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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

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.
LEON TROTSKY

Fight Government Individual Justice Practice
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
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
LEON TROTSKY

Absolute Circumstance Peace Rule War
The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.
LEON TROTSKY

History Powerful Revenge Secretary
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY

Communism Democracy Need Oxygen
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
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
LEON TROTSKY

Cruelty Serious Struggle Time Worst
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKY

Communist Form Maintain Violence
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

Country Discover Force Socialist Society
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Distance Organization Point Violence
Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.
LEON TROTSKY

Character Difference Ourselves
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
City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.
LEON TROTSKY

Age Expression Fantasy Modern Ourselves Success Triumph
It is quite clear that the German and Chinese revolutions in case of victory would have changed the face of Europe and Asia, and perhaps of the whole world.
LEON TROTSKY

Clear Oneself Quite Revolution World
The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Fear State Strong Terrify
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
LEON TROTSKY

Master Technique
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
Dialectical thought is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion.
LEON TROTSKY

Law Motion Photograph Relate Thinking
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY

Crisis Exhale Human Inhale Live
The motive force of history is truth and not lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Force History Man Motive
Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.
LEON TROTSKY

Better Ignorance Problem Revolution Talk
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY

Feeling Success Time
Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.
LEON TROTSKY

Fascism Religion
Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Correct Objective Victory
He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
LEON TROTSKY

Execution Victim
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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