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Human Knowledge Is Not (or Does Not Follow) A Straight Line, But A Curve, Which Endlessly Approximates A Series Of Circles, A Spiral. Any Fragment, Segment, Section Of This Curve Can Be Transformed (transformed One-sidedly) Into An Independent, Complete, Straight Line, Which Then (if One Does Not See The Wood For The Trees) Leads Into The Quagmire, Into Clerical Obscurantism (where It Is Anchored By The Class Interests Of The Ruling Classes).

-Vladimir Lenin

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Human Knowledge Is Not

Vladimir Lenin

...

Human Knowledge Is Not (or Does Not Follow) A Straight Line, But A Curve, Which Endlessly Approximates A Series Of Circles, A Spiral. Any Fragment, Segment, Section Of This Curve Can Be Transformed (transformed One-sidedly) Into An Independent, Complete, Straight Line, Which Then (if One Does Not See The Wood For The Trees) Leads Into The Quagmire, Into Clerical Obscurantism (where It Is Anchored By The Class Interests Of The Ruling Classes).

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Any Army Which Does Not Train To Use All The Weapons, All The Means And Methods Of Warfare That The Enemy Possesses, Or May Possess, Is Behaving In An Unwise Or Even Criminal Manner. This Applies To Politics Even More Than It Does To The Art Of War.

We Must Follow The Rule: Better Fewer, But Better. We Must Follow The Rule: Better Get Good Human Material In Two Or Even Three Years Than Work In Haste Without Hope Of Getting Any At All.

The Whole Struggle Of Our Party (and Of The Working Class Movement In Europe Generally) Must Be Directed Against Opportunism. The Latter Is Not A Current Of Opinion, Not A Tendency; It (opportunism) Has Now Become The Organised Tool Of The Bourgeoisie Within The Working Class Movement.

Without A Revolutionary Theory There Cannot Be A Revolutionary Movement.

If It Were Necessary To Give The Briefest Possible Definition Of Imperialism, We Should Have To Say That Imperialism Is The Monopoly Stage Of Capitalism.

Be As Radical As Reality.

Socialists Cannot Achieve Their Great Aim Without Fighting Against All Oppression Of Nations.

Comrade Stalin, Having Become Secretary-general, Has Unlimited Authority Concentrated In His Hands, And I Am Not Sure Whether He Will Always Be Capable Of Using That Authority With Sufficient Caution.

Give Me Your Four Year Olds, And In A Generation I Will Build A Socialist State.

The Goal Of Socialism Is Communism.

Political Institutions Are A Superstructure Resting On An Economic Foundation.

The Most Important Thing In Illness Is Never To Lose Heart.

Fascism Is Capitalism In Decay.

You Cannot Make A Revolution In White Gloves.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

Act With The Greatest Determination And On The Offensive. The Defensive Is The Death Of Every Armed Rising.

We Need The Real, Nation-wide Terror Which Reinvigorates The Country And Through Which The Great French Revolution Achieved Glory.

If Democracy, In Essence, Means The Abolition Of Class Domination, Then Why Should Not A Socialist Minister Charm The Whole Bourgeois World By Orations On Class Collaboration?

False Rhetoric And False Boastfulness Spell Moral Ruin And Lead Unfailingly To Political Extinction.

Peace, Land, And Bread! All Power To The Soviet!

If Socialism Can Only Be Realized When The Intellectual Development Of All The People Permits It, Then We Shall Not See Socialism For At Least Five Hundred Years.

The Government Is Tottering. We Must Deal It The Death Blow An Any Cost. To Delay Action Is The Same As Death.

A Party Is The Vanguard Of A Class, And Its Duty Is To Lead The Masses And Not Merely To Reflect The Average Political Level Of The Masses.

It Is Not Difficult To Be A Revolutionary When Revolution Has Already Broken Out And Is In Spate, When All People Are Joining The Revolution Just Because They Are Carried Away, Because It Is The Vogue, And Sometimes Even From Careerist Motives. It Is Far More Difficult--and Far More Precious--to Be A Revolutionary When The Conditions For Direct, Open, Really Mass And Really Revolutionary Struggle Do Not Yet Exist.

