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A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

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
Means
Ends
Mean
Needs
Justified
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Simultaneously the Left Opposition in the course of several years carried on a struggle against the Stalinists in favor of collectivization.
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In France, the leader of Jacobinism perished on the guillotine with us, the change of leadership was achieved by means of arrest and banishment. The technique of the process is gentler, but its essence is the same.
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Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other.
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Only in the Fall of 1924 did [Joseph] Stalin discover that it is especially Russia, as distinguished from other countries, which can by its own forces build up a socialist society.
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Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction...
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Nowhere else did repressions, purges, suppressions, and all other kinds of bureaucratic hooliganism in general acquire such horrifying scope as in Ukraine, in the struggle against powerful forces concealed in the Ukrainian masses that desired more freedom and independence.
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The creative union of the conscious with the unconscious is what one usually calls 'inspiration.'
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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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Terror, as the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class, is historically justified, precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break the political will of the intelligentsia, pacify the professional man of various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to its own aims within the field of their specialties.
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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 Left Opposition declared that the new tempo of industrialization were above our forces, and that the liquidation of the kulaks as a class in the course of three years was a fantastic task, if one wishes to say so, we find ourselves this time less radical than the Stalinists.
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Workers – men and women – of all countries, place yourselves under the banner of the Fourth International. It is the banner of your approaching victory!
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The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
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Let us not forget that revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, and acting man, but explains him.
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From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
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Is it possible to fulfill this task, is it possible to achieve the definite victory of Socialism in one country without the combined efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible.
Leon Trotsky
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You are pitiful isolated individuals you are bankrupts your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on - into the dustbin of history!
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It is also false that the revolution ripens and comes to development only in the national soil.
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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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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.
Leon Trotsky