Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Vladimir Lenin. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Soviet Communist Party. A Marxist, he developed a variant of this communist ideology known as Leninism.
Born to a moderately prosperous middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime.
Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the market-oriented New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from the Russian Empire after 1917, but three were re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.
Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by supporters as a champion of socialism and the working class while critics have emphasised his role as founder and leader of an authoritarian regime responsible for political repression and mass killings.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would develop capitalism trade more rapidly. Is it not a fact that the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly?
The roots of modern religion are deeply embedded in the social oppression of the working masses.
There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.
We Would Be Deceiving Both Ourselves And The People If We Concealed From The Masses The Necessity Of A Desperate, Bloody War Of Extermination, As The Immediate Task Of The Coming Revolutionary Action.
We need the real, nation wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the great French Revolution achieved glory.
When it comes to hang the capitalists they will compete with each other to sell us the rope at a lower price.
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society.
One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, because they bite.
The government is tottering. We must deal it the death blow an any cost. To delay action is the same as death.
Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people.
But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.
America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism.
It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.
Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions.
Act with the greatest determination and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of every armed rising.
Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.
The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief.
Longer Version:
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.
Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror.
Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed.
The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into smaller states and all-national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them.
The entire trend of development is towards abolition of coercive domination of one part of society over another.
Ideological talk and phrase mongering about political liberties should be disposed with; all that is just mere chatter and phrase mongering. We should get away from those phrases.
The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie must teach the people to trust the bourgeoisie. The proletarians must teach the people to distrust the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavour to keep them disunited.
We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.
For any truth, if overdone (as Dietzgen Senior put it), if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its actual applicability, can be reduced to an absurdity, and is even bound to become an absurdity under these conditions.
But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism.
Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.
The Bolshevik slogans and ideas on the whole have been confirmed by history; but concretely things have worked out differently; they are more original, more peculiar, more varied than anyone could have expected.
No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of
their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism.
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.
Our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war.
Face the truth squarely. In politics that is always the best and the only correct attitude.
All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake public opinion for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.
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.
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.
Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.
An end to wars, peace among the nations, the cessation of pillaging and violence -- such is our ideal, but only bourgeois sophists can seduce the masses with this ideal, if the latter is divorced from a direct and immediate call for revolutionary action.
Recovery proceeding excellently. Am sure that the crushing of the Kazan Czechs and whiteguards, as well as of the kulak extortioners supporting them, will be exemplarily ruthless.
Human thought by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths.
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.
You must act with all energy. Mass searches. Execution for concealing arms.
The constitution of Soviet Russia must insure equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex, creed, race, or nationality.
The bourgeoisie are today evading taxation by bribery and through their connections; we must close all loopholes.
We must follow the rule: Better fewer, but better. We must follow the rule: Better get good human material in two or even three years than work in haste without hope of getting any at all.
Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state.
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.
It is essential to grasp the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity.
Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature.
Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.
The Poor Peasants' Committees are necessary to fight the kulaks, the rich, the exploiters, who shackle the working peasants.
Behind the epistemological scholasticism of empirio-criticism one must not fail to see the struggle of parties in philosophy, a struggle which in the last analysis reflects the tendencies and ideology of the antagonistic classes in modern society.
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 progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the national economy.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.
We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.
The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic.
A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery.
When we say the state, the state is We, it is we, it is the proletariat, it is the advanced guard of the working class.
Literature must become party literature. Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.
We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles.
One must not count in thousands, like the propagandist belonging to a small group that has not yet given leadership to the masses; in these circumstances one must count in millions and tens of millions.
Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.
Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.
We do not have time to play at oppositions at conferences. We will keep our political opponents... whether open or disguised as nonparty, in prison.
The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.
People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.
People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises.
No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination.
One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers Communist and the disarming of the bourgeoisie the middle class.
Where and when have riots and anarchy been provoked by wise measures? If the government had acted wisely, and if their measures had met the needs of the poor peasants, would there have been unrest among the peasant masses?
A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the masses.
To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.
Any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war.
Behind the October Revolution there are more influential personalities than the thinkers and executors of Marxism.
It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.
The soundest strategy in war is to postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy renders the delivery of the mortal blow both possible and easy.