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action. A Plenary Meeting Of The Soviet Must Be Called To Decide On Mass Searches In Petrograd And The Goods Stations. To Carry Out These Searches, Each Factory And Company Must Form Contingents, Not On A Voluntary Basis: It Must Be The Duty Of Everyone To Take Part In These Searches Under The Threat Of Being Deprived Of His Bread Card. We Can't Expect To Get Anywhere Unless We Resort To Terrorism: Speculators Must Be Shot On The Spot. Moreover, Bandits Must Be Dealt With Just As Resolutely: They Must Be Shot On The Spot.

One Would Like To Stroke And Caress Human Beings, But One Dares Not Do So, Because They Bite.

History Causes The Military Problem To Become The Essence Of The Political Problem.

It Would Be The Greatest Mistake, Certainly, To Think That Concessions Mean Peace. Nothing Of The Kind. Concessions Are Nothing But A New Form Of War.

The History Of All Countries Shows That The Working Class Exclusively By Its Own Effort Is Able To Develop Only Trade-union Consciousness.

Imperialism, In A Sense, Is The Transition Stage From Capitalism To Socialism. . . . It Is Capitalism Dying, Not Dead.

The Jewish Bourgeoisie Are Our Enemies, Not As Jews But As Bourgeoisie. The Jewish Worker Is Our Brother.

Victory Will Belong Only To Those Who Have Faith In The People, Those Who Are Immersed In The Life-giving Spring Of Popular Creativity.

The Working Class Must Break Up, Smash The "ready-made State Machinery," And Not Confine Itself Merely To Laying Hold Of It.

The Natural Scientist Must Be A Modern Materialist, A Conscious Adherent Of The Materialism Represented By Marx, I.e., He Must Be A Dialectical Materialist.

To Decide Once Every Few Years Which Members Of The Ruling Class Is To Repress And Crush The People Through Parliament-this Is The Real Essence Of Bourgeois Parliamentarism, Not Only In Parliamentary- Constitutional Monarchies, But Also In The Most Democratic Republics.

The Best Way To Control The Opposition Is To Lead It Ourselves.

For The First Time The Peasant Has Seen Real Freedom - Freedom To Eat His Bread, Freedom From Starvation.

Behind The Epistemological Scholasticism Of Empirio-criticism One Must Not Fail To See The Struggle Of Parties In Philosophy, A Struggle Which In The Last Analysis Reflects The Tendencies And Ideology Of The Antagonistic Classes In Modern Society.

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

To Rely Upon Conviction, Devotion, And Other Excellent Spiritual Qualities; That Is Not To Be Taken Seriously In Politics.

All Contemporary Religions And Churches, All And Every Kind Of Religious Organization, Marxism Has Always Viewed As Organs Of Bourgeois Reaction, Serving As A Defense Of Exploitation And The Doping Of The Working-classes.

America Has Become One Of The Foremost Countries In Regard To The Depth Of The Abyss Which Lies Between The Handful Of Arrogant Multimillionaires Who Wallow In Filth And Luxury, And The Millions Of Working People Who Constantly Live On The Verge Of Pauperism.

When A Liberal Is Abused, He Says, ‘thank God They Didn’t Beat Me.’ When He Is Beaten, He Thanks God They Didn’t Kill Him. When He Is Killed, He Will Thank God That His Immortal Soul Has Been Delivered From Its Mortal Clay.

Only An Armed People Can Be The Real Bulwark Of Popular Liberty.

The War Is Relentless: It Puts The Alternative In A Ruthless Relief.

One Man With A Gun Can Control 100 Without One.

The True Leader Must Submerge Himself In The Fountain Of The People.

Let The "socialist" Snivellers Croak, Let The Bourgeoisie Rage And Fume, But Only People Who Shut Their Eyes So As Not To See, And Stuff Their Ears So As Not To Hear, Can Fail To Notice That All Over The World The Birth Pangs Of The Old, Capitalist Society, Which Is Pregnant With Socialism, Have Begun.

Despair Is Typical Of Those Who Do Not Understand The Causes Of Evil, See No Way Out, And Are Incapable Of Struggle. The Modern Industrial Proletariat Does Not Belong To The Category Of Such Classes.

