Latest Leon Trotsky Quotes from Interviews

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• If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.

  Leon Trotsky

  Eye, Dark, Sides

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Errors, Appreciate

  Source: www.marxists.org

• The Soviet Union needs thinking and critical friends, such as are capable not only of singing hymns in the hours of success, but of not shrinking in the hour of defeat and danger.

  Leon Trotsky

  Thinking, Hymns, Singing

  Source: www.marxists.org

• In France, the leader of Jacobinism perished on the guillotine; with us, the change of leadership was achieved by means of arrest and banishment. The technique of the process is gentler, but its essence is the same.

  Leon Trotsky

  Mean, Essence, Leader

  Source: www.marxists.org

• The Soviet State does not need either illusions or camouflage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmed by the facts.

  Leon Trotsky

  Doe, Needs, World

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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

  Long, Looks, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Yet the proletariat has not only a vanguard, but also a rearguard, and besides the proletariat there are the peasantry and the bureaucracy.

  Leon Trotsky

  Vanguard, Proletariat, Bureaucracy

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  October Revolution, Growing, Wave

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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

  Law, Class, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.

  Leon Trotsky

  Revolutionary, Strategy, Significance

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.

  Leon Trotsky

  Giving, Victory, Impossible

  Source: www.marxists.org

• The Left Opposition declared that the new tempo of industrialization were above our forces, and that the liquidation of the kulaks as a class in the course of three years was a fantastic task, if one wishes to say so, we find ourselves this time "less radical" than the Stalinists.

  Leon Trotsky

  Class, Years, Wish

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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

  Trying, Doe, Revolutionary

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Simultaneously the Left Opposition in the course of several years carried on a struggle against the Stalinists in favor of collectivization.

  Leon Trotsky

  Struggle, Years, Favors

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Only when the kulak refused to deliver grain to the State did [Joseph] Stalin, under the pressure of the Left Opposition, accomplish a sharp turn. Being the empiricist that he is, he moved, to the opposite extreme, and set as a task for two or three years the collectivization of all the peasantry, the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, and the compression of the Five Year Plan into four years.

  Leon Trotsky

  Years, Opposites, Class

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Curves, Firsts, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Struggle, Years, Illustration

  Source: www.marxists.org

• The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Party, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• National self-sufficiency or "autarchy" is the ideal of [Adolf] Hitler, not of [Karl] Marx and [Vladimir] Lenin.

  Leon Trotsky

  Self, Self Sufficiency, Sufficiency

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Socialist economy cannot reject the huge advantages of the world division of labor: on the contrary, it will carry it to the highest development. But in practise, it is not a question of the future socialist society, with an established internal equilibrium, but of the given technically and culturally backward country which in the interests of industrialisation and collectivization is forced to export as much as possible in order to import as much as possible.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Socialist Economy, Division Of Labor

  Source: www.marxists.org

• It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Victory, Unions

  Source: www.marxists.org

• It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

  Leon Trotsky

  Development, Soil, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character.

  Leon Trotsky

  Character, Differences

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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

  Country, Past, Years

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Party, Russia, Victory

  Source: www.marxists.org