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 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.
More Leon Trotsky Quotes
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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.
LEON TROTSKY -
Nowhere else did repressions, purges, suppressions, and all other kinds of bureaucratic hooliganism in general acquire such horrifying scope as in Ukraine, in the struggle against powerful forces concealed in the Ukrainian masses that desired more freedom and independence.
LEON TROTSKY -
Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain – at least in a poor country like Russia – and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.
LEON TROTSKY -
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
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 -
When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.
LEON TROTSKY -
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
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 -
Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.
LEON TROTSKY -
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 -
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 -
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
LEON TROTSKY -
Capitalism does live by crises and booms, just as a human being lives by inhaling and exhaling.
LEON TROTSKY