You All Know That Even When Women Have Full Rights, They Still Remain Fatally Downtrodden Because All Housework Is Left To Them. In Most Cases Housework Is The Most Unproductive, The Most Barbarous And The Most Arduous Work A Woman Can Do. It Is Exceptionally Petty And Does Not Include Anything That Would In Any Way Promote The Development Of The Woman.

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

Imperialism Is Capitalism At That Stage Of Development At Which The Dominance Of Monopolies And Finance Capitalism Is Established; In Which The Export Of Capital Has Acquired Pronounced Importance; In Which The Division Of The World Among The International Trusts Has Begun, In Which The Division Of All Territories Of The Globe Among The Biggest Capitalist Powers Has Been Completed.

Bourgeois Democracy Is Democracy Of Pompous Phrases, Solemn Words, Exuberant Promises And The High-sounding Slogans Of Freedom And Equality. But, In Fact, It Screens The Non-freedom And Inferiority Of Women, The Non-freedom And Inferiority Of The Toilers And Exploited.

The Establishment Of A Central Bank Is 90% Of Communizing A Nation.

The Nearer We Come To The Full Military Suppression Of The Bourgeoisie, The More Dangerous Becomes To Us The High Flood Of Petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And The Struggle Against These Elements Cannot Be Waged With Propaganda And Agitation Alone. ... The Struggle Must Also Be Waged By Applying Force And Compulsion.

We Can And Must Write In A Language Which Sows Among The Masses Hate, Revulsion, And Scorn Toward Those Who Disagree With Us.

Capital, Created By The Labour Of The Worker, Crushes The Worker, Ruining Small Proprietors And Creating An Army Of Unemployed.

Those Who Are Really Convinced That They Have Made Progress In Science Would Not Demand Freedom For The New Views To Continue Side By Side With The Old, But The Substitution Of The New Views For The Old.

Honesty In Politics Is The Result Of Strength; Hypocrisy Is The Result Of Weakness.

For Any Truth, If “overdone” (as Dietzgen Senior Put It), If Exaggerated, Or If Carried Beyond The Limits Of Its Actual Applicability, Can Be Reduced To An Absurdity, And Is Even Bound To Become An Absurdity Under These Conditions.

The Poor Peasants' Committees Are Necessary To Fight The Kulaks, The Rich, The Exploiters, Who Shackle The Working Peasants.

Autocracy Cannot Do Without Its Twin Agents: A Hangman And A Priest, The First To Suppress Popular Resistance By Force, The Second To Sweeten And Embellish The Lot Of The Oppressed With Empty Promises Of A Heavenly Kingdom.

Unity Must Be Won, And Only The Workers, The Class-conscious Workers Themselves Can Win It - By Stubborn And Persistent Effort.

The Suppression Of The Bourgeois State By The Proletarian State Is Impossible Without Violent Revolution.

Chess Is Only A Recreation And Not An Occupation.

For The Complete Extinction Of The State, Complete Communism Is Necessary.

The Only One Who Doesn't Make Mistakes Is The One Who Doesn't Do Anything.

An End To Wars, Peace Among The Nations, The Cessation Of Pillaging And Violence - Such Is Our Ideal, But Only Bourgeois Sophists Can Seduce The Masses With This Ideal, If The Latter Is Divorced From A Direct And Immediate Call For Revolutionary Action.

Sometimes Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own.

Our Aim Is To Achieve A Socialist System Of Society, Which, By Eliminating The Division Of Mankind Into Classes, By Eliminating All Exploitation Of Man By Man And Nation By Nation, Will Inevitably Eliminate The Very Possibility Of War.

You Can Become A Communist Only When You Enrich Your Mind With A Knowledge Of All The Treasures Created By Mankind.

Communism Is Soviet Power Plus The Electrification Of The Whole Country.

It Is In Prison ... That One Becomes A Real Revolutionary.

The State Does Not Function As We Desired. A Man Is At The Wheel And Seems To Lead It, But The Car Does Not Drive In The Desired Direction. It Moves As Another Force Wishes.

