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In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.

Leon Trotsky

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Leon Trotsky
Age: 60 †
Born: 1879
Born: January 1
Died: 1940
Died: January 1
Autobiographer
Diplomat
Historian
Journalist
Military Personnel
Philosopher
Politician
Revolutionary
Writer
N. Trotsky
Lev Bronstein
Lev Davidovich Bronshtein
Lev Davidovich Bronstein
Leon Trotski
Cruelty
Worse
Serious
Struggle
Time
Inopportune
Magnanimous

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From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
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In spite of the existence of the Soviet Union, however, the proletarian revolution during the past years has not recorded a victory in any other country.
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With all due respect to all philistines, the dictatorship of the proletariat does just consist in giving a hiding to the classes that were previously supreme, before forcing them to recognize the new order and to submit to it.
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There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
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Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
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There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
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In Russia itself the proletariat conquered in spite of the fact that there was no Soviet State in existence at the time elsewhere. For the victory are necessary, not only certain objective conditions, internal as well as external, but also certain subjective factors - the Party, the leadership, the strategy.
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The party that leans upon the workers but serves the bourgeoisie, in the period of the greatest sharpening of the class struggle, cannot but sense the smells wafted from the waiting grave.
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Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
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[Vladimir] Lenin died in January, 1924 three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.
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The fundamental flaw of vulgar thought lies in the fact that it wishes to content itself with motionless imprints of a reality which consists of eternal motion.
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The people will have the right to elect their representatives from a list of candidates [who have been approved by the Party].
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I wrote a study about this question, The Lessons of October, which served as a pretext for my elimination from the government.
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Old age is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.
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England is nothing but the last ward of the European madhouse, and quite possibly it will prove to be the ward for particularly violent cases.
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I feel here that this time they have succeeded.
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Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.
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