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Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky Quotes

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Famous Leon Trotsky Quotes

“[Letter to his wife, Natalia Sedova] In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness. For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth. Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”

LoveLifeHappinessDeathSufferingHopeBeautyWifeViolenceAtheismYouthTrue LoveAtheistOppressionCommunismEnjoymentMaterialismSovietTendernessMarxismMagnanimityRed ArmyDialectical MaterialismMaterialistProletarianRevolutionistIrreconcilable AtheismIrreconcilable Atheist
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“The basis of bureaucratic rule is the poverty of society in objects of consumption, with the resulting struggle of each against all. When there is enough goods in a store, the purchasers can come whenever they want to. When there is little goods, the purchasers are compelled to stand in line. When the lines are very long, it is necessary to appoint a policeman to keep order. Such is the starting point of the power of the Soviet bureaucracy. It "knows" who is to get something and who has to wait.”

KnowsWantLittlesLongEnoughOrderWaitingLinesPovertyStruggleObjectsBasesStartingStoresGoodsSovietConsumptionBureaucracyCompelledPolicemenStarting PointPurchasers
Book:The Revolution Betrayed
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“As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the "sacredness of human life." We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.”

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Author:Leon Trotsky
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“In Russia itself the proletariat conquered in spite of the fact that there was no Soviet State in existence at the time elsewhere. For the victory are necessary, not only certain objective conditions, internal as well as external, but also certain subjective factors - the Party, the leadership, the strategy.”

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Author:Leon Trotsky
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“The initiative of the Five Year Plan and of the accelerated collectivization belongs entirely to the Left Opposition, in uninterrupted and sharp struggles with the Stalinists. Not having the possibility of occupying myself here with long historical researches, I will limit myself to a single illustration. The Dnieprostroy is considered with right as the highest achievement of Soviet industrialization. Yet [Joseph] Stalin and his followers ([Clim] Voroshilov and others) a few months before the beginning of the work were decided opponents of the Dnieprostroy plan.”

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Author:Leon Trotsky
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“The clearer and deeper the public opinion of the world, in the first instance the opinion of the working masses, will understand the contradictions and the difficulties of the socialist development of an isolated country, the higher will it appreciate the results achieved. The less it identifies the fundamental methods of Socialism with the zigzags and errors of the Soviet bureaucracy, the less will be the danger that, by the inevitable revelation of these errors and of their consequences, the authority, not only of the present ruling group, but of the workers' State itself, may decline.”

WorldFirstsMayCountryStatesResultsOpinionGroupsDangerDevelopmentHigherAuthorityMassConsequenceAppreciateDifficultyMethodFundamentalsErrorsWorkersDeeperSocialismInstanceInevitableRevelationsContradictionSovietIsolatedDeclineSocialistBureaucracyRulingPublic Opinion
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“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.”

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Book:The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going?
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