black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

Leon Trotsky

Look back at history – those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.
LEON TROTSKY

Guide History Leadership Position Time
He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
LEON TROTSKY

Execution Victim
Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
LEON TROTSKY

Death Employee Starve
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.
LEON TROTSKY

Destiny Entrance Force History Revolution Rule
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

Chain Human Lying Power Purchase Sale Shame
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY

Feeling Success Time
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Need
I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.
LEON TROTSKY

Revolution Significance Strategy
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.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Custom Depth Moral Reserve Strength
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY

Communism Democracy Need Oxygen
The main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
LEON TROTSKY

Future Organization Socialism Task
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY

Conscious Protect Revolution
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

Agreement Blow Bold Decisive Force Necessary
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
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY

Discussion Greatness Mistake Time
Nowhere else did repressions, purges, suppressions, and all other kinds of bureaucratic hooliganism in general acquire such horrifying scope as in Ukraine, in the struggle against powerful forces concealed in the Ukrainian masses that desired more freedom and independence.
LEON TROTSKY

Desire Force Freedom Government Independence Powerful Repression Struggle

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Leon Trotsky Quotes