Under Socialism All Will Govern In Turn And Will Soon Become Accustomed To No One Governing.

The Bolshevik Slogans And Ideas On The Whole Have Been Confirmed By History; But Concretely Things Have Worked Out Differently; They Are More Original, More Peculiar, More Varied Than Anyone Could Have Expected.

Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

Sometimes - History Needs A Push.

Democracy For An Insignificant Minority, Democracy For The Rich -- That Is The Democracy Of Capitalist Society.

It Is Stupid To Tolerate Nikola; All Chekists Have To Be On Alert To Shoot Anyone Who Doesn't Turn Up To Work Because Of Nikola.

I Come To The Categorical Conclusion That Precisely At This Moment We Must Give Battle To The Black Hundred Clergy In The Most Decisive And Merciless Manner And Crush Its Resistance With Such Brutality That It Will Not Forget It For Decades To Come. The Greater The Number Of Representatives Of The Reactionary Clergy And Reactionary Bourgeoisie We Succeed In Executing For This Reason, The Better.

But Every Little Difference May Become A Big One If It Is Insisted On.

Free Speech Is A Bourgeois Prejudice.

The Marxist Doctrine Is Omnipotent Because It Is True. It Is Comprehensive And Harmonious, And Provides Men With An Integral World Outlook Irreconcilable With Any Form Of Superstition, Reaction, Or Defence Of Bourgeois Oppression. It Is The Legitimate Successor To The Best That Man Produced In The Nineteenth Century, As Represented By German Philosophy, English Political Economy And French Socialism.

There Can Be Nothing More Abominable Than Religion.

Communists Have Become Bureaucrats. If Anything Will Destroy Us, It Is This.

How Can You Make A Revolution Without Executions?

When One Makes A Revolution, One Cannot Mark Time; One Must Always Go Forward - Or Go Back. He Who Now Talks About The 'freedom Of The Press' Goes Backward, And Halts Our Headlong Course Towards Socialism.

Freedom Of Speech

To Accept Anything On Trust, To Preclude Critical Application And Development, Is A Grievous Sin.

All Extremes Are Bad. All That Is Good And Useful, If Carried To Extremes, May Become-and Beyond A Certain Limit Is Bound To Become-bad And Injurious.

It Is At Moments Of Need That One Learns Who One's Friends Are. Defeated Armies Learn Their Lesson.

Can A Nation Be Free If It Oppresses Other Nations? It Cannot.

There Are Decades Where Nothing Happens; And There Are Weeks Where Decades Happen.

Dictatorship Is Rule Based Directly Upon Force And Unrestricted By Any Laws. The Revolutionary Dictatorship Of The Proletariat Is Rule Won And Maintained By The Use Of Violence By The Proletariat Against The Bourgeoisie, Rule That Is Unrestricted By Any Laws.

The Progressive Historical Role Of Capitalism May Be Summed Up In Two Brief Propositions: Increase In The Productive Forces Of Social Labour, And The Socialisation Of That Labour. But Both These Facts Manifest Themselves In Extremely Diverse Processes In Different Branches Of The National Economy.

It Is Not For Nothing That Skaldin In One Part Of His Book Quotes Adam Smith: We Have Seen That Both His Views And The Character Of His Arguments In Many Respects Repeat The Theses Of That Great Ideologist Of The Progressive Bourgeoisie.

During The Lifetime Of Great Revolutionaries, The Oppressing Classes Constantly Hounded Them, Received Their Theories With The Most Savage Malice, The Most Furious Hatred And The Most Unscrupulous Campaigns Of Lies And Slander. After Their Death, Attempts Are Made To Convert Them Into Harmless Icons, To Canonize Them, So To Say, And To Hallow Their Names To A Certain Extent For The “consolation” Of The Oppressed Classes And With The Object Of Duping The Latter, While At The Same Time Robbing The Revolutionary Theory Of Its Substance, Blunting Its Revolutionary Edge And Vulgarizing It.

People Always Have Been And They Always Will Be Stupid Victims Of Deceit And Self-deception In Politics.

Literature Must Become Party Literature. Down With Unpartisan Litterateurs! Down With The Superman Of Literature! Literature Must Become A Part Of The General Cause Of The Proletariat.

