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Leon Trotsky

107 quotes

“With regard to countries with a belated bourgeois development, especially the colonial and semi-colonial countries, the theory of the permanent revolution signifies that the complete and genuine solution of their tasks of achieving democracy and national emancipation is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat as the leader of the subjugated nation, above all of its peasant masses.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dictatorship of the proletariat which has risen to power as the leader of the democratic revolution is inevitably and, very quickly confronted with tasks, the fulfillment of which is bound up with deep inroads into the rights of bourgeois property. The democratic revolution grows over directly into the socialist revolution and thereby becomes a permanent revolution.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The completion of the socialist revolution within national limits is unthinkable.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces — in nature, in society, in man himself.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain — at least in a poor country like Russia — and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The life of a revolutionary would be quite impossible without a certain amount of "fatalism.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword (1929)
“I know well enough, from my own experience, the historical ebb and flow. They are governed by their own laws. Mere impatience will not expedite their change. I have grown accustomed to viewing the historical perspective not from the stand point of my personal fate. To understand the causal sequence of events and to find somewhere in the sequence one's own place – that is the first duty of a revolutionary. And at the same time, it is the greatest personal satisfaction possible for a man who does not limit his tasks to the present day.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was as the supreme expression of the mediocrity of the apparatus that Stalin himself rose to his position.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: レフ・トロツキー (ja)
“The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In January 1928 the working class stood face to face with the shadow of an advancing famine. History knows how to play a spiteful jokes. In that very month, when the kulaks were taking the revolution by the throat, the representatives of the Left Opposition were thrown into prison or banished to different parts of Siberia in punishment for their "panic" before the specter of the kulak.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The [Soviet Union] bureaucracy not only has not disappeared, yielding its place to the masses, but has turned into an uncontrolled force dominating the masses.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 40 in Doubleday, Doran & Company edition (1937)
“Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The owl of wisdom flies, as is well known, after sunset. Thus the theory of a "socialist" system of money and prices was developed only after twilight of inflationist illusions.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No, the Soviet woman is not yet free. Complete equality before the law has so far given infinitely more to the women of the upper strata, representatives of bureaucratic, technical, pedagogical and, in general, intellectual work, than to the working women and yet more the peasant women. So long as society is incapable of taking upon itself the material concern for the family, the mother can successfully fulfill a social function only on the condition that she has in her service a white slave: nurse, servant, cook,etx.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every revolutionary party finds its chief support in the younger generation of the rising class. Political decay expresses itself in a loss of ability to attract youth.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Independent character is like independent thought, it cannot be developed without criticism.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As though to complete the mockery of literature, Stalin, who does not know how to compose a Russian phrase correctly, is declared a classic in the matter of style”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Can we, however, expect that the Soviet Union will come out of the coming great war without defeat? To this frankly posed question, we will answer as frankly: If the war should remain only a war, the defeat of the Soviet Union would be inevitable. In a technical, economic, and military sense, imperialism in incomparably more strong. If it is not paralyzed by revolution in the West, imperialism will sweep away the regime which issued from the October revolution.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Stalin each [Soviet bureaucrat] easily finds himself. But Stalin also finds in each one a small part of his own spirit. Stalin is the personification of the bureaucracy. That is the substance of his political personality.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stalin, through Pravda, openly advised the local organs not to give them [the opposition] work. In a country where the sole employer is the state, this means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: 'who does not obey shall not eat.'”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena. In many of their features they show a deadly similarity.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Soviet bureaucracy is like all ruling classes in that it is ready to shut its eyes to the crudest mistakes of its leaders in the sphere of general politics, provided in return they show an unconditional fidelity in the defense of its privileges.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ancient philosopher said that strife is the father of all things. No new values can be created where a free conflict of ideas is impossible. To be sure, a revolutionary dictatorship means by its very essence strict limitations of freedom. But for that very reason epochs of revolution have never been directly favorable to cultural creation: they have only cleared the arena for it. The dictatorship of the proletariat opens a wider scope to human genius the more it ceases to be a dictatorship. The socialist culture will flourish only in proportion to the dying away of the state.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified, From the Marxist point of view, which expresses the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the abolition of the power of man over man.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“(On the American Civil War) "History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What, however, is our relation to revolution? Civil war is the most severe of all forms of war. It is unthinkable not only without violence against tertiary figures but, under contemporary technique, without murdering old men, old women and children... There is no impervious demarcation between ‘peaceful’ class struggle and revolution. Every strike embodies in an unexpanded form all the elements of civil war.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Despite the unquestionable greatness of the Anglo-Saxon genius, it is impossible not to see that the laws of revolutions are least understood precisely in the Anglo-Saxon countries.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try to avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Natasha and I said more than once that one may arrive at such a physical condition that it would be better to cut short one's own life or, more correctly, the too slow process of dying … But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dialectical thinking is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion. Dialectics does not deny the syllogism, but teaches us to combine syllogisms in such a way as to bring our understanding closer to the eternally changing reality.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The concrete is a combination of abstractions — not an arbitrary or subjective combination but one that corresponds to the laws of the movement of a given phenomenon.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a "self-made" man arising from this movement.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The genuine basis (for fascism) is the petty bourgeoisie. In italy, it has a very large base -- the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany, likewise, there is a large base for fascism....”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The economically powerful big bourgeoisie, in itself, represents an infintesimal minority of the nation. To enforce its domination, it must ensure a definite mutual relationship with the petty bourgeoisie and, through its mediation, with the proletariat.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In all the countries where fascism became victorious, we had, before the growth of fascism and its victory, a wave of radicalism of the masses -- of the workers and the poorer peasants and farmers, and of the petty bourgeois class. In Italy, after the war and before 1922, we had a revolutionary wave of tremendous dimensions; the state was paralyzed, the police did not exist, the trade unions could do anything they wanted -- but there was not party capable of taking the power. As a reaction came fascism.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leninism is orthodox, obdurate, irreducible, but it does not contain so much as a hint of formalism, canon, not bureaucratism. In the struggle, it takes the bull by the horns. To make out of the traditions of Leninism a supra-theoretical guarantee of the infallibility of all the words and thoughts of the interpreters of these traditions, is to scoff at genuine revolutionary tradition and transform it into official bureaucratism. It is ridiculous and pathetic to try to hypnotize a great revolutionary party by repetition of the same formulae, according to which the right line should be sought not in essence of each question, not in the methods of posing and solving this question, but in formation of a biographical character.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New Course (1924).
“Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. But at present even the handling of a hammer is taught with the help of a mirror, a sensitive film that records all the movements. Photography and motion-picture photography, owing to their passive accuracy of depiction, are becoming important educational instruments in the field of labor. 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? Of course no one speaks about an exact mirror. No one even thinks of asking the new literature to have mirror-like impassivity. The deeper literature is, and the more it is imbued with the desire to shape life, the more significantly and dynamically it will be able to "picture" life.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Literature and Revolution (1924), edited by William Keach (2005), Ch. 4 : Futurism, p. 120
“The dialectics of history have already hooked him and will raise him up. He is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionist, which makes him invaluable to them as a blinder on the eyes of the country. He has will and daring. He will not hesitate to utilize them and to move them against the Party. Right now he is organising himself around the sneaks of the party, the artful dodgers.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement of 1924 on Joseph Stalin's growing powerbase, in Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His Influence (1966); also in Stalin's Russia 1924-53 by Michael Lynch, p. 18
“During his illness, Lenin repeatedly addressed letters and proposals to the leading bodies and congresses of the party. It must be definitely stated that all these letters and suggestions were invariably delivered to their destination and they were all brought to the knowledge of the delegates to the Twelfth and Thirteenth Congresses, and have invariably exercised their influence on the decisions of the party. If all of these letters have not been published, it is because their author did not intend them to be published. Comrade Lenin has not left any “Testament”; the character of his relations to the party, and the character of the party itself, preclude the possibility of such a “Testament.” The bourgeois and Menshevik press generally understand under the designation of “Testament” one of Comrade Lenin’s letters (which is so much altered as to be almost unrecognizable) in which he gives the party some organizational advice. The Thirteenth Party Congress devoted the greatest attention to this and to the other letters, and drew the appropriate conclusions. All talk with regard to a concealed or mutilated “Testament” is nothing but a despicable lie, directed against the real will of Comrade Lenin and against the interests of the party created by him.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter on Max Eastman's Book (1 July 1925)
“During my youth I rather leaned toward the prognosis that the Jews of different countries would be assimilated and that the Jewish question would thus disappear, as it were, automatically. The historical development of the last quarter of a century has not confirmed this view. Decaying capitalism has everywhere swung over to an intensified nationalism, one aspect of which is anti-Semitism. The Jewish question has loomed largest in the most highly developed capitalist country of Europe, Germany.[…] The Jews of different countries have created their press and developed the Yiddish language as an instrument adapted to modern culture. One must therefore reckon with the fact that the Jewish nation will maintain itself for an entire epoch to come. […] We must bear in mind that the Jewish people will exist a long time. The nation cannot normally exist without common territory. Zionism springs from this very idea. But the facts of every passing day demonstrate to us that Zionism is incapable of resolving the Jewish question. The conflict between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine acquires a more and more tragic and more and more menacing character. I do not at all believe that the Jewish question can be resolved within the framework of rotting capitalism and under the control of British imperialism.[…] Socialism will open the possibility of great migrations on the basis of the most developed technique and culture. It goes without saying that what is here involved is not compulsory displacements, that is, the creation of new ghettos for certain nationalities, but displacements freely consented to, or rather demanded, by certain nationalities or parts of nationalities. The dispersed Jews who would want to be reassembled in the same community will find a sufficiently extensive and rich spot under the sun. The same possibility will be opened for the Arabs, as for all other scattered nations. National topography will become a part of the planned economy. This is the great historic perspective as I see it. To work for international Socialism means to work also for the solution of the Jewish question.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Excerpts of Trotsky’s interview with Jewish Telegraphic Agency (18 January 1937); as quoted in Trotsky and the Jews (1972) by Joseph Nedava, p. 204
“The Moscow trials are perpetrated under the banner of socialism. We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! If our generation happens to be too weak to establish Socialism over the earth, we will hand the spotless banner down to our children. The struggle which is in the offing transcends by far the importance of individuals, factions and parties. It is the struggle for the future of all mankind. It will be severe, it will be lengthy. Whoever seeks physical comfort and spiritual calm let him step aside. In time of reaction it is more convenient to lean on the bureaucracy than on the truth. But all those for whom the word 'Socialism' is not a hollow sound but the content of their moral life – forward! Neither threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching bones the truth will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer! Under all the severe blows of fate, I shall be happy as in the best days of my youth! Because, my friends, the highest human happiness is not the exploitation of the present but the preparation of the future.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'I Stake My Life', opening telephone address to the N.Y. Hippodrome Meeting for the opening event of the Dewey Commission on the Moscow Trial (February 9, 1937)
“Let us now turn to the revolution which took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, in the country of “democracy” – in the United States of North America. Although the question was not the abolition of property altogether, but only of the abolition of property in Negroes, nevertheless, the institutions of democracy proved absolutely powerless to decide the argument in a peaceful way. The southern states, defeated at the presidential elections in 1860, decided by all possible means to regain the influence they had hitherto exerted in the question of slave-owning; and uttering, as was right, the proper sounding words about freedom and independence, rose in a slave-owners’ insurrection. Hence inevitably followed all the later consequences of civil war. At the very beginning of the struggle, the military government in Baltimore imprisoned in Fort MacHenry a few citizens, sympathizers with the slave-holding South, in spite of Habeas Corpus. The question of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of such action became the object of fierce disputes between so-called “high authorities.” The judge of the Supreme Court decided that the President had neither the right to arrest the operation of Habeas Corpus nor to give plenipotentiary powers to that end to the military authorities.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The people, in the shape of the most democratic elements, were in favor of extreme measures. The Republican Party had a decided majority in the North, and persons suspected of secessionism, i.e., of sympathizing with the rebellious Southern states, were subjected to violence. In some northern towns, and even in the states of New England, famous for their order, the people frequently burst into the offices of newspapers which supported the revolting slave-owners and smashed their printing presses. It occasionally happened that reactionary publishers were smeared with tar, decorated with feathers, and carried in such array through the public squares until they swore an oath of loyalty to the Union. The personality of a planter smeared in tar bore little resemblance to the “end-in-itself ;” so that the categorical imperative of Kautsky suffered in the civil war of the states a considerable blow.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If it is a question of seeking formal contradictions, then obviously we must do so on the side of the White Terror, which is the weapon of classes which consider themselves “Christian,” patronize idealist philosophy, and are firmly convinced that the individuality (their own) is an end-in-itself. As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the “sacredness of human life.” We were revolutionaries in opposition, and have remained revolutionaries in power. To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source