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Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

Leon Trotsky

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.
LEON TROTSKY

Country Possible Realization Social
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
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

Eyes Reach Socialism State
Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.
LEON TROTSKY

Carry Dangerous Enemy Learning
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

Man Place Victory Woman Work
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
LEON TROTSKY

Discussion Greatness Mistake Time
The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls ‘inspiration.’
LEON TROTSKY

Call Creativity Inspirational Union
All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.
LEON TROTSKY

Capital Catastrophe Moral Party Revolution Social Society Survive
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
The main task of Socialism – the organization of Socialist production – remains still in the future.
LEON TROTSKY

Future Organization Socialism Task
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 also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.
LEON TROTSKY

Development Fake National Revolution
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY

Conscious Protect Revolution
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
LEON TROTSKY

Absolute Circumstance Peace Rule War
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

Age Expression Fantasy Modern Ourselves Success Triumph
He who slanders the victim aids the executioner.
LEON TROTSKY

Execution Victim
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
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY

Feeling Success Time
The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
LEON TROTSKY

State Statute Stupidity Vulgar
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
Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.
LEON TROTSKY

Each Other Harmony Social
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
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY

Communism Democracy Need Oxygen
Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
LEON TROTSKY

Master Technique
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKY

Complete Decision Force Necessary
Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.
LEON TROTSKY

Condition Correct Objective Victory
Root out the counter revolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps… Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.
LEON TROTSKY

Camp Character Revolution Service

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

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Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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