Of All The Arts, For Us The Cinema Is The Most Important.

A Country Of Inveterate, Backwoods, Thick-headed, Egotistic Philistines

We Shall Not Achieve Socialism Without A Struggle.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

Politics Begin Where The Masses Are, Not Where There Are Thousands, But Where There Are Millions, That Is Where Serious Politics Begin.

When We Are Victorious On A World Scale I Think We Shall Use Gold For The Purpose Of Building Public Lavatories In The Streets Of Some Of The Largest Cities Of The World.

The Most Important Thing Is To Know How To Awaken In The Still Undeveloped Masses An Intelligent Attitude Towards Religious Questions And An Intelligent Criticism Of Religions.

To Picture World History As Advancing Smoothly And Steadily Without Sometimes Taking Gigantic Strides Backward Is Undialectical, Unscientific And Theoretically Wrong.

All Our Lives We Fought Against Exalting The Individual, Against The Elevation Of The Single Person, And Long Ago We Were Over And Done With The Business Of A Hero, And Here It Comes Up Again: The Glorification Of One Personality. This Is Not Good At All.

Only By Abolishing Private Property In Land And Building Cheap And Hygienic Dwellings Can The Housing Problem Be Solved.

Give Me Four Years To Teach The Children And The Seed I Have Sown Will Never Be Uprooted.

The Political Form Of A Society Wherein The Proletariat Is Victorious In Overthrowing The Bourgeoisie Will Be A Democratic Republic.

Democracy Is A Form Of The State, It Represents, On The One Hand, The Organized, Systematic Use Of Force Against Persons; But, On The Other Hand, It Signifies The Formal Recognition Of Equality Of Citizens, The Equal Right Of All To Determine The Structure Of, And To Administer, The State.

The Majority Of The So-called Great Powers Have Long Been Exploiting And Enslaving A Whole Series Of Small And Weak Peoples. And The Imperialist War Is Nothing Other Than A War For The Division And Redivision Of This Kind Of Booty.

We Must Not Depict Socialism As If Socialists Will Bring It To Us On A Plate All Nicely Dressed. That Will Never Happen. Not A Single Problem Of The Class Struggle Has Ever Been Solved In History Except By Violence. When Violence Is Exercised By The Working People, By The Mass Of Exploited Against The Exploiters -- Then We Are For It!

It Is Essential To Grasp The Incontestable Truth That A Marxist Must Take Cognisance Of Real Life, Of The True Facts Of Reality, And Not Cling To A Theory Of Yesterday, Which, Like All Theories, At Best Only Outlines The Main And The General, Only Comes Near To Embracing Life In All Its Complexity.

But Suppose, For The Sake Of Argument, Free Competition, Without Any Sort Of Monopoly, Would Develop Capitalism Trade More Rapidly. Is It Not A Fact That The More Rapidly Trade And Capitalism Develop, The Greater Is The Concentration Of Production And Capital Which Gives Rise To Monopoly?

It Is True That Liberty Is Precious; So Precious That It Must Be Carefully Rationed.

The Constitution Of Soviet Russia Must Insure Equal Rights For All Citizens Regardless Of Sex, Creed, Race, Or Nationality.

Every Question "runs In A Vicious Circle" Because Political Life As A Whole Is An Endless Chain Consisting Of An Infinite Number Of Links. The Whole Art Of Politics Lies In Finding And Taking As Firm A Grip As We Can Of The Link That Is Least Likely To Be Struck From Our Hands, The One That Is Most Important At The Given Moment, The One That Most Of All Guarantees Its Possessor The Possession Of The Whole Chain.

Bah, Tombstones Are Only Good For Pigeons To Sit On

Monopolies, Oligarchy, The Striving For Domination And Not For Freedom, The Exploitation Of An Increasing Number Of Small Or Weak Nations By A Handful Of The Richest Or Most Powerful Nations -- All These Have Given Birth To Those Distinctive Characteristics Of Imperialism Which Compel Us To Define It As Parasitic Or Decaying Capitalism.

