Vladimir Lenin Quotes & Sayings

You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push. If you find steel, you withdraw — Vladimir Lenin

What a waste that we lost Mussolini. He is a first-rate man who would have led our party to power in Italy. [Addressing to a delegation of Italian socialists in Moscow after Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922] — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

Our power does not know liberty or justice. It is established on the destruction of the individual will. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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

Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom. — Vladimir Lenin

One cannot live in society and be free from society. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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

The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a slave; women have been tied to the home, and only socialism can save them from this. They will only be completely emancipated when we change from small-scale individual farming to collective farming and collective working of the land. — Vladimir Lenin

For any truth, if overdone ... if exaggerated, or if carried beyond the limits of its applicability, can be reduced to absurdity. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don't eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

Every cook has to learn how to govern the state. — Vladimir Lenin

Does not the whole history of socialism, particularly of French socialism, which is so rich in revolutionary striving, show us that when the working people themselves take power in their hands the ruling classes resort to unheard-of crimes and shootings if it is a matter of protecting their money-bags. — Vladimir Lenin

Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations
all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

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

One of the chief symptoms of every revolution is the sharp and sudden increase in the number of ordinary people who take an active, independent and forceful interest in politics. — Vladimir Lenin

We Social-Democrats always stand for democracy, not "in the name of capitalism," but in the name of clearing the path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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

Democracy is indispensable to socialism. — Vladimir Lenin

Don't be afraid to admit defeat. Learn from defeat. Do over again more thoroughly, more carefully, and more systematically what you have done badly. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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

Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense. — Vladimir Lenin

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

Unity must be won, and only the workers, the class-conscious workers themselves can win it - by stubborn and persistent effort. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn words, exuberant promises and the high-sounding slogans of freedom and equality. But, in fact, it screens the non-freedom and inferiority of women, the non-freedom and inferiority of the toilers and exploited. — Vladimir Lenin

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

It is not for nothing that Skaldin in one part of his book quotes Adam Smith: we have seen that both his views and the character of his arguments in many respects repeat the theses of that
great ideologist of the progressive bourgeoisie. — Vladimir Lenin

We set ourselves the ultimate aim of abolishing the state, i.e., all organized and systematic violence, all use of violence against people in general. — Vladimir Lenin

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

Communists have become bureaucrats. If anything will destroy us, it is this. — Vladimir Lenin

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

The Jewish bourgeoisie are our enemies, not as Jews but as bourgeoisie. The Jewish worker is our brother. — Vladimir Lenin

A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines — Vladimir Lenin

For the complete extinction of the state, complete Communism is necessary. — Vladimir Lenin

One must always try to be as radical as reality itself. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with the view of confiscating them and leaving the population defenseless. — Vladimir Lenin

Show me who your friends are, and I will tell you what you are. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

All contemporary religions and churches, all and every kind of religious organization, Marxism has always viewed as organs of bourgeois reaction, serving as a defense of exploitation and the doping of the working-classes. — Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

You cannot make a revolution in white gloves. — Vladimir Lenin

Peace, Land, and Bread! All power to the Soviet! — Vladimir Lenin

A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another. — Vladimir Lenin

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

By destroying the peasant economy and driving the peasant from the country to the town, the famine creates a proletariat ... Furthermore the famine can and should be a progressive factor not only economically. It will force the peasant to reflect on the bases of the capitalist system, demolish faith in the tsar and tsarism, and consequently in due course make the victory of the revolution easier ... Psychologically all this talk about feeding the starving and so on essentially reflects the usual sugary sentimentality of our intelligentsia. — Vladimir Lenin

Man's consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but creates it. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will. — Vladimir Lenin

War cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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? — Vladimir Lenin

The Guchkov government is held in a vice: bound by the interests of capital, it is compelled to strive to continue the predatory, robber war, to protect the monstrous profits of capital and the landlords, to restore the monarchy. Bound by its revolutionary origin and by the need for an abrupt change from tsarism to democracy, pressed by the bread-hungry and peace-hungry masses, the government is compelled to lie, to wriggle, to play for time, to "proclaim" and promise (promises are the only things that are very cheap even at a time of madly rocketing prices) as much as possible and do as little as possible, to make concessions with one hand and to withdraw them with the other. Under — Vladimir Lenin

If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore, there must be continued propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of citizens in general, and teenagers in particular. By making drugs of various kinds readily available, by creating the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness and worthlessness, and by preparing him psychologically and politically, we can succeed. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

You can become a Communist only when you enrich your mind with a knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind. — Vladimir Lenin

Hundreds of thousands and millions of wage slaves of capital and peasants downtrodden by the serf-owners are going to the slaughter for the dynastic interests of a handful of crowned brigands, for the profits of the bourgeoisie in its drive to plunder foreign lands. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

It is in prison ... that one becomes a real revolutionary. — Vladimir Lenin

The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavor to keep them disunited. — Vladimir Lenin

Destroy the family, you destroy the country. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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

We must hate - hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists. — Vladimir Lenin

Destroy the family and you destroy society — Vladimir Lenin

One fool can ask more questions in a minute than 12 wise men can answer in an hour. — Vladimir Lenin

The reflection of nature in man's thought must be understood not lifelessly but in the eternal process of movement, the arising of contradictions and their solution. — Vladimir Lenin

The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation. In fact they are not its brains but its shit. — Vladimir Lenin

In the end, one or the other will triumph - a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet republic or over world capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty. — Vladimir Lenin

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

Revolution consists not in the new class commanding, governing with the aid of the old state machine, but in this class smashing this machine and commanding, governing with the aid of a new machine. — Vladimir Lenin

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. — Vladimir Lenin

You must have your heart on fire and your brain on ice. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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

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

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. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain fatally downtrodden because all housework is left to them. In most cases housework is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman. — Vladimir Lenin

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

Those who are really convinced that they have made progress in science would not demand freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the old, but the substitution of the new views for the old. — Vladimir Lenin

The only one who doesn't make mistakes is the one who doesn't do anything. — Vladimir Lenin

History causes the military problem to become the essence of the political problem. — Vladimir Lenin

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. — Vladimir Lenin

The true leader must submerge himself in the fountain of the people. — Vladimir Lenin

For the first time the peasant has seen real freedom - freedom to eat his bread, freedom from starvation. — Vladimir Lenin