Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
I fail to see what dangers surrounding states can see in the ideas of the Soviet people if these states are really firmly seated in their saddles.
I don't know what specific frontiers Germany could adopt for her purposes, but I think that those willing "to lend" a frontier to her can be found.
We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.
Revolution, the substitution of one social system for another, has always been a struggle, a painful and a cruel struggle, a life and death struggle.
Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.
The reason why there is now no communist government in Paris is because in the circumstances of 1945 the Soviet army was not able to reach French soil.
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
To choose one's victims, to prepare one's plan minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed... There is nothing sweeter in the world.
Words are one thing - deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this - who will count the votes, and how.
The production of souls is more important than the production of tanks.... And therefore I raise my glass to you, writers, the engineers of the human soul.
Marxists have more than once pointed out that the capitalist world economic system contains in itself the seeds of a general crisis and of warlike clashes.
Universal, equal, direct and secret elections in the U.S.S.R. will be a whip in the hands of the population against poorly functioning organs of government.
Why will our elections be universal?Because all citizens, excluding those deprived of vote by court, will have the right to vote and the right to be elected.
In case Japan ventures to attack the Mongolian People's Republic, seeking to destroy its independence, we will have to assist the Mongolian People's Republic.
In my opinion, there are two focal points of the war danger. The first focal point is the Far East zone of Japan. The second focal point in the zone is Germany.
It was necessary, temporarily, to limit certain requirements, accumulate necessary means, strain forces. We acted precisely in this way and built a socialist society.
If you think that the people of the Soviet Union have any desire themselves, and moreover, by force, to alter the face of surrounding states, then you are badly mistaken.
If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a 'peace conference,' you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.
If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a 'peace conference', you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.
The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages...onward, to victory!
- Oh no, The Collective Farm policy was a terrible struggle... Ten million (he said holding up his hands). It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary.
We have no parties standing in opposition to each other, just as we have no class of capitalists and a class of workers exploited by capitalists in opposition to each other.
Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!
Direct elections on the spot to all representative organs, up to the supreme organ, are a better guarantee of the interests of the working population of our boundless country.
To assert that we desire to bring about revolution in other countries, by interfering with their lives, is to speak of something which does not exist and which we never preach.
A certain inequality in regard to property still exists in a socialist society. But in a socialist society there is no unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities.
American Communists have the opportunity to preach freely their ideas. It would be absolutely wrong to hold the Soviet government responsible for activities of the American Communists.
There is not, nor should there be, an irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of an individual person and the interests of the collective.
Capitalism in its imperialistic stage is a system which regards war as a legitimate method for solution of international disputes - a method which is legitimate in fact if not legally so.
Our Soviet society is socialist because private ownership of factories, plants, land, banks and means of transportation has been abolished in our country, and replaced by public ownership.
Yes, the electoral struggle [in U.S.S.R.] will be animated. It will proceed around numerous very sharp questions, namely, practical questions having first-rate significance for the people.
This war is not an ordinary war. It is the war of the entire Russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our heads, but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of Fascism
We Marxists believe that revolution will occur in other countries, as well. But it will occur at a time when it will be considered possible or necessary by revolutionaries of those countries.
In a socialist society, everybody is obliged to work even though he is remunerated for his labor and not yet according to his needs, but according to the quantity and quality of the labor expended.
In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.
According to our constitution, political emigres have the right to reside on our territory. We accord them the right of asylum, the same as the United States accords the right of asylum to political emigres.
If things should go too far and deportation of all whiteguard emigres from the United States were demanded, this would be an attempt against the right of asylum promulgated in both the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.
Our society consists exclusively of free working people of cities and villages, workers, peasants, intelligentsia. Each of these strata may have its special interests and express them in numerous existing organizations.
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.
Is it possible, then, to doubt that we can and must gain victory over the German invaders? The enemy is not as strong as some terror-stricken pseudo-intellectuals picture him. The devil is not as terrible as he is painted.
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.
Farmers present by themselves the basic force of the national movement. Without farmers there can be no strong national movement. This is what we mean when we say that the nationalist question, is actually, the farmers' question.
Have not fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany claimed that they have attained similar results [as in U.S.S.R.]? Have not both been achieved at the price of privation and personal liberty sacrificed for the good of the state?
There are capitalist states which consider themselves cheated, during previous redivisions of spheres of influence, territories, sources of raw materials, markets, etc., and which would again desire to redivide them to their own advantage.
It is difficult to say which is more menacing. But both of [points of war danger -Japan and Germany] exist and both are smoldering. In comparison with these two principal focal points of the war danger, the Italo-Ethiopian war represents an episode.
Real liberty exists only there where exploitation has been annihilated, where no oppression of some peoples by others exists, where there is no unemployment and pauperism, where a person does not tremble because tomorrow he may lose his job, home and bread.
Only when we succeed in creating such an order under which people receive for their labor from the society not according to the quantity and quality of labor, but according to their needs, will it be possible to say that we have built up a communist society.
Many understand "state socialism" in this way. Sometimes a system is concealed behind this term in which the capitalist state, in the interests of preparation for the conduct of war, takes upon itself the maintenance of a certain number of private enterprises.