black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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.
LEON TROTSKY

Development Law Position Revolution
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
There 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 TROTSKY

Fight Government Individual Justice Practice
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
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
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

Agreement Blow Bold Decisive Force Necessary
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
The motive force of history is truth and not lies.
LEON TROTSKY

Force History Man Motive
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
In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
LEON TROTSKY

Cruelty Serious Struggle Time Worst
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
Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.
LEON TROTSKY

Ourselves Planet Pollution
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
LEON TROTSKY

Patriotic People Reality
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
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
LEON TROTSKY

Communism Democracy Need Oxygen
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Leon Trotsky Quotes