Leon Trotsky Quotations | Page 2

In 1925 - 27 the revolution in China was destroyed by the false revolutionary strategy of the Stalinist faction. To this last question I consecrate my book, Problems of the Chinese Revolution (issued by the Pioneer Publishers, New York 1932).

One of the most surprising things in life is the sudden realization that one has become old

Against my protests a mausoleum was built on the Red Square, a monument unbecoming and offensive to the revolutionary consciousness.

For the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the efforts of one country are sufficient - for this we have the testimony of the history of our revolution. For the definitive victory of Socialism, for the organization of Socialist production, the efforts of one country, especially of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient - for that are required the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries.

The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.

If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the "mirror" of literature?

The boycott of parliamentary institutions on the part of anarchists and semianarchists is dictated by a desire not to submit their weakness to a test on the part of the masses, thus preserving their right to an inactive hauteur which makes no difference to anybody. A revolutionary party can turn its back to a parliament only if it has set itself the immediate task of overthrowing the existing regime.

City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.

The task of the proletariat is to create a still more powerful fatherland with a far greater power of resistance, the Republican United States of Europe, as the foundation of the United States of the World.

Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.

The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.

That the existence of the Soviet Union has an international revolutionary significance is a commonplace equally recognized by friends and foes.

The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.

Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.

To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and to establish the power of the proletariat in one country still does not signify the full victory of Socialism.

I feel here that this time they have succeeded.

With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in "giving a hiding" to the classes that were previously supreme, before forcing them to recognize the new order and to submit to it.

The usages and methods of warfare are thus determined by changing circumstances and, therefore, they themselves can in nowise be eternal.

In the appendix to my History of the Russian Revolution I give a detailed and documented study of the ideas of the Bolshevik party on the October revolution. This study, I hope, will make it impossible in the future to ascribe to [Vladimir] Lenin the theory of Socialism in a single country.

Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.

A program of "disarmament," while imperialist antagonisms survive, is the most pernicious of fictions. Even if it were realized by way of general agreement - an obviously fantastic assumption!- that would by no means prevent a new war. The imperialists do not make war because there are armaments; on the contrary, they forge arms when they need to fight.

Similar (of course, far from identical) irritations in similar conditions call out similar reflexes; the more powerful the irritation, the sooner it overcomes personal peculiarities. To a tickle, people react differently, but to a red-hot iron, alike. As a steam-hammer converts a sphere and a cube alike into sheet metal, so under the blow of too great and inexorable events resistances are smashed and the boundaries of "individuality" lost.

[Vladimir] Lenin died in January, 1924; three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.

Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation

Transcending class distinctions, the speaker [Stalin] portrays the relation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a mere division of labor. The workers and soldiers achieve the revolution, Guchkov and Miliukov "fortify" it.[...] This superintendent's approach to the historical process is exactly characteristic of the leaders of Menshevism, this handing out of instructions to various classes and then patronizingly criticizing their fulfillment.

The Federated Republic of Europe-the United States of Europe-that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.

In Russia itself the proletariat conquered in spite of the fact that there was no Soviet State in existence at the time elsewhere. For the victory are necessary, not only certain objective conditions, internal as well as external, but also certain subjective factors - the Party, the leadership, the strategy.

When one runs with the wolves, one must howl with the pack.

Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.

In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.

[Joseph] Stalin closes the exposition of these [Leon Trotsky] ideas with the words, "Such are in general the characteristic features of [Vladimir] Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution."

Only in the Fall of 1924 did [Joseph] Stalin discover that it is especially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, which can by its own forces build up a socialist society.

Can and must! The proclamation of this new conception of [Joseph Stalin] is closed by the same words, "Such are in general the characteristic features of Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution." In the course of a single year Stalin ascribed to [Vladimir] Lenin two directly opposed conceptions of the fundamental question of socialism. The first version represents the real tradition of the party; the second took shape in Stalin's mind only after the death of Lenin, in the course of the struggle against "Trotskyism".

I wrote a study about this question, The Lessons of October, which served as a pretext for my elimination from the government.

Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.

I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy.

Revolutionary realism tries to draw the maximum advantage from every situation - that is what makes it revolutionary - but at the same time it does not permit us to set ourselves fantastic aims - that is what makes it realistic.

Only when the kulak refused to deliver grain to the State did [Joseph] Stalin, under the pressure of the Left Opposition, accomplish a sharp turn. Being the empiricist that he is, he moved, to the opposite extreme, and set as a task for two or three years the collectivization of all the peasantry, the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, and the compression of the Five Year Plan into four years.

It is quite clear that the German and Chinese revolutions in case of victory would have changed the face of Europe and Asia, and perhaps of the whole world.

Socialist economy cannot reject the huge advantages of the world division of labor: on the contrary, it will carry it to the highest development. But in practise, it is not a question of the future socialist society, with an established internal equilibrium, but of the given technically and culturally backward country which in the interests of industrialisation and collectivization is forced to export as much as possible in order to import as much as possible.

If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism.