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It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

Leon Trotsky

In France, the leader of Jacobinism perished on the guillotine; with us, the change of leadership was achieved by means of arrest and banishment. The technique of the process is gentler, but its essence is the same.
LEON TROTSKY

Banishment Essence Leadership Name
The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture.
LEON TROTSKY

Decline Dictatorship Fall Industry Present Replacement
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
Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
LEON TROTSKY

Death Employee Starve
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
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
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
LEON TROTSKY

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

Master Technique
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
Tell me anyway–Maybe I can find the truth by comparing the lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Compare Finding Lying Truth
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
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY

Life Old Oneself Realize Surprise
I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.
LEON TROTSKY

Revolution Significance Strategy
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
Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
LEON TROTSKY

Capital Fascism One Liner Reaction
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
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
LEON TROTSKY

Patriotic People Reality
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKY

Complete Decision Force Necessary
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

Capable Criticism Dangerous Defeat Thinking
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
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY

Crisis Exhale Human Inhale Live
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
In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Employer Obedience Principle State
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 you cannot convince a Fascist, acquaint his head with the pavement.
LEON TROTSKY

Convince Head Yourself

It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

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It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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