Vladimir Lenin Quotes

The basic question of every revolution is that of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no intelligent participation in the revolution, not to speak of guidance of the revolution.The highly remarkable feature of our revolution is that it has brought about dual power. This fact must be grasped first and foremost: unless it is understood, we cannot advance. We must know how to supplement and amend old "formulas".

Finance capital is not only interested in the already known sources of raw materials; it is also interested in possible sources of raw materials, because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and because land which is useless today may be made fertile tomorrow if new methods are applied (to devise these new methods a big bank can equip a whole expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.), and large amounts of capital are invested.

It is logical to assert that all matter possesses a property which is essentially akin to sensation, the property of reflection.

Let us get down to work, to slower, more cautious, more persevering and persistent work!

We are in favor of a democratic republic as the best form of state for the proletariat under capitalism; but we have no right to forget that wage-slavery is the lot of the people even in the most democratic bourgeois republic.

You must side with one of the two immensely wealthy and immensely powerful groups of imperialist predators - that