Leon Trotsky Quotes - Page 5

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• In the appendix to my History of the Russian Revolution I give a detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshevik party on the October revolution. This study, I hope, will make it impossible in the future to ascribe to [Vladimir] Lenin the theory of Socialism in a single country.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Party, Ideas

  Source: www.marxists.org

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Russia, Organization

  Source: www.marxists.org

  4 Copy quote

• Similar (of course, far from identical) irritations in similar conditions call out similar reflexes; the more powerful the irritation, the sooner it overcomes personal peculiarities. To a tickle, people react differently, but to a red-hot iron, alike. As a steam-hammer converts a sphere and a cube alike into sheet metal, so under the blow of too great and inexorable events resistances are smashed and the boundaries of "individuality" lost.

  Leon Trotsky

  Powerful, Blow, Iron

  Leon Trotsky, Max Eastman (2008). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.70, Haymarket Books

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  War, Party, Character

  Leon Trotsky (2017). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.596, Penguin UK

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Chinese Revolution, Europe, Victory

  Source: www.marxists.org

  5 Copy quote

• City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.

  Leon Trotsky

  New York, Philosophy, Expression

  6 Copy quote

• The usages and methods of warfare are thus determined by changing circumstances and, therefore, they themselves can in nowise be eternal.

  Leon Trotsky

  Warfare, Determined, Usage

  Leon Trotsky (1969). “Marxism & military affairs, 1921-1924”

  4 Copy quote

• A program of "disarmament," while imperialist antagonisms survive, is the most pernicious of fictions. Even if it were realized by way of general agreement - an obviously fantastic assumption!- that would by no means prevent a new war. The imperialists do not make war because there are armaments; on the contrary, they forge arms when they need to fight.

  Leon Trotsky

  War, Mean, Fighting

  Leon Trotsky (1937). “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going?”, p.171, Mehring Books

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

  Leon Trotsky

  Squares, Red, Consciousness

  Leon Trotsky (2012). “My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography”, p.514, Courier Corporation

  6 Copy quote

• [Joseph] Stalin closes the exposition of these [Leon Trotsky] ideas with the words, "Such are in general the characteristic features of [Vladimir] Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution."

  Leon Trotsky

  Ideas, Revolution, Characteristics

  Source: www.marxists.org

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Class, Division Of Labor, Leader

  Leon Trotsky (2017). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.306, Penguin UK

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Fall, Mean, Culture

  Leon Trotsky (1937). “The revolution betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it going?”, Doubleday, Doran

  7 Copy quote

• Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.

  Leon Trotsky

  Revolution, Problem, Revolutionary

  Source: www.marxists.org

  4 Copy quote

• Our party's most outstanding mediocrity.

  Leon Trotsky

  Party, Mediocrity, Outstanding

  6 Copy quote

• [Vladimir] Lenin died in January, 1924; three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.

  Leon Trotsky

  Writing, Three, Months

  Source: www.marxists.org

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• What shall we call an "immediate possibility"? In 1923 the situation in Germany was profoundly revolutionary, but what was lacking for a victorious revolution was a correct strategy.

  Leon Trotsky

  Germany, Revolution, Strategy

  Source: www.marxists.org

  4 Copy quote

• In 1925 - 27 the revolution in China was destroyed by the false revolutionary strategy of the Stalinist faction. To this last question I consecrate my book, Problems of the Chinese Revolution (issued by the Pioneer Publishers, New York 1932).

  Leon Trotsky

  New York, Book, Chinese Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature?

  Leon Trotsky

  Mirrors, Shaving, Literature

  Leon Trotsky (1925). “Literature and Revolution”, p.120, Haymarket Books

  5 Copy quote

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