11 quotes
No one yet has learned to drive a locomotive sitting in his study.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
To make the individual sacred we must destroy the social order which crucifies him. And this problem can only be solved by blood and iron.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
In war, where both success and failure are repaid by death, hostile agents who penetrate into the rear are subject to execution. This is inhuman, but no one ever considered war a school of humanity.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
The Constituent Assembly placed itself across the path of the revolutionary movement, and was swept aside.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very existence of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
In times of peace, the capitalists used to guarantee their interests by means of the "peaceful" robbery of hired labor. During the war they served those same interests by means of the destruction of countless human lives.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
The argument which is repeated again and again in criticisms of the Soviet system in Russia, and particularly in criticisms of revolutionary attempts to set up a similar structure in other countries, is the argument based on the balance of power.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
The balance of political power at any given moment is determined under the influences of fundamental and secondary factors of differing degrees of effectiveness, and only in its fundamental quality is it determined by the state of the development of production.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state … Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)
It is only possible to safeguard the supremacy of the working class by forcing the bourgeoisie accustomed to rule, to realize that it is too dangerous an undertaking for it to revolt against the dictatorship of the proletariat, to undermine it by conspiracies, sabotage, insurrections, or the calling in foreign troops.
Terrorism and Communism (1920)