117 Inspiring Quotes by Vladimir Lenin

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

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

It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.

Democracy is indispensable to socialism.

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing.

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the 'freedom of the press' goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism.

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.

Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.

The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.

Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.

When there is state there can be no freedom, but when there is freedom there will be no state.

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.

Every cook has to learn how to govern the state.

Fascism is capitalism in decay.

A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution.

Three keys to success: read, read, read.

A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines.

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.

It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.

The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. ... The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion.

Behind the October Revolution there are more influential personalities than the thinkers and executors of Marxism.

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.

Peace reigned in Europe, but this was because domination over hundreds of millions of people in the colonies by the European nations was sustained only through constant, incessant, interminable wars, which we Europeans do not regard as wars at all, since all too often they resembled, not wars, but brutal massacres, the wholesale slaughter of unarmed peoples.

We are not shooting enough professors.

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.

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.

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?

It is necessary to be able to withstand all this, to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even -- if need be -- to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs.

In capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false, a democracy only for the rich, for the minority. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the period of transition to communism, will for the first time create democracy for the people, for the majority, along with the necessary suppression of the exploiters, of the minority.

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.

No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination.

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.

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

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.

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.

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation.

Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic.

We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Poor Peasants' Committees are necessary to fight the kulaks, the rich, the exploiters, who shackle the working peasants.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The bourgeoisie are today evading taxation by bribery and through their connections; we must close all loopholes.

The constitution of Soviet Russia must insure equal rights for all citizens regardless of sex, creed, race, or nationality.

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capitalism is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.

You must act with all energy. Mass searches. Execution for concealing arms.

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.

The revolution does not need historians.

I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with
such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come. The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for
this reason, the better.

Human thought by its nature is capable of giving, and does give, absolute truth, which is compounded of a sum-total of relative truths.

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.

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.

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

Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

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

You must have your heart on fire and your brain on ice.

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.

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.

Face the truth squarely. In politics that is always the best and the only correct attitude.

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.

This fear of criticism displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness. No, the majority of the Economists look with sincere resentment upon all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, plans for organising revolutionaries, etc.

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.

The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavour to keep them disunited.

Let the "socialist" snivellers croak, let the bourgeoisie rage and fume, but only people who shut their eyes so as not to see, and stuff their ears so as not to hear, can fail to notice that all over the world the birth pangs of the old, capitalist society, which is pregnant with socialism, have begun.

The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie must teach the people to trust the bourgeoisie. The proletarians must teach the people to distrust the bourgeoisie.

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 entire trend of development is towards abolition of coercive domination of one part of society over another.

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.

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed.

Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror.

The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief.

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.

One must always try to be as radical as reality itself.

As an ultimate objective, "peace" simply means communist world control.

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

Act with the greatest determination and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of every armed rising.

The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.

Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions.

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.

It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.

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.

But every little difference may become a big one if it is insisted on.

Where the bourgeois economists saw a relation between things (the exchange of one commodity for another) Marx revealed a relation between people.

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

One would like to stroke and caress human beings, but one dares not do so, because they bite.

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society.

When it comes to hang the capitalists they will compete with each other to sell us the rope at a lower price.

Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice.

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

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.