Quotes from Vladimir Lenin

Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.

It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war.

People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.

Fascism is capitalism in decay.

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.

One of the chief symptoms of every revolution is the sharp and sudden increase in the number of ordinary people who take an active, independent and forceful interest in politics.

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers' cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism.

Politics is the most concentrated expression of economics.

The feminine section of the proletarian army is of particularly great significance... the success of a revolution depends on the extent to which women take part in it.

Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.

Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature.

The government is tottering. We must deal it the death blow an any cost. To delay action is the same as death.

We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory.

Sometimes - history needs a push.

To picture world history as advancing smoothly and steadily without sometimes taking gigantic strides backward is undialectical, unscientific and theoretically wrong.

History causes the military problem to become the essence of the political problem.

We are not shooting enough professors.

The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart.

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.

The Bolsheviks could not have retained power for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years, without the most rigorous and truly iron discipline in our Party.

Soviet power is a new type of state in which there is no bureacracy, no police, no standing army.