucracy for the individual, for bureaucracy caters only to itself. One cannot practice the same bureaucracy as one is fighting against.
The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces – in nature, in society, in man himself.
In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a dictator substitutes himself for the central committee.
The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
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.
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.
The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.
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 Quote - Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/our-differences-with-joseph-stalin-are-entirely-of-683x1024.jpg)
![Leon Trotsky Quote - Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/where-the-sole-employer-is-the-state-opposition-me-683x1024.jpg)
![Leon Trotsky Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/the-fall-of-the-present-bureaucratic-dictatorship--683x1024.jpg)
