Quotes by Joseph Stalin

No revolution can be made with silk gloves.

Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution.

Direct elections on the spot to all representative organs, up to the supreme organ, are a better guarantee of the interests of the working population of our boundless country.

Each position, each metre of the Soviet territory must be stubbornly defended, to the last drop of blood. We must cling to every inch of Soviet soil and defend it to the end!

Bukharin's a swine and surely worse than a swine because he thinks it below his dignity to write a couple of lines.

A certain inequality in regard to property still exists in a socialist society. But in a socialist society there is no unemployment, no exploitation, no oppression of nationalities.

Universal, equal, direct and secret elections in the U.S.S.R. will be a whip in the hands of the population against poorly functioning organs of government.

Words are one thing -- deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.

Remember how the first world war broke out. It broke out as a result of the desire to redivide the world.

It is difficult to say which is more menacing. But both of points of war danger -Japan and Germany exist and both are smoldering. In comparison with these two principal focal points
of the war danger, the Italo-Ethiopian war represents an episode.

In my opinion, there are two focal points of the war danger. The first focal point is the Far East zone of Japan. The second focal point in the zone is Germany.

American democracy and the Soviet system can exist simultaneously and compete peacefully. But one cannot develop into the other.

If things should go too far and deportation of all whiteguard emigres from the United States were demanded, this would be an attempt against the right of asylum promulgated in both the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.

The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal.

For instance, our country wanted to effect a revolution, and did effect it, and now we are building a new classless society.

In war I would deal with the Devil and his grandmother.

Marxists have more than once pointed out that the capitalist world economic system contains in itself the seeds of a general crisis and of warlike clashes.

There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm.

One of the successes of the cause of the friends of peace is the ratification of the Franco-Soviet Pact of Mutual Assistance.

Artillery is the god of war.

This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.

You do not lament the loss of hair of one who has been beheaded.

I have in mind repeated statements by Japanese military men containing threats against other states.

Ah, these diplomats! What chatterboxes! There's only one way to shut them up -- cut them down with machine guns. Bulganin, go and get me one!

The press must grow day in and day out -- it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon.

Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats.

It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.

Only when we succeed in creating such an order under which people receive for their labor from the society not according to the quantity and quality of labor, but according to their needs, will it be possible to say that we have built up a communist society.

In a socialist society, everybody is obliged to work even though he is remunerated for his labor and not yet according to his needs, but according to the quantity and quality of the labor expended.

Why will our elections be universal?Because all citizens, excluding those deprived of vote by court, will have the right to vote and the right to be elected.

When you chop wood, splinters fly.

You know, they are fooling us, there is no God.

Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship.

Not a few organizations exist in our country which function poorly. Sometimes it happens that this or that local government or organ have to satisfy one or another of the many-sided and ever increasing demands of the working population of town and countryside.

Writers are the engineers of human souls.

American Communist Party legally exists in the U.S.A., it nominates its candidates in the elections, including Presidential elections.

Have not fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany claimed that they have attained
similar results as in U.S.S.R.? Have not both been achieved at the price of privation and personal liberty sacrificed for the good of the state?

It was necessary, temporarily, to limit certain requirements, accumulate necessary means, strain forces. We acted precisely in this way and built a socialist society.

Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.

Many understand state socialism in this way. Sometimes a system is concealed behind this term in which the capitalist state, in the interests of preparation for the conduct of war, takes upon itself the maintenance of a certain number of private enterprises.

We secured peace for our country for one and a half years, as well as an opportunity of preparing our forces for defense if fascist Germany risked attacking our country in defiance of the pact. This was a definite gain to our country and a loss for fascist Germany.

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes.

Of course, in order to build something new, one has to economize, accumulate means, temporarily limit one's requirements, borrow from others. If you want to build a new house,
you save money temporarily and limit your requirements, otherwise you might not build your house.

This war is not as in the past: whoever occupies a territory also imposes his own social system.

Revolution, the substitution of one social system for another, has always been a struggle, a painful and a cruel struggle, a life and death struggle.

To slacken the tempo...would mean falling behind. And those who fall behind get beaten.

The people will always attempt to find the positive aspects of all circumstances, which, in themselves, are not susceptible to danger.

The Soviet system will not evolve into American democracy or vice-versa.

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this -- who will count the votes, and how.

The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages...onward, to victory!

This war is not an ordinary war. It is the war of the entire Russian people. Not only to eliminate the danger hanging over our heads, but to aid all people groaning under the yoke of Fascism.

Quantity has a quality all its own.

If Stalin was such a bad guy, why do all these people have to resort to attributing to him almost entirely quotes he didn't make, or manipulate his actual quotes just enough to make them seem evil?

It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.

In the Soviet Union, it's takes more courage to retreat than advance.

The situation is that in Germany capitalism has remained, classes and class struggle have remained which all the same will break into the open, which includes also the field of struggle of parties representing opposing classes just as it broke through in, let us say, Spain.

Farmers present by themselves the basic force of the national movement. Without farmers there can be no strong national movement. This is what we mean when we say that the nationalist question, is actually, the farmers' question.

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.

Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.

Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.

I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.

Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.

The only real power comes out of a long rifle.

The Pope? How many divisions has he got?

If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.

We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?

The writer is the engineer of the human soul.

A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.

I trust no one, not even myself.

Death solves all problems -- no man, no problem.

When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.