One Must Not Count In Thousands, Like The Propagandist Belonging To A Small Group That Has Not Yet Given Leadership To The Masses; In These Circumstances One Must Count In Millions And Tens Of Millions.

One Of The Basic Conditions For The Victory Of Socialism Is The Arming Of The Workers Communist And The Disarming Of The Bourgeoisie The Middle Class.

One Of The Chief Symptoms Of Every Revolution Is The Sharp And Sudden Increase In The Number Of Ordinary People Who Take An Active, Independent And Forceful Interest In Politics.

The Status Of Women Up To Now Has Been Compared To That Of A Slave; Women Have Been Tied To The Home, And Only Socialism Can Save Them From This. They Will Only Be Completely Emancipated When We Change From Small-scale Individual Farming To Collective Farming And Collective Working Of The Land.

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

Materialism Is The Recognition Of "objects In Themselves", Or Outside The Mind; Ideas And Sensations Are Copies Of Images Of Those Objects.

The Way To Crush The Bourgeoisie Is To Grind Them Between The Millstones Of Taxation And Inflation.

The Soundest Strategy In War Is To Postpone Operations Until The Moral Disintegration Of The Enemy Renders The Delivery Of The Mortal Blow Both Possible And Easy.

Why Should Freedom Of Speech And Freedom Of Press Be Allowed? Why Should A Government Which Is Doing What It Believes To Be Right Allow Itself To Be Criticized? It Would Not Allow Opposition By Lethal Weapons. Ideas Are Much More Fatal Things Than Guns. Why Should Any Man Be Allowed To Buy A Printing Press And Disseminate Pernicious Opinions Calculated To Embarrass The Government?

It Is Necessary To Be Able To Withstand All This, To Agree To Any And Every Sacrifice, And Even - If Need Be - To Resort To All Sorts Of Stratagems, Manoeuvres And Illegal Methods, To Evasion And Subterfuges In Order To Penetrate The Trade Unions, To Remain In Them, And To Carry On Communist Work In Them At All Costs.

We Want To Achieve A New And Better Order Of Society: In This New And Better Society There Must Be Neither Rich Nor Poor; All Will Have To Work. Not A Handful Of Rich People, But All The Working People Must Enjoy The Fruits Of Their Common Labour. Machines And Other Improvements Must Serve To Ease The Work Of All And Not To Enable A Few To Grow Rich At The Expense Of Millions And Tens Of Millions Of People. This New And Better Society Is Called Socialist Society.

One Fool Can Ask More Questions In A Minute Than 12 Wise Men Can Answer In An Hour.

I Must Say That The Tasks Of The Youth In General, And Of The Young Communist Leagues And All Other Organisations In Particular, Might Be Summed Up In A Single Word: Learn.

One Cannot Live In Society And Be Free From Society.

Give Us The Child For Eight Years And It Will Be A Bolshevik Forever.

The Bourgeoisie Incites The Workers Of One Nation Against Those Of Another In The Endeavour To Keep Them Disunited.

Face The Truth Squarely. In Politics That Is Always The Best And The Only Correct Attitude.

Man’s Consciousness Not Only Reflects The Objective World, But Creates It.

When One Makes A Revolution, One Cannot Mark Time; One Must Always Go Forward--or Go Back

Freedom Of Speech

Does Not The Whole History Of Socialism, Particularly Of French Socialism, Which Is So Rich In Revolutionary Striving, Show Us That When The Working People Themselves Take Power In Their Hands The Ruling Classes Resort To Unheard-of Crimes And Shootings If It Is A Matter Of Protecting Their Money-bags.

It Is More Pleasant And Useful To Go Through The 'experience Of The Revolution' Than To Write About It.

The Press Should Be Not Only A Collective Propagandist And A Collective Agitator, But Also A Collective Organizer Of The Masses.

Those Who Are Opposed To Armed Uprising ... Must Be Ruthlessly Kicked Out As Enemies, Traitors And Cowards.

International Unity Of The Workers Is More Important Than The National.

You Must Act With All Energy. Mass Searches. Execution For Concealing Arms.

The Best Way To Destroy The Capitalist System Is To Debauch The Currency.

Distribution Of Wealth

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

Every Cook Must Learn To Rule The State.

