6 quotes
Lenin wanted power. This may sound self-evident; after all, every politician is assumed to lust for power. But deep down, Lenin’s rivals did not want it.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
We cannot determine whether or not he had met Lenin during their common exile in Switzerland; Mussolini once cryptically remarked: ‘Lenin knew me better than I knew him.’
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
The purpose of totalitarian parties, for which Bolshevism provided the model, was not to become the government, but to manipulate the government from behind the scenes.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
Another advantage of Lenin’s derived from the fact that he did not care about Russia. He cared about Germany and England in the sense that, for him, as a revolutionary, they were the key countries. Russian he viewed as nothing more than a stepping-stone to global upheaval;…
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
Last but not least, the factor which prevented Trotsky from succeeding Lenin was his Jewishness. Trotsky hated to be reminded that he was a Jew. Whenever anybody come to him asking him to help other Jews, he would explode in anger and insist that he was not a Jew but an ‘internationalist.’ On one occasion he said that the fate of the Jews concerned him as little as the fate of the Bulgarians.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
By 1921 it had become clear to all but the more incorrigible optimists that there would be no repetition of October 1917 anywhere else and that for an indeterminate period the revolution would remain confined to Russia and her possessions. The concept of ‘socialism in one country’ was not launched by Stalin in his conflict with Trotsky, but earlier by Lenin himself.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)