Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
Leon TrotskyRead
From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a shift from an idealized perception of a nation's people to a harsh and brutal truth about their circumstances.
Leon Trotsky's quote suggests a transformation in how the Russian people are perceived, moving from an elevated, almost mythical status to confronting the stark and painful realities of their existence. This shift implies that the once glorified image of patriotism has been replaced by the recognition of suffering, oppression, and struggle, highlighting the complexities of human experience within political contexts.
Themes
PatriotismRealityPoliticsSufferingChange
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the impacts of war on societies, one might use this quote to illustrate the disillusionment that often follows nationalistic sentiments.
More from Leon Trotsky
All quotes βAbusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, oneβs own and that of other people.
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In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.
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Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.
Leon TrotskyRead
The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.
Leon TrotskyRead
History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains β let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
Leon TrotskyRead
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Fortune, not wisdom, rules lives.
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The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes.
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There is no intrinsic worth in money but what is alterable with the times, and whether a guinea goes for twenty pounds or for a shilling, it is the labor of the poor and not the high and low value that is set on gold or silver, which all the comforts of life must arise from.
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Bombing is not especially inhumane. War itself is inhumane and the bombing plane, which is used to paralyse industry and transport, is a relatively civilised weapon. 'Normal' or 'legitimate' warfare is just as destructive of inanimate objects and enormously so of human lives.
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