Leon Trotsky Quotes

War is coming. That’s inevitable. The capitalist world has reached a state of putrid ferment, and people are already affected by the poison of chauvinism and nationalism. I think we shall yet witness an all-European war. The proletariat? I hardly think the proletariat will find the strength to prevent a blood-bath…The proletariat will suffer terribly, of course, such, alas, is its fate for the time being. But its enemies will enfeeble one another; that, too, is inevitable.

Communism was not only defined as the things that Marx and Lenin had advocated, but included anything that had the potential for change in the society.

To begin to know the philosophy of socialism, in backward countries where the class differences are great, very great, and terribly exaggerated over the conditions we know in this country, to overcome this, the theory of revolution, of force and violence, was necessary within those political conditions. It couldn't be anything else.

I would say I was still a Marxist - which is not to be confused with being a Communist. Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

Communism is in conflict with human nature.

Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations.

If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.

If people don't like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum.

Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.

Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist.

Despite its flaws, Marxism still seems to explain the material world better than anything else.

Our judgment and moral categories, our idea of the future, our opinions about the present or about justice, peace, or war, everything, without excluding our rejections of Marxism, is impregnated with Marxism.

The so-called 'materialistic conception of history,' with the crude elements of genius of the early form which appeared, for instance, in the 'Communist Manifesto,' still prevails only in the minds of laymen and dilettantes.

The great Plekhanov, the true one, belongs entirely and wholly to us. It is our duty to restore to the young generation his spiritual figure in all its stature.

In Russia bureaucracy as the ruling class is master of production and produce, and the Russian workers are an exploited class.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion — how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man.

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak

Marxism comprises many principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to a single sentence: it is right to rebel.

I am still moved by passages of Marx: the 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right,' for example, where, after the famous line about religion being 'the opium of the people,' he goes on to call it 'the heart of a heartless world.'

Marxism is the only doctrine that both satisfies the demands for progress and provides a safe outlet for moral expression in a skeptical age.

Something that's seldom appreciated about me is that I am in sympathy with a great deal of what Marx wrote, except that I'm on the side of the bourgeoisie.

Communism is a religion that is inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against Almighty God.

Communists are great capitalists, so there is no threat anymore.

Neither an ox nor a donkey is able to stop the progress of socialism.