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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
Inopportune
Magnanimous
Cruelty
Worse
Serious
Struggle
Time

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National self-sufficiency or autarchy is the ideal of [Adolf] Hitler, not of [Karl] Marx and [Vladimir] Lenin.
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If one cannot get along without a mirror, even in shaving oneself, how can one reconstruct oneself or one's life, without seeing oneself in the mirror of literature?
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The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.
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What shall we call an immediate possibility? In 1923 the situation in Germany was profoundly revolutionary, but what was lacking for a victorious revolution was a correct strategy.
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[Joseph] Stalin closes the exposition of these [Leon Trotsky] ideas with the words, Such are in general the characteristic features of [Vladimir] Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.
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The Soviet State does not need either illusions or camouflage. It can claim only that world authority which is confirmed by the facts.
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Our planet is being turned into a filthy and evil-smelling imperialist barrack.
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City of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automation, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.
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The revolution has its own laws: in the period of its culmination it pushes the most highly developed, determined and far-seeing stratum of the revolutionary class to the most advanced positions.
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In 1925 - 27 the revolution in China was destroyed by the false revolutionary strategy of the Stalinist faction. To this last question I consecrate my book, Problems of the Chinese Revolution (issued by the Pioneer Publishers, New York 1932).
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As long as human labor power, and, consequently, life itself, remain articles of sale and purchase, of exploitation and robbery, the principle of the “sacredness of human life” remains a shameful lie, uttered with the object of keeping the oppressed slaves in their chains.
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The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'
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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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In 1917 there was not a single Bolshevik who considered possible the realization of a socialist society in a single country, and least of all in Russia.
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Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
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The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
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The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
Leon Trotsky
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Dialectical thought is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion.
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The Federated Republic of Europe-the United States of Europe-that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of Europe can give peace to the world.
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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.
Leon Trotsky