Any Cook Should Be Able To Run The Country.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

No Marxist Can Deny That The Interests Of Socialism Are Higher Than The Interests Of The Right Of Nations To Self-determination.

Attention, Must Be Devoted Principally To Raising The Workers To The Level Of Revolutionaries; It Is Not Our Task To Descend To The Level Of The 'working Masses'.

Our Idea Is That A State Is Strong When The People Are Politically Conscious. It Is Strong When The People Know Everything, Can Form An Opinion Of Everything, And Do Everything Consciously.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

Ideological Talk And Phrase Mongering About Political Liberties Should Be Disposed With; All That Is Just Mere Chatter And Phrase Mongering. We Should Get Away From Those Phrases.

All Official And Liberal Science Defends Wage-slavery, Whereas Marxism Has Declared Relentless War On That Slavery.

Truth Is The Most Precious Thing. That's Why We Should Ration It.

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

Perfect Definition Of Atheist Dogma. Your Mind Has Been Subjected To Subtle Mental Conditioning Year After Year. Now The Atheist Lie Has Become The Truth To You. A Lie That Can Be Blown Away With The Real Truth. It Just Takes Time To Unwind The Atheist Mental Conditioning. The Truth Is Out There. Outside Of Atheist Dogma Lies The Truth!

All Countries Will Inevitably Have To Do What Russia Has Done.

We Are Not Utopians, We Do Not “dream” Of Dispensing At Once With All Administration, With All Subordination. These Anarchist Dreams, Based Upon Incomprehension Of The Tasks Of The Proletarian Dictatorship, Are Totally Alien To Marxism, And, As A Matter Of Fact, Serve Only To Postpone The Socialist Revolution Until People Are Different. No, We Want The Socialist Revolution With People As They Are Now, With People Who Cannot Dispense With Subordination, Control, And "foremen And Accountants".

You Must Have Your Heart On Fire And Your Brain On Ice.

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

Behind The October Revolution There Are More Influential Personalities Than The Thinkers And Executors Of Marxism.

October Revolution

Human Knowledge Is Not (or Does Not Follow) A Straight Line, But A Curve, Which Endlessly Approximates A Series Of Circles, A Spiral. Any Fragment, Segment, Section Of This Curve Can Be Transformed (transformed One-sidedly) Into An Independent, Complete, Straight Line, Which Then (if One Does Not See The Wood For The Trees) Leads Into The Quagmire, Into Clerical Obscurantism (where It Is Anchored By The Class Interests Of The Ruling Classes).

Only Struggle Educates The Exploited Class. Only Struggle Discloses To It The Magnitude Of Its Own Power, Widens Its Horizon, Enhances Its Abilities, Clarifies Its Mind, Forges Its Will.

Don't Be Afraid To Admit Defeat. Learn From Defeat. Do Over Again More Thoroughly, More Carefully, And More Systematically What You Have Done Badly.

Capitalists Will Sell Us The Rope We Will Hang Them With.

The War Is Relentless: It Puts The Alternative In A Ruthless Relief: Either To Perish, Or To Catch Up With The Advanced Countries And Outdistance Them, Too, In Economic Matters.

People Always Have Been The Foolish Victims Of Deception And Self-deception In Politics, And They Always Will Be, Until They Have Learned To Seek Out The Interests Of Some Class Or Other Behind All Moral, Religious, Political And Social Phrases, Declarations And Promises.

But I Can't Listen To Music Too Often. It Affects Your Nerves, Makes You Want To Say Stupid, Nice Things, And Stroke The Heads Of People Who Could Create Such Beauty While Living In This Vile Hell.

This Fear Of Criticism Displayed By The Advocates Of Freedom Of Criticism Cannot Be Attributed Solely To Craftiness. No, The Majority Of The Economists Look With Sincere Resentment Upon All Theoretical Controversies, Factional Disagreements, Broad Political Questions, Plans For Organising Revolutionaries, Etc.

As An Ultimate Objective, "peace" Simply Means Communist World Control.

Everyone Is Free To Write And Say Whatever He Likes, Without Any Restrictions.

