John Reed Quotes

In October 1917, we parted with the old world, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a new world, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road.

The collapse of Russia was the second great event of 1917.

The chief fruit of the First World War was the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism as a national power.

What happened in Russia in 1917 wasn't a revolution - it was a coup d'etat.

Lenin, the greatest theorist of them all, did not know what he was going to do after he had got the power.

My impressions of the Russian Revolution can be divided into two periods. The first period was when I showed deep sympathy. My second period is one of disappointment. This change was the result of close observation on the spot.

Yesterday Kerensky; today Lenin and Trotsky; another tomorrow.

Nothing to bother about, the man was a Bolshevik.

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

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

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.

Now that the great revolution has come one feels that however intelligent Lenin may be he begins to fade beside the genius of Trotsky

The Russian Communist Party is not just any party. History decreed that the R.C.P was to become a mighty instrument of human progress and a major instrument of the world revolution. Its importance is great and immeasurable in the history not only of Russia but also in that of the whole world

Lenin was a Russian bourgeois who cursed the weakness and ineptitude of the Russian bourgeoisie

… the great mischief-maker Lenin

The rout of fascism, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, generated a mighty tide of socio-political changes which swept across the globe.

I suspect in Lenin's works there's everything, if you search well.

First of all, Bolshevism represents revolution and the revolutionary struggle.

In the early days of the Russian Revolution in 1917, I was completely in sympathy with it. I felt that it established a new era in the history of the modern world. I was so overwhelmed by it that, if people made any unfriendly comment, I would vigorously defend it. If people condemned the Communist party, I would speak in its defense.

My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too.

Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.

My father was convinced, I think rightly, that if he stayed in Russia, he would have trouble with Lenin.

It is already clear, after twenty years of socialism in Russia, that if you do not provide your society with a new religion, it will gradually revert to the old one.

At the time of the Revolution, dogs howled day and night all over Russia.