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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.

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

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The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity.
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Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.
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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.
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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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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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[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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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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Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravity.
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Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction...
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There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.
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Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation.
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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.
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The task of the proletariat is to create a still more powerful fatherland with a far greater power of resistance, the Republican United States of Europe, as the foundation of the United States of the World.
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A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
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Revolutions are always verbose.
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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.
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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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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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