VICTOR MIKHAILOVICH CHERNOV

Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotsky; another tomorrow.

His [Lenin’s] love of the proletariat was the same despotic, exacting, and merciless love with which, centuries ago, Torquemada burned people for their salvation.

… as politics is disguised war, the rules of war constitute its principles.

Few orators have known how to achieve such admirable results by dint of repetition. Besides, Lenin always felt his audience. He never rose too high above its level, nor did he ever omit to descend to it at just the necessary moment, in order not to break the continuity of the hypnosis which dominated the will of his flock; and more than any one he realized that a mob is like a horse that wants to be firmly bestrode and spurred, that wants to feel the hand of a master.

The essential effect of war on a citizen's conscience is nothing but a legalization and glorification of things that in times of peace constitute crime.

Lenin's conscience consisted in putting himself outside the boundaries of human conscience in all dealings with his foes; and in thus rejecting all principles of honesty he remained honest with himself.

Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotsky; another tomorrow.

His [Lenin’s] love of the proletariat was the same despotic, exacting, and merciless love with which, centuries ago, Torquemada burned people for their salvation.

Few orators have known how to achieve such admirable results by dint of repetition. Besides, Lenin always felt his audience. He never rose too high above its level, nor did he ever omit to descend to it at just the necessary moment, in order not to break the continuity of the hypnosis which dominated the will of his flock; and more than any one he realized that a mob is like a horse that wants to be firmly bestrode and spurred, that wants to feel the hand of a master.

… as politics is disguised war, the rules of war constitute its principles.

Lenin's conscience consisted in putting himself outside the boundaries of human conscience in all dealings with his foes; and in thus rejecting all principles of honesty he remained honest with himself.

The essential effect of war on a citizen's conscience is nothing but a legalization and glorification of things that in times of peace constitute crime.