Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKYHe who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
-
-
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 -
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY -
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
LEON TROTSKY -
If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers’ State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.
LEON TROTSKY -
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY -
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.
LEON TROTSKY -
In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.
LEON TROTSKY -
The main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
LEON TROTSKY -
Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.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 -
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY -
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.
LEON TROTSKY -
The 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 TROTSKY -
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY -
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
LEON TROTSKY -
Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
LEON TROTSKY -
City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.
LEON TROTSKY -
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY -
Everyone has a right to be stupid, but Comrade MacDonald abuses the privilege.
LEON TROTSKY -
The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.
LEON TROTSKY -
Revolutions are always verbose.
LEON TROTSKY -
The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.
LEON TROTSKY -
The dictatorship of the Communist Party is maintained by recourse to every form of violence.
LEON TROTSKY -
When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.
LEON TROTSKY