Vladimir Lenin Quotes

I regard Marxism as the most sinister and the most subtle form of totalitarianism.

For some people, being free means being free to keep their feet on someone else's chest.

The Communist Party is very popular in South Africa, especially among the young people. Never having had a chance to travel, and having suffered so much under capitalism, they still can't believe that the Russian people themselves have rejected it.

I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways; in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered.

Marxism is now a world faith and must be allowed to enter into a continuous dialogue with other world faiths, including religious faiths

Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.

The only solution to the contradictions of capitalism entails the abolition of wage labour.

There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. 'Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.

I may still be a kind of a Marxist but I'm very realistic, I don't have these dreams of revolutionists around the corner.

Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.

To overthrow the power of the bourgeoisie and to establish the power of the proletariat in one country still does not signify the full victory of Socialism.

We have a theoretical concept of the Revolution which is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

Leadership is different from management, but not for the reasons most people think.

The dreamers always seem to think their dream is worth the price that other people will pay. They also delude themselves that they will control whatever evil they use to try to bring about their dream.

I think, over the course of one's lifetime, there are always certain core elements that are intriguing to you, and you take different looks as you get older, but it's something you keep coming back to. I've always been interested in the relationship between vulnerability and control. That's something that's a big thing for people, whoever they are, no matter how old you are. I think at different times, you're more aware than others.

It is different for us mortals. We are the ones who become old and grey. We are the ones who become worn at the seams and disappear. But not our dreams. They can live on in other people even after we have gone.

This country isn't working for working people. It's working only for people at the top. That's not the American dream. That's the American nightmare.

Life is like a ship. There's people dancing on a ship.There's a lot of money on the ship, but I cannot integrate on the ship or get equality on the ship.And I never could. I'm just in the galley working and I never could get up to see the captain of the ship.

The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.

Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. In the United States today, opiates are the religion of the people.

Out of power, Marxism can develop critical intelligence; in power, it quickly becomes stupid.

The People's democratic dictatorship needs the leadership of the working class. For it is only the working class that is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly revolutionary. The entire history of revolution proves that without the leadership of the working class revolution fails and that with the leadership of the working class revolution triumphs.

But remember, this power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below. When people stop obeying, they have no power.

All the revolutions have happened when a Fidel or Marx or Lenin or whatever, who were intellectuals, were able to get through to the workers. They got a good pocket of people together and the workers seemed to understand that they were in a repressed state.

In fact the communists gained strength in India when the people thought my party was moving to the right. And they were correct.