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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.

-Vladimir Lenin

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We Want To Achieve

Vladimir Lenin

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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.

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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.

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.

Bah, Tombstones Are Only Good For Pigeons To Sit On

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Medicine Is The Keystone Of The Arch Of Socialism.

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

Without Revolutionary Theory There Can Be No Revolutionary Movement.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

No Revolution Is Worth Anything Unless It Can Defend Itself.

One Man With A Gun Can Control 100 Without One.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any Cook Should Be Able To Run The Country.

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

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

Sometimes Quantity Has A Quality All Its Own.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

You Cannot Do Anything Without Rousing The Masses To Action.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat

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

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

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!

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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!

Three Keys To Success: Read, Read, Read.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every Cook Has To Learn How To Govern The State.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

War Cannot Be Abolished Unless Classes Are Abolished.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Imperialism: The Final Stage Of Capitalism.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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".

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.

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

Be As Radical As Reality.

Politics Is The Most Concentrated Expression Of Economics.

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

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

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

Without A Revolutionary Theory There Cannot Be A Revolutionary Movement.

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.

Sometimes - History Needs A Push.

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.

We Are Not Shooting Enough Professors.

You Cannot Make A Revolution In White Gloves.

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.

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

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

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

Our Program Necessarily Includes The Propaganda Of Atheism.

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.

Crime Is A Product Of Social Excess.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

No Amount Of Political Freedom Will Satisfy The Hungry Masses.

Chess Is Only A Recreation And Not An Occupation.

Free Speech Is A Bourgeois Prejudice.

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

The Goal Of Socialism Is Communism.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Learning Is Never Done Without Errors And Defeat.

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

The 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.

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.

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

The 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.

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

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

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.

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

Trust Is Good, But Control Is Better.

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

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

October Revolution

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

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

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

Every Cook Must Learn To Rule The State.

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

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

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.

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

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?

Atheism Is The Natural And Inseparable Part Of Communism.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

You 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.

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.

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.

Authority Poisons Everybody Who Takes Authority On Himself.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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Jane Bryant Quinn

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