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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.

-Vladimir Lenin

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Monopolies, Oligarchy, The Striving

Vladimir Lenin

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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.

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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.

You Cannot Make A Revolution In White Gloves.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action.

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

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

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.

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.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

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.

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.

Bah, Tombstones Are Only Good For Pigeons To Sit On

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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?

Be As Radical As Reality.

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

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.

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

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.

We Are Not Shooting Enough Professors.

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.

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.

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.

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

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'.

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

Without A Revolutionary Theory There Cannot Be A Revolutionary Movement.

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

Fascism Is Capitalism In Decay.

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

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?

How Can You Make A Revolution Without Executions?

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

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".

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.

No Revolution Is Worth Anything Unless It Can Defend Itself.

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.

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

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

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

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

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.

Any Cook Should Be Able To Run The Country.

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

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

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

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

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

Trust Is Good, But Control Is Better.

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

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

Three Keys To Success: Read, Read, Read.

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.

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

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

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

Political Institutions Are A Superstructure Resting On An Economic Foundation.

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.

One Cannot Live In Society And Be Free From Society.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

October Revolution

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 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 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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

Distribution Of Wealth

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.

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

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.

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.

The Goal Of Socialism Is Communism.

Chess Is Only A Recreation And Not An Occupation.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

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

There Can Be Nothing More Abominable Than Religion.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

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

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.

Every Cook Must Learn To Rule The State.

Without Revolutionary Theory There Can Be No Revolutionary Movement.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

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

Sometimes - History Needs A Push.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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).

Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

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

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

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.

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

One Man With A Gun Can Control 100 Without One.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

It Is Impossible To Predict The Time And Progress Of Revolution. It Is Governed By Its Own More Or Less Mysterious Laws.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

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.

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

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.

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

Free Speech Is A Bourgeois Prejudice.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Democracy Is Indispensable To Socialism.

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