Vladimir Lenin Quotes

Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.

In November, 1919, in Western Russia, the peasants would sell me nothing for money, whereas my neighbor in the train bought all he wanted in exchange for small quantities of salt.

Confronting the disillusionment of the peasant at this time, when the sowing period is approaching, it is imperative for us to 'link' manufactured goods and grain at any cost. Above everything we have to show the peasant that he did not till and sow in vain.

The big successful Communist revolutions occurred in poor agrarian societies–Russia in 1917 and China in 1949–not in industrialized societies, as Marx had predicted.

The Russian Revolution has demonstrated beyond doubt that the State idea, State Socialism, in all its manifestations ... is entirely and hopelessly bankrupt.

The Socialist group in the Chamber affirms .... that, in conformity with the fundamental thinking of the Socialists in all countries and with the tradition of French Socialism ever since the Revolution, it aims to abolish the capitalist system itself and to put an end to the exploitation of man by man, through the conquest of political power by the proletariat, through the substitution of social property for capitalist property, and through international agreement of the workers.

All power to the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

What is Communism? The Soviet Republic plus electrification.

Only idiots think that the proletariat will win a majority right away. First we topple the bourgeoisie. Then we seize power. That is the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Only the Russian Revolution really opened a window to the future; the fall of Czarism brought a glimpse of it, and with the collapse of capitalism it appeared in full view.

The Constituent Assembly ratifies the transfer of all banks to the ownership of the workers' and peasants' government as one of the conditions for the emancipation of the toiling masses from the yoke of capitalism.

The Constituent Assembly sets for itself as a fundamental task the suppression of all forms of exploitation of man by man and the complete abolition of class distinctions in society. It aims to crush unmercifully the exploiter, to reorganize society on a socialistic basis, and to bring about the triumph of Socialism throughout the world

A settlement of relations between the two countries will assist in the revolutionizing of the international and British proletariat not less than a successful rising in any of the working districts of England, as the establishment of close contact between the British and Russian proletariat, the exchange of delegations and workers, etc. will make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda of ideas of Leninism in England and the Colonies

That’s a very bourgeois notion. We’ve got enemies all around us, White Russians against the revolution, massive unemployment. We can’t have freedom of speech.

The revolution in Russia was terrible for the proletariat in the long years of its development- and it is terrible now.

Who, if not the revolutionary intelligentsia, could promote the political development of the working class?

Among other things the Russian experiment, no less than the experience of Socialist parties in Western Europe which have got some degree of power, shows clearly that not even the most cataclysmic revolution can create overnight those habits of mind and that social machinery necessary to the successful functioning of a new social order.

… if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality, must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia.

In the final account, the fate of our republic will depend upon whether the masses of the peasantry will go hand in hand with the working class

It is not national interests we are upholding — we claim that the interests of socialism, the interests of world socialism, rank higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state. We are defenders of the socialist fatherland.

Take immediate and decisive steps to better the condition of the peasant. Abandon the system of war-time Communism by which we practically took from the peasant all his surplus, and sometimes what was not his surplus but part of his necessary subsistence.

Contrary to the ordinary conception, the real revolution at that time [1917] was not made in the cities, but in the villages. The essential content of the Russian revolution was the tremendous, elemental process which took place among the peasants and resulted in the disruption of the landed estates, the expulsion of the landed proprietors, most of them belonging to the nobility, from their villages, and the forcible appropriation of all private and state lands by the peasants.

The workers and peasants must, as quickly as possible, seize everything that was created by them over many centuries and use it for their own interests.

I took part in what was actually the last eruption of Marxist internationalism.

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.