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.
LEON TROTSKYEveryone has a right to be stupid, but Comrade MacDonald abuses the privilege.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
-
-
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.
LEON TROTSKY -
If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers’ State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.
LEON TROTSKY -
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.
LEON TROTSKY -
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY -
The main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
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 -
The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.
LEON TROTSKY -
Revolutionary realism tries to draw the maximum advantage from every situation – that is what makes it revolutionary – but at the same time it does not permit us to set ourselves fantastic aims – that is what makes it realistic.
LEON TROTSKY -
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKY -
He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
LEON TROTSKY -
The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].
LEON TROTSKY -
In 1917 there was not a single Bolshevik who considered possible the realization of a socialist society in a single country, and least of all in Russia.
LEON TROTSKY -
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.
LEON TROTSKY -
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.
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 -
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.
LEON TROTSKY -
Everything is relative in this world, where change alone endures.
LEON TROTSKY -
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
Life is not an easy matter… You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
LEON TROTSKY