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The motive force of history is truth and not lies.

Leon Trotsky

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Need
Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely.
LEON TROTSKY

Complete Decision Force Necessary
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

Advantage Draw Ourselves Revolution Time Try
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
I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
LEON TROTSKY

Feeling Success Time
The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
LEON TROTSKY

End Justification Philosophy
Look back at history – those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.
LEON TROTSKY

Guide History Leadership Position Time
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

Country Effect Finding Man Production Vehicle
One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old.
LEON TROTSKY

Life Old Oneself Realize Surprise
Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
LEON TROTSKY

Art Law
Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
LEON TROTSKY

Death Employee Starve
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
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
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
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
Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.
LEON TROTSKY

Accomplishment Act Explanation Forget Man Name Revolution

The motive force of history is truth and not lies.

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The motive force of history is truth and not lies.

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