The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKYThe dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKYIf we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers’ State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.
LEON TROTSKYThe history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.
LEON TROTSKYReligions are illogical primitive ignorance. There is nothing as ridiculous and tragic as a religious government.
LEON TROTSKYRevolutionary 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 TROTSKYOnly in the Fall of 1924 did [Joseph] Stalin discover that it is especially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, which can by its own forces build up a socialist society.
LEON TROTSKYIf we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKYI emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.
LEON TROTSKYThe people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].
LEON TROTSKYThe 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 TROTSKYThe 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 TROTSKYAs 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 TROTSKYThe main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
LEON TROTSKYThere 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 TROTSKYAbusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.
LEON TROTSKYThe 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