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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!

-Vladimir Lenin

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No Mercy For These

Vladimir Lenin

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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!

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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.

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.

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

October Revolution

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Goal Of Socialism Is Communism.

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

Distribution Of Wealth

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

Chess Is Only A Recreation And Not An Occupation.

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.

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

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

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

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

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.

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.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

Be As Radical As Reality.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Free Speech Is A Bourgeois Prejudice.

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

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

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

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

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

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

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.

You Cannot Make A Revolution In White Gloves.

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

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

Political Institutions Are A Superstructure Resting On An Economic Foundation.

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

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

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.

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

Freedom Of Speech

Sometimes - History Needs A Push.

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

How Can You Make A Revolution Without Executions?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

Trust Is Good, But Control Is Better.

Sometimes Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own.

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

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

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.

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

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.

We Are Not Shooting Enough Professors.

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.

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

Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Keys To Success: Read, Read, Read.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

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

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.

We Shall Not Achieve Socialism Without A Struggle.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Without Revolutionary Theory There Can Be No Revolutionary Movement.

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

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

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

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.

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.

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

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

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".

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

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

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

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.

Fascism Is Capitalism In Decay.

There Can Be Nothing More Abominable Than Religion.

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.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

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

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

Every Cook Must Learn To Rule The State.

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