Quote

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.

Leon Trotsky

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Situation
Immediate
Call
Correct
Revolutionary
Germany
Strategy
Revolution
Victorious
Possibility
Profoundly
Shall
Lacking

More quotes by Leon Trotsky

Image
Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.
Leon Trotsky
Image
The revenge of history is more powerful than the revenge of the most powerful General Secretary.
Leon Trotsky
Image
Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.
Leon Trotsky
Image
Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.
Leon Trotsky
Image
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
It is therefore not true that the mere existence of the Soviet Union is capable of assuring the victory of the revolution in other countries.
Leon Trotsky
Image
I wrote a study about this question, The Lessons of October, which served as a pretext for my elimination from the government.
Leon Trotsky
Image
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.
Leon Trotsky
Image
In Stalin each [Soviet bureaucrat] easily finds himself. But Stalin also finds in each one a small part of his own spirit. Stalin is the personification of the bureaucracy. That is the substance of his political personality.
Leon Trotsky
Image
A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
Leon Trotsky
Image
[Vladimir] Lenin died in January, 1924 three months later [Joseph] Stalin expounded in writing Lenin's conception of the proletarian revolution.
Leon Trotsky
Image
Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
Leon Trotsky