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.
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.
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.
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.
Only 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.
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 Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/the-fall-of-the-present-bureaucratic-dictatorship--683x1024.jpg)
![Leon Trotsky Quote - Only 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/only-in-the-fall-of-1924-did-joseph-stalin-discove-1-683x1024.jpg)
