Vladimir Lenin Quotes

The existing system will be quickest and most radically overthrown by the annihilation of its exponents. Therefore, massacres of the enemies of the people must be set in motion.

It was not until I got down to Latin America that I began to get a political education. Whatever my ideas when I went down there, I saw things around me every day that influenced me. I saw the terrible economic and social conditions, and the injustices that could not be ignored.

Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror.

Where and when have riots and anarchy been provoked by wise measures? If the government had acted wisely, and if their measures had met the needs of the poor peasants, would there have been unrest among the peasant masses?

The class struggle does not permit supporting any governmental initiative or sharing in political power.

The governing class has become a privileged aristocracy, acting at its own discretion. It has little in common with the Communist workman who remains at his bench. The latter cannot escape the influence of his surroundings; he breathes the same air as the striker and the unemployed. In consequence a powerful protest has arisen from below. The Communist work-men demand actual participation in the government; they wish equality within the party; they wish freedom of discussion and a free press.

Communism cannot be imposed by force.

The governor … and considerable officers were there, our men getting up to them were ordered by me to put all to the sword; and indeed being in the heat of the action, I forbade them to spare any …

We must counter the strenuous efforts of the Aristocracy to appropriate to itself the power which rightly belongs to the people…. And to monopolize for themselves the enjoyment of liberty while they beguile the people with phantoms.

The system of Terror now proscribed throughout the French Republic cannot for one moment be tolerated in our little country without destroying it forever. Our system of government, our domestic circumstances and our dealings in commerce are all too sensitive to survive a repetition of these scenes of violence.

The reign of terror is not a revolution: it is only a necessary instrument in a determined phase of the revolution.

Every Communist must grasp the truth: Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Throughout history, people with few educational or economic resources and little bargaining power have often looked to authoritarian, ruthless people to stand up for them.

Social struggles have been taking place throughout millennia, since human beings, by resorting to wars, were able to take hold of a surplus production to satisfy the essential needs of life.

For the bourgeoisie, the main danger against which it had to be protected, that which had to be avoided at all costs, was armed uprising, was the armed people, was the workers taking to the streets in an assault against the government.

Once working people discover that, collectively, we have more power than we do as individual silos, then we become an incredibly powerful force. But I think that there are powers that be that are invested in us remaining divided along racial lines, along economic lines.

If Marx was alive during the Stalinist period, he'd be first to be in the gulag.

Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising.

It's ironic that socialism and similar left-wing ideas appeal to people who fashion themselves as 'anti-establishment,' when you can't have socialism without political repression.

Speaking of myself, I was made to realize long ago that the old trade union was utterly incompetent to deal successfully with the exploiting corporations in this struggle. I was made to see that in craft unionism the capitalist class have it within their power to keep the workers divided, to use one part of them to conquer and crush another part of them. Indeed, I was made to see that the old form of unionism separates the workers and keeps them helpless at the mercy of their masters.

...in any land, in any country under modern free competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be they white, black, or blue, at the political mercy of their stronger, richer, and more resourceful fellows, is a temptation which human nature seldom has withstood and seldom will withstand.

We must not depict socialism as if socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters -- then we are for it!

In modern capitalism economic exploitation rather than political oppression is the real enemy of the people.

...it was always our view that in order to attain this [proletarian revolution] and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised political power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew.

Five or six hundred [aristocratic] heads lopped off would have assured you repose and happiness; a false humanity has restrained your arm and suspended your blows; it will cost the lives of millions of your brothers.