Vladimir Lenin Quotes

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

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.

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

Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.

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

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

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward--or go back

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics.

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up.

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action.

It is stupid to tolerate Nikola; all Chekists have to be on alert to shoot anyone who doesn't turn up to work because of Nikola.

All countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done.

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.

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 sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind.

Sometimes quantity has a quality all its own.

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

Peace, Land, and Bread! All power to the Soviet!

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

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

Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything, and do everything consciously.

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

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

In the last analysis, productivity of labour is the most important, the principal thing for the victory of the new social system.

It is at moments of need that one learns who one's friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson.

Freedom of speech and the press must be complete. But then freedom of association must be complete too.

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.

He loved her with the fire of a thousand suns, she was his solace in the chaos, his redemption.

Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement.

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.

Exchange, fair or unfair, always presupposes and includes the rule of the bourgeoisie.

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

And is it not sects, bodies of definite, uncompromising principles, that lead us into revolutions?

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

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

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

While the State exists there can be no freedom when there is freedom there will be no State.

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