Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Revolutionary, Politician

Leon Trotsky was a key figure in the Russian Revolution and a prominent Marxist theorist known for his ideas on permanent revolution and critiques of Stalinism.

Country Party Revolution Men Class Struggle
Born
November 7, 1879
Died
August 21, 1940
Quotes
134
Rank
#507

Quote collection

Leon Trotsky quotes (page 4 of 7)

134 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside the twentieth century, the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms . . . movie stars to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery!"

Stars Believe Ignorance
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Dialectical thought 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."

Thinking Law Doe
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"There is no justice in bureaucracy for the individual, for bureaucracy caters only to itself. One cannot practice the same bureaucracy as one is fighting against."

Fighting Practice Justice
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism."

Eye Dark Sides
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Is it possible to fulfill this task, is it possible to achieve the definite victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible."

Country Effort Victory
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points."

Distance Two Violence
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character."

Character Differences
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary."

Powerful Revenge Most Powerful
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'"

Art Inspiration Creative
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"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."

Long Looks Revolution
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"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."

Country Party Ideas
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"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."

October Revolution Growing Wave
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality."

Patriotic Reality People
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"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."

Lying Reality Wish
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws."

Art Law Revolutionary
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"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."

Inspirational Country Men
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"Actually, the decision was not only expedient but necessary. The severity of this summary justice showed the world that we would continue to fight mercilessly, stopping at nothing. The execution of the Tsar's family was needed not only in order to frighten, horrify, and dishearten the enemy but also in order to shake up our own ranks, to show them that there was no turning back, that ahead lay either complete victory or complete ruin."

Fighting Order Justice
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Leon Trotsky Revolutionary, Politician
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"If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes."

Mistake Planning More Time
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