Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“We are not utopians, we do not “dream” of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and "foremen and accountants".”

“The departments are shit; decrees are shit.”

“Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.”

“And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions?”

“When the workers of a single factory or of a single branch of industry engage in struggle against their employer or employers, is this class struggle? No, this is only a weak embryo of it. The struggle of the workers becomes a class struggle only when all the foremost representatives of the entire working class of the whole country are conscious of themselves as a single working class and launch a struggle that is directed, not against individual employers, but against the entire class of capitalists and against the government that supports that class. Only when the individual worker realizes that he is a member of the entire working class, only when he recognises the fact that his petty day-to-day struggle against individual employers and individual government officials is a struggle against the entire bourgeoisie and the entire government, does his struggle become a class struggle.”

“All official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery.”

“Čovek nikada ne može biti dovoljno radikalan.Odnosno, čovek mora biti radikalan koliko i sama stvarnost.”

“But suppose, for the sake of argument, free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would develop capitalism trade more rapidly. Is it not a fact that the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly?”

“Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.”

“We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies, and we have to advance almost constantly under their fire. We have combined, by a freely adopted decision, for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not of retreating into the neighbouring marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation. And now some among us begin to cry out: Let us go into the marsh! And when we begin to shame them, they retort: What backward people you are! Are you not ashamed to deny us the liberty to invite you to take a better road! Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don't clutch at us and don't besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are "free" to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!”

“Human knowledge is not (or does not follow) a straight line, but a curve, which endlessly approximates a series of circles, a spiral. Any fragment, segment, section of this curve can be transformed (transformed one-sidedly) into an independent, complete, straight line, which then (if one does not see the wood for the trees) leads into the quagmire, into clerical obscurantism (where it is anchored by the class interests of the ruling classes).”

“During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.”

“إن البروليتاريا ترمي تلك الآلة التي تحمل اسم الدولة والتي يقف الناس حيالها باحترام مشوب بالخشوع ويصدقون بشأنها الأساطير القديمة القائلة أنها سلطة الشعب كله، وتعلن البروليتاريا: ان ذلك كذب بورجوازي. وقد انتزعنا نحن هذه الآلة من أيدي الرأسماليين وأخذناها لأنفسنا. وبهذه الآلة أو العصا سنحطم نحن الاستثمار بأشكاله، وعندما تنعدم في الدنيا إمكانية الاستثمار، عندما ينعدم ملاكو الأراضي، ملاكو المصانع، عندما يزول هذا الوضع الذي يصاب فيه البعض بالتخمة ويجوع آخرون، عندما تزول إمكانيات ذلك، عندئذ فقط نترك هذه الآلة للتحطيم. عندئذ تزول الدولة ويزول الاستثمار.”

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

“The goal of Socialism is Communism.”

“Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.”

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

“Sometimes - history needs a push.”