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 TROTSKYThere is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
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The main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
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Revolutions are always verbose.
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Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 -
If you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.
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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.
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I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.
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Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
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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.
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Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
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Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
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Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
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Is it possible to fulfill this task, is it possible to achieve the definite victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible.
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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.
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Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
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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.
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There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
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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 -
Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.
LEON TROTSKY