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Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!

Leon Trotsky

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

Character Difference Ourselves
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKY

Complete Decision Force Necessary
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
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

Easy Frustration Greatness Life Misery Personal Raise Weakness
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 TROTSKY

Committee Himself Organization Party Politics
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
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY

Crisis Exhale Human Inhale Live
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
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
The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.
LEON TROTSKY

History Powerful Revenge Secretary
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
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Philosophy
The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.
LEON TROTSKY

Contradiction Permanent Recognition Revolution Theory

Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!

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Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!

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