We Shall Not Bind Ourselves By Treaties. We Shall Not Allow Ourselves To Be Entangled By Treaties. We Reject All Clauses On Plunder And Violence, But We Shall Welcome All Clauses Containing Provisions For Good-neighbourly Relations And All Economic Agreements; We Cannot Reject These.

The Art Of Any Propagandist And Agitator Consists In His Ability To Find The Best Means Of Influencing Any Given Audience, By Presenting A Definite Truth, In Such A Way As To Make It Most Convincing, Most Easy To Digest, Most Graphic, And Most Strongly Impressive.

The Oppressed Are Allowed Once Every Few Years To Decide Which Particular Representatives Of The Oppressing Class Are To Represent And Repress Them In Parliament.

The Leaders Of The Petty Bourgeoisie Must Teach The People To Trust The Bourgeoisie. The Proletarians Must Teach The People To Distrust The Bourgeoisie.

It Is Necessary - Secretly And Urgently To Prepare The Terror.

I Am A Bad, Wicked Man, But I Am Practicing Moral Self-purification; I Don't Eat Meat Any More, I Now Eat Rice Cutlets.

Freedom In Capitalist Society Always Remains About The Same As It Was In Ancient Greek Republics: Freedom For Slave Owners.

In The End, One Or The Other Will Triumph - A Funeral Dirge Will Be Sung Over The Soviet Republic Or Over World Capitalism.

No Revolution Is Worth Anything Unless It Can Defend Itself.

A Democracy Is A State Which Recognizes The Subjection Of The Minority To The Majority, That Is, An Organization For The Systematic Use Of Violence By One Class Against The Other, By One Part Of The Population Against Another.

You Have Read And Heard That Communist Theory-the Science Of Communism Created In The Main By Marx, This Doctrine Of Marxism-has Ceased To Be The Work Of A Single Socialist Of The Nineteenth Century, Even Though He Was A Genius, And That It Has Become The Doctrine Of Millions And Tens Of Millions Of Proletarians All Over The World, Who Are Applying It In Their Struggle Against Capitalism.

Revolution Can Never Be Forecast; It Cannot Be Foretold; It Comes Of Itself. Revolution Is Brewing And Is Bound To Flare Up.

The Most Important Thing When Ill Is To Never Lose Heart.

We Must Pursue The Removal Of Church Property By Any Means Necessary In Order To Secure For Ourselves A Fund Of Several Hundred Million Gold Rubles.

No Mercy For These Enemies Of The People, The Enemies Of Socialism, The Enemies Of The Working People! War To The Death Against The Rich And Their Hangers-on, The Bourgeois Intellectuals; War On The Rogues, The Idlers And The Rowdies!

When A War Is Waged By Two Opposing Groups Of Robbers For The Sake Of Deciding Who Shall Have A Freer Hand To Oppress More People, Then The Question Of The Origin Of The War Is Of No Real Economic Or Political Significance.

A Revolution Is Impossible Without A Revolutionary Situation; Furthermore, Not Every Revolutionary Situation Leads To Revolution.

It Is, Of Course, Much Easier To Shout, Abuse, And Howl Than To Attempt To Relate, To Explain.

We Social-democrats Always Stand For Democracy, Not "in The Name Of Capitalism," But In The Name Of Clearing The Path For Our Movement, Which Clearing Is Impossible Without The Development Of Capitalism.

Freedom Of Speech And The Press Must Be Complete. But Then Freedom Of Association Must Be Complete Too.

Freedom Of Speech

The Aim Of Socialism Is Not Only To Abolish The Present Division Of Mankind Into Smaller States And All-national Isolation, Not Only To Bring The Nations Closer To Each Other, But Also To Merge Them.

Unity Is A Great Thing And A Great Slogan. But What The Workers’ Cause Needs Is The Unity Of Marxists, Not Unity Between Marxists, And Opponents And Distorters Of Marxism.

Germany Will Militarize Herself Out Of Existence, England Will Expand Herself Out Of Existence, And America Will Spend Herself Out Of Existence.

Where The Bourgeois Economists Saw A Relation Between Things (the Exchange Of One Commodity For Another) Marx Revealed A Relation Between People.

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Peter Diamandis

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