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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.

-Vladimir Lenin

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It Is Necessary To

Vladimir Lenin

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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.

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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.

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

Distribution Of Wealth

Free Speech Is A Bourgeois Prejudice.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

We Shall Not Achieve Socialism Without A Struggle.

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

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.

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Sole "property" Of Matter With Whose Recognition Philosophical Materialism Is Bound Up Is The Property Of Being An Objective Reality, Of Existing Outside The Mind.

We Are Not Shooting Enough Professors.

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

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

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

One Cannot Live In Society And Be Free From Society.

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.

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

Three Keys To Success: Read, Read, Read.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Most Important Thing When Ill Is To Never Lose Heart.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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'.

Sometimes Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own.

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

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

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

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

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

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

October Revolution

Human Thought By Its Nature Is Capable Of Giving, And Does Give, Absolute Truth, Which Is Compounded Of A Sum-total Of Relative Truths.

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

Fascism Is Capitalism In Decay.

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.

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

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

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

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 Most Important Thing In Illness Is Never To Lose Heart.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

Sometimes - History Needs A Push.

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.

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.

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

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".

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Without Revolutionary Theory There Can Be No Revolutionary Movement.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

How Can You Make A Revolution Without Executions?

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.

No Revolution Is Worth Anything Unless It Can Defend Itself.

Be As Radical As Reality.

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.

Political Institutions Are A Superstructure Resting On An Economic Foundation.

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.

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

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

The Reflection Of Nature In Man's Thought Must Be Understood Not Lifelessly But In The Eternal Process Of Movement, The Arising Of Contradictions And Their Solution.

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.

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

Bah, Tombstones Are Only Good For Pigeons To Sit On

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?

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

You Cannot Make A Revolution In White Gloves.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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