It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.
The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief: either to perish, or to catch up with the advanced countries and outdistance them, too, in economic matters.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the harsh realities of economic competition and the necessity of advancement or extinction.
Lenin's quote illustrates the intense pressures and challenges represented by economic competition among nations. It suggests that in a relentless global landscape, countries must either evolve and progress to keep pace with those more advanced or risk falling behind and facing dire consequences. The use of terms like 'relentless' and 'ruthless relief' underscores the urgency and severity of this economic struggle, indicating that survival in the modern world may depend on a nation's ability to innovate and advance economically.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about global economics, this quote could underscore the need for progressive policies.
More from Vladimir Lenin
All quotes βFor the complete extinction of the state, complete Communism is necessary.
Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism.
A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.
We are not utopians, we do not βdreamβ of dispensing at once with all administration, with all subordination. These anarchist dreams, based upon incomprehension of the tasks of the proletarian dictatorship, are totally alien to Marxism, and, as a matter of fact, serve only to postpone the socialist revolution until people are different. No, we want the socialist revolution with people as they are now, with people who cannot dispense with subordination, control, and "foremen and accountants".
The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.
Similar quotes
Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.
What if the counterculture was only a stumbling beginning, rather than the best that could be hoped for?
Spiritual power is the eternal guide, in this life and the life after, for man ranks supreme among all creatures. Led forward by spiritual power, man can reach the summit destined for him by the Great Creator.
At one point, early on, some public figures even asked whether it 'made sense' to rebuild New Orleans. Would you let your own mother die because it didn't make financial sense to spend the money to treat her, or because you were too busy to spend the time to heal her sick spirit?
when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian.
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows.