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Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

Leon Trotsky

In 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.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Detail History Hope Ideas Impossible Myself Revolution Willing
Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Compare Finding Lying Truth
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Distance Organization Point Violence
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
LEON TROTSKY

Patriotic People Reality
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY

Life Old Oneself Realize Surprise
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
The usages and methods of warfare are thus determined by changing circumstances and, therefore, they themselves can in nowise be eternal.
LEON TROTSKY

Determination Forever Method Usage
If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.
LEON TROTSKY

Convince Head Yourself
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
LEON TROTSKY

Cruelty Serious Struggle Time Worst
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
LEON TROTSKY

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

End Justification Need
Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.
LEON TROTSKY

Character Difference Ourselves
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY

Discussion Greatness Mistake Time
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

Colonial Imperialism Struggle Support War
If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one’s life, without seeing oneself in the “mirror” of literature?
LEON TROTSKY

Literature Mirror Shave
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

Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

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Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.

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