The pillars of Hercules of the United States are vulgarity and stupidity. Leon Trotsky More Quotes by Leon Trotsky More Quotes From Leon Trotsky There is no justice in bureaucracy for the individual, for bureaucracy caters only to itself. One cannot practice the same bureaucracy as one is fighting against. Leon Trotsky fighting practice justice I emphasized the significance of revolutionary strategy. Leon Trotsky significance strategy revolutionary Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full. Leon Trotsky wall air beautiful Terror, as the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class, is historically justified, precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break the political will of the intelligentsia, pacify the professional man of various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to its own aims within the field of their specialties. Leon Trotsky political-will class men Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives alongside the twentieth century, the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms . . . movie stars to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance and savagery! Leon Trotsky stars ignorance believe From being a patriotic myth, the Russian people have become an awful reality. Leon Trotsky patriotic reality people If we close our eyes to the dark sides of the workers' State which we have helped to create, we shall never reach socialism. Leon Trotsky eye dark sides Under all conditions, well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points. Leon Trotsky distance violence two Dialectical thought is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion. Leon Trotsky law doe thinking Our differences with [Joseph] Stalin are entirely of a strategical character. Leon Trotsky differences character No one revolution up to now has brought all that was expected of it by the masses. Hence the inevitability of a certain disillusionment, of a lowering of the activity of the vanguard, and consequently, of the growing importance of the rearguard. [Joseph] Stalin's faction has raised itself on the wave of reaction against the October revolution. Leon Trotsky october-revolution wave growing Nowhere else did repressions, purges, suppressions, and all other kinds of bureaucratic hooliganism in general acquire such horrifying scope as in Ukraine, in the struggle against powerful forces concealed in the Ukrainian masses that desired more freedom and independence. Leon Trotsky ukraine powerful struggle Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise. Leon Trotsky voice average men Let a man find himself, in distinction from others, on top of two wheels with a chain - at least in a poor country like Russia - and his vanity begins to swell out like his tires. In America it takes an automobile to produce this effect. Leon Trotsky inspirational men country Look back at history - those who guided the revolution in the time of its culmination never kept their leading positions long after the turning point. Leon Trotsky revolution long looks Where the sole employer is the state, [opposition] means death by slow starvation. Leon Trotsky sole states mean If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes. Leon Trotsky more-time planning mistake Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws. Leon Trotsky revolutionary law art In 1917 there was not a single Bolshevik who considered possible the realization of a socialist society in a single country, and least of all in Russia. Leon Trotsky russia realization country The fall of the present bureaucratic dictatorship [in the Soviet Union], if it were not replaced by a new socialist power, would thus mean a return to capitalist relations with a catastrophic decline of industry and culture. Leon Trotsky mean culture fall