Leon Trotsky Quotes About Revolution

Quotes about: Revolution

• To renounce the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with those who wield it, the exploiters. The essence of every revolution consisted and consists in putting a new class in power, thus enabling it to realize its own program in life. It is impossible to wage war and to reject victory.

  Leon Trotsky

  War, Essence, Class

• All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist revolution.

  Leon Trotsky

  Communication, Party, Revolution

  Leon Trotsky (2000). “Their Morals and Ours: The Marxist View of Morality”, p.49, Resistance Books

• The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.

  Leon Trotsky

  Law, Class, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Revolutions are always verbose.

  Leon Trotsky

  Inspirational, Revolution, Politics

  Leon Trotsky, Max Eastman (2008). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.581, Haymarket Books

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Men, Thinking, People

  Leon Trotsky, Max Eastman (2008). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.353, Haymarket Books

• Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point.

  Leon Trotsky

  Long, Looks, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.

  Leon Trotsky

  Art, Bridges, Hands

  Leon Trotsky (1925). “Literature and Revolution”, p.181, Haymarket Books

• The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting - the war and the revolution - and the character of the accused - revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power - you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history.

  Leon Trotsky

  War, Party, Character

  Leon Trotsky (2017). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.596, Penguin UK

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Class, Division Of Labor, Leader

  Leon Trotsky (2017). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.306, Penguin UK

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Russia, Organization

  Source: www.marxists.org

• It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Victory, Unions

  Source: www.marxists.org

• [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."

  Leon Trotsky

  Ideas, Revolution, Characteristics

  Source: www.marxists.org

• It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.

  Leon Trotsky

  Development, Soil, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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".

  Leon Trotsky

  Real, Party, Struggle

  Source: www.marxists.org

• The theory of the permanent revolution, in contradiction to the theory of socialism in one country, was recognized by the entire Bolshevik party during the period from 1917 to 1923.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Party, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Destiny, Rulership, Firsts

  Leon Trotsky, Max Eastman (2008). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.15, Haymarket Books

• What shall we call an "immediate possibility"? In 1923 the situation in Germany was profoundly revolutionary, but what was lacking for a victorious revolution was a correct strategy.

  Leon Trotsky

  Germany, Revolution, Strategy

  Source: www.marxists.org

• Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923 gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory of national socialism: the downward curve of the revolution gave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanent revolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. This theory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionary events; it only reveals the world-wide interdependence of the revolutionary process.

  Leon Trotsky

  Curves, Firsts, Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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).

  Leon Trotsky

  New York, Book, Chinese Revolution

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Chinese Revolution, Europe, Victory

  Source: www.marxists.org

• No one revolution up to now has brought all that was expected of it by the masses. Hence the inevitability of a certain disillusionment, of a lowering of the activity of the vanguard, and consequently, of the growing importance of the rearguard. [Joseph] Stalin's faction has raised itself on the wave of reaction against the October revolution.

  Leon Trotsky

  October Revolution, Growing, Wave

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Party, Ideas

  Source: www.marxists.org

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

  Leon Trotsky

  Revolution, Problem, Revolutionary

  Source: www.marxists.org

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

  Leon Trotsky

  Writing, Three, Months

  Source: www.marxists.org

• 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.

  Leon Trotsky

  Country, Past, Years

  Source: www.marxists.org

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