It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
— Interview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard; March 1, 1936
* * *
Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.... These organisations (i.e. Fascism and social democracy) are not antipodes, they are twins.
— “Concerning the International Situation,” Works, Vol. 6, January-November, 1924, pp. 293-314.
* * *
The State is a machine in the hands of the governing class for suppressing the resistance of its class antagonists. In this way the dictatorship of the proletariat differs in no way essentially from the dictatorship of any other class.
— Voprosi Leninizma, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoy literaturi, (1939).
* * *
We do not want a single foot of foreign territory; but of our territory we shall not surrender a single inch to anyone.
— Political Report of the C.C. to XVI Party Congress (29 June 1930).
* * *
Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division, and from the antagonism between poor and rich, means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.
— Interview with H. G. Wells (September 1937).
* * *
The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal, everything else is ephemeral. That is why it is necessary to appreciate the full value of the confidence of the people.
— Address to the Reception of Directors and Stakhanovites of the Metal Industry and the Coal Mining Industry (29 October 1937).
* * *
History shows that there are no invincible armies and that there never have been.
— Radio Address (3 July 1941)
* * *
The strength of Soviet patriotism lies in the fact that it is based not on racial or nationalistic prejudices, but on the peoples' profound loyalty and devotion to their Soviet Motherland, on the fraternal partnership of the working people of all the nationalities in our country.
— Speech at Celebration Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies and Moscow Party and Public Organizations (6 November 1944)
* * *
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends. This is a great mistake. We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.
— Anarchism or Socialism (1906).
* * *
Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx's proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.
— Anarchism or Socialism (1906).
* * *
Strikes, boycott, parliamentarism, meetings and demonstrations are all good forms of struggle as means for preparing and organising the proletariat. But not one of these means is capable of abolishing existing inequality. All these means must be concentrated in one principal and decisive means; the proletariat must rise and launch a determined attack upon the bourgeoisie in order to destroy capitalism to its foundations. This principal and decisive means is the socialist revolution.
— Anarchism or Socialism (1906).
* * *
Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Marx and Engels pursued their activities in the pre-revolutionary period (we have the proletarian revolution in mind), when developed imperialism did not yet exist, in the period of the proletarians' preparation for revolution, in the period when the proletarian revolution was not yet an immediate practical inevitability. But Lenin, the disciple of Marx and Engels, pursued his activities in the period of developed imperialism, in the period of the unfolding proletarian revolution, when the proletarian revolution had already triumphed in one country, had smashed bourgeois democracy and had ushered in the era of proletarian democracy, the era of the Soviets.
— The Foundations of Leninism (1924).
* * *
The Party is the highest form of organisation of the proletariat. The Party is the principle guiding force within the class of the proletarians and among the organisations of that class. But it does not by any means follow from this that the Party can be regarded as an end in itself, as a self-sufficient force. The Party is not only the highest form of class association of the proletarians; it is at the same time an instrument in the hands of the proletariat for achieving the dictatorship, when that has not yet been achieved and for consolidating and expanding the dictatorship when it has already been achieved.
—The Foundations of Leninism (1924).
* * *
“What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.”
—Speech at The Seventh Enlarged Plenum of the E.C.C.I. (December 1926).
* * *
“A true revolutionary is not that demonstrates value in the period of the victorious uprising, but who knows how to fight not only at the time of the victorious advance but also at the retreat of the revolution; that demonstrates value in the period of the defeat of the proletariat, which does not lose the head, which does not abandon the road when the revolution suffers a defeat and the enemy records successes; which is not dominated by panic, or falls into despair in the retreat of the revolution period.”
* * *
“You speak of Sinified socialism. There is nothing of the sort in nature. There is no Russian, English, French, German, Italian socialism, as much as there is no Chinese socialism. There is only one Marxist-Leninist socialism.”
* * *
“The more accurately we recognize and observe the laws of history and class struggle, so much the more do we conform to dialectic materialism. The more insight we have into dialectic materialism, the greater will be our success.”
* * *
“It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper.”
* * *
“Either place yourself at the mercy of capital, eke out a wretched existence as of old and sink lower and lower, or adopt a new weapon – this is the alternative imperialism puts before the vast masses of the proletariat. Imperialism brings the working class to revolution.”
* * *
“I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy”.
