Leon Trotsky

The function of the Red Army was not to preach, but to fight.

The permanent revolution, in the sense which Marx attached to this concept, means a revolution which does not stop at the democratic stage, but which goes on to the socialist transformation of society.

The history of a revolution is for us first of all the history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.

The working class, having seized power, cannot remain within the framework of bourgeois democracy.

The party is not a substitute for the class, but its most conscious and advanced part.

The dialectic is not a magical master key for all questions. It is not an algebra. It is a method of analysis, a method of investigation.

The struggle against falsification of history is inseparable from the struggle for the future.

The bureaucracy in the Soviet Union is not a class, but a parasitic growth on the workers' state.

The fate of the revolution depends on the international proletariat.

The development of a revolution is determined by the fundamental class interests.

The working class, having taken power, will create its own state apparatus.

The revolution is not a dinner party, not an essay, not a painting, not a embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so 'benign', 'courteous', 'restrained' and 'magnanimous'.

The party must be a centralized, disciplined organization, capable of decisive action.

The struggle against opportunism is the struggle for the revolution.

The October Revolution was a democratic revolution, carried out by the working class.

The working class can achieve its liberation only through its own efforts.

The bureaucracy, by its very nature, is conservative and seeks to preserve its own privileges.

The revolution is a living process, not a dogma.

The proletariat, having taken power, is obliged to carry out the most radical democratic measures.

The fate of the Russian Revolution depends entirely upon the course of the world revolution.