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In Capitalist Society We Have A Democracy That Is Curtailed, Wretched, False, A Democracy Only For The Rich, For The Minority. The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, The Period Of Transition To Communism, Will For The First Time Create Democracy For The People, For The Majority, Along With The Necessary Suppression Of The Exploiters, Of The Minority.

-Vladimir Lenin

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In Capitalist Society We

Vladimir Lenin

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In Capitalist Society We Have A Democracy That Is Curtailed, Wretched, False, A Democracy Only For The Rich, For The Minority. The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat, The Period Of Transition To Communism, Will For The First Time Create Democracy For The People, For The Majority, Along With The Necessary Suppression Of The Exploiters, Of The Minority.

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

Soviet Power Is A New Type Of State In Which There Is No Bureacracy, No Police, No Standing Army.

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

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!

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

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

Atheism Is A Natural And Inseparable Part Of Marxism, Of The Theory And Practice Of Scientific Socialism. Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

We Are Not Shooting Enough Professors.

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.

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.

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?

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

One Must Always Try To Be As Radical As Reality Itself.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

Give Me Just One Generation Of Youth, And I'll Transform The Whole World.

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.

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

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

Hundreds Of Thousands And Millions Of Wage Slaves Of Capital And Peasants Downtrodden By The Serf-owners Are Going To The Slaughter For The Dynastic Interests Of A Handful Of Crowned Brigands, For The Profits Of The Bourgeoisie In Its Drive To Plunder Foreign Lands.

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.

Bah, Tombstones Are Only Good For Pigeons To Sit On

Pacifism, The Preaching Of Peace In The Abstract, Is One Of The Means Of Duping The Working Class.

The Bourgeoisie Is Many Times Stronger Than We. To Give It The Weapon Of Freedom Of The Press Is To Ease The Enemy's Cause, To Help The Class Enemy. We Do Not Desire To End In Suicide, So We Will Not Do This.

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.

Democracy Is Indispensable To Socialism.

I Don't Care What Becomes Of Russia. To Hell With It. All This Is Only The Road To A World Revolution.

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

Whenever The Cause Of The People Is Entrusted To Professors, It Is Lost.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

But Democracy Is By No Means A Limit One May Not Overstep; It Is Only One Of The Stages In The Course Of Development From Feudalism To Capitalism, And From Capitalism To Communism.

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

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.

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.

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.

We Shall Not Achieve Socialism Without A Struggle.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

Three Keys To Success: Read, Read, Read.

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.

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

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

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

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).

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

One Cannot Live In Society And Be Free From Society.

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

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

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

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

Trust Is Good, But Control Is Better.

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.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

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.

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 Bolsheviks Could Not Have Retained Power For Two And A Half Months, Let Alone Two And A Half Years, Without The Most Rigorous And Truly Iron Discipline In Our Party.

By Destroying The Peasant Economy And Driving The Peasant From The Country To The Town, The Famine Creates A Proletariat... Furthermore The Famine Can And Should Be A Progressive Factor Not Only Economically. It Will Force The Peasant To Reflect On The Bases Of The Capitalist System, Demolish Faith In The Tsar And Tsarism, And Consequently In Due Course Make The Victory Of The Revolution Easier... Psychologically All This Talk About Feeding The Starving And So On Essentially Reflects The Usual Sugary Sentimentality Of Our Intelligentsia.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

In The Last Analysis, Productivity Of Labour Is The Most Important, The Principal Thing For The Victory Of The New Social System.

Human Reason Has Discovered Many Amazing Things In Nature And Will Discover Still More, And Will Thereby Increase Its Power Over Nature.

There Are No Morals In Politics; There Is Only Expedience. A Scoundrel May Be Of Use To Us Just Because He Is A Scoundrel.

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.

No Revolution Is Worth Anything Unless It Can Defend Itself.

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

Hang (hang Without Fail, So The People See) No Fewer Than One Hundred Known Kulaks, Rich Men, Bloodsuckers.

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.

Without A Revolutionary Theory There Cannot Be A Revolutionary Movement.

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

A Political Leader Who Desires To Be Useful To The Revolutionary Proletariat Must Be Able To Distinguish Concrete Cases Of Compromises That Are Inexcusable And Are An Expression Of Opportunism And Treachery.

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

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

Freedom Of Speech

Recovery Proceeding Excellently. Am Sure That The Crushing Of The Kazan Czechs And Whiteguards, As Well As Of The Kulak Extortioners Supporting Them, Will Be Exemplarily Ruthless.

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.

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

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

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.

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.

Fascism Is Capitalism In Decay.

Whoever Wants To Reach Socialism By Any Other Path Than That Of Political Democracy Will Inevitably Arrive At Conclusions That Are Absurd And Reactionary Both In The Economic And The Political Sense.

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

Distribution Of Wealth

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.

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

When We Say "the State," The State Is We, It Is We, It Is The Proletariat, It Is The Advanced Guard Of The Working Class.

Capitalists Are No More Capable Of Self-sacrifice Than A Man Is Capable Of Lifting Himself Up By His Own Bootstraps.

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Give Me A Child For The First 5 Years Of His Life And He Will Be Mine Forever.

It Is Not National Interests We Are Upholding - We Claim That The Interests Of Socialism, The Interests Of World Socialism, Rank Higher Than National Interests, Higher Than The Interests Of The State. We Are Defenders Of The Socialist Fatherland.

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

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

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.

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

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

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

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

Comrades! The Kulak Uprising In Your Five Districts Must Be Crushed Without Pity. You Must Make Example Of These People. (1) Hang (i Mean Hang Publicly, So That People See It) At Least 100 Kulaks, Rich Bastards, And Known Bloodsuckers. (2) Publish Their Names. (3) Seize All Their Grain. (4) Single Out The Hostages Per My Instructions In Yesterday's Telegram. Do All This So That For Miles Around People See It All, Understand It, Tremble, And Tell Themselves That We Are Killing The Bloodthirsty Kulaks And That We Will Continue To Do So ...find Tougher People.

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

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'.

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.

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

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

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

Capitalism Has Triumphed All Over The World, But This Triumph Is Only The Prelude To The Triumph Of Labour Over Capital.

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

Sometimes Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own.

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

No Bolshevik, No Communist, No Intelligent Socialist Has Ever Entertained The Idea Of Violence Against The Middle Peasants. All Socialists Have Always Spoken Of Agreement With Them And Of Their Gradual And Voluntary Transition To Socialism.

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

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

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.

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.

Every Cook Must Learn To Rule The State.

Be As Radical As Reality.

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

Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

Where And When Have Riots And Anarchy Been Provoked By Wise Measures? If The Government Had Acted Wisely, And If Their Measures Had Met The Needs Of The Poor Peasants, Would There Have Been Unrest Among The Peasant Masses?

The Entire Trend Of Development Is Towards Abolition Of Coercive Domination Of One Part Of Society Over Another.

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.

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

We Set Ourselves The Ultimate Aim Of Abolishing The State, I.e., All Organized And Systematic Violence, All Use Of Violence Against People In General.

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".

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

We Do Not Have Time To Play At "oppositions" At "conferences." We Will Keep Our Political Opponents... Whether Open Or Disguised As "nonparty," In Prison.

Lenin, The Greatest Man Of Action In Our Century And At The Same Time The Most Selfless.

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.

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.

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

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

We Would Be Deceiving Both Ourselves And The People If We Concealed From The Masses The Necessity Of A Desperate, Bloody War Of Extermination, As The Immediate Task Of The Coming Revolutionary Action.

The Functionaries Of Our Political Organizations And Trade Unions Are Corrupted - Or Rather Tend To Be Corrupted - By The Conditions Of Capitalism And Betray A Tendency To Become Bureaucrats, I.e., Privileged Persons Divorced From The People And Standing Above The People.

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

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

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.

Russians Are Too Kind, They Lack The Ability To Apply Determined Methods Of Revolutionary Terror.

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.

How Can You Make A Revolution Without Executions?

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.

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

October Revolution

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.

One Man With A Gun Can Control 100 Without One.

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.

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

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

Chess Is Only A Recreation And Not An Occupation.

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

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

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.

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action.

When It Comes To Hang The Capitalists They Will Compete With Each Other To Sell Us The Rope At A Lower Price.

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

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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Sarah Brightman

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