Quotes About Power

So long as the state exists there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.

Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin.

You cannot make a revolution in white gloves.

When a war is waged by two opposing groups of robbers for the sake of deciding who shall have a freer hand to oppress more people, then the question of the origin of the war is of no real economic or political significance.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament.

If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism.

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.

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.

Does not the whole history of socialism, particularly of French socialism, which is so rich in revolutionary striving, show us that when the working people themselves take power in their hands the ruling classes resort to unheard-of crimes and shootings if it is a matter of protecting their money-bags.

Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.

War cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished.

Every cook must learn to rule the State.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. But when it comes it moves irresistibly.

The majority of the so-called great powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole series of small and weak peoples. And the imperialist war is nothing other than a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty.

The working class must break up, smash the "ready-made state machinery," and not confine itself merely to laying hold of it.

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

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.

In the two months following the revolution the industrialists have robbed the whole of Russia.

There's room at the top I'm telling you still but first you must learn how to smile as you kill if you want to be like the folks on the hill.

Happiness is a warm gun.

In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.

It's the supression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.

There are 249 millionaires in Congress. Remember a couple of years ago when this new Congress told us they had the solution to the recession? Apparently, they didn't share it with the rest of us.