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Leon Trotsky

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Famous Leon Trotsky Quotes

“Elements of experience, criticism, initiative, self-sacrifice, seeped down through the mass and created, invisibly to a superficial glance but no less decisively, an inner mechanic of the revolutionary movement as a conscious process”

ProcessHistoryRevolutionOrganizationSociologyProletariatClass StruggleRussian Revolution
Book:The History of the Russian Revolution By Leon Trotsky - Volume Two
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“We seek to uncover behind the events changes in the collective consciousness. We reject wholesale references to the “spontaneity” of the movement, references which in most cases explain nothing and teach nobody. Revolutions take place according to certain laws. This does not mean that the masses in action are aware of the laws of revolution, but it does mean that the changes in mass consciousness are not accidental, but are subject to an objective necessity which is capable of theoretic explanation, and thus makes both prophecy and leadership possible.”

RevolutionProphecySpontaneityCollective ConsciousnessMass ConsciousnessLaws Of Revolution
Book:History of the Russian Revolution
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“For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are sufficient - for this we have the testimony of the history of our revolution. For the definitive victory of Socialism, for the organization of Socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient - for that are required the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries.”

CountryEffortRevolutionVictoryOrganizationProductionsRussiaSocialismSufficientSocialistTestimonyPeasantsInsufficientBourgeoisie
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“Can and must! The proclamation of this new conception of [Joseph Stalin] is closed by the same words, "Such are in general the characteristic features of Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution." In the course of a single year Stalin ascribed to [Vladimir] Lenin two directly opposed conceptions of the fundamental question of socialism. The first version represents the real tradition of the party; the second took shape in Stalin's mind only after the death of Lenin, in the course of the struggle against "Trotskyism".”

YearsMindFirstsTwoRealCoursesPartyStruggleRevolutionShapesTraditionFundamentalsSocialismVersionsFeaturesCharacteristicsConceptionProclamation
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923 gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory of national socialism: the downward curve of the revolution gave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanent revolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. This theory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionary events; it only reveals the world-wide interdependence of the revolutionary process.”

WorldFirstsProcessEventsCreationTheoryRevolutionBoundsDefeatWideSocialismPermanentRevolutionaryGermanyDefiniteCurvesCalendarsInterdependenceProletariatStalinism
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“No one revolution up to now has brought all that was expected of it by the masses. Hence the inevitability of a certain disillusionment, of a lowering of the activity of the vanguard, and consequently, of the growing importance of the rearguard. [Joseph] Stalin's faction has raised itself on the wave of reaction against the October revolution.”

CertainGrowingRevolutionActivityMassImportanceRaisedWaveExpectedReactionsOctoberDisillusionmentInevitabilityFactionsVanguardOctober Revolution
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting - the war and the revolution - and the character of the accused - revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power - you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history.”

IfsWorldWarCharacterPartyLeaderMillionsRevolutionMonthsSettingSettingsRevolutionaryConsiderationSovereignAccusedWorld HistoryRebelliousJulyExaggerationSlanderConductingNiagaraRevolutionary Leaders
Book:History of the Russian Revolution
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“Transcending class distinctions, the speaker [Stalin] portrays the relation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a mere division of labor. The workers and soldiers achieve the revolution, Guchkov and Miliukov "fortify" it.[...] This superintendent's approach to the historical process is exactly characteristic of the leaders of Menshevism, this handing out of instructions to various classes and then patronizingly criticizing their fulfillment.”

ProcessLeaderClassAchieveRevolutionApproachLaborRelationHistoricalMereWorkersSoldierVariousFulfillmentCharacteristicsDistinctionCriticizeDivisionInstructionSpeakersProletariatBourgeoisieTranscendingDivision Of LaborClass DistinctionSuperintendents
Book:History of the Russian Revolution
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“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”

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Book:Literature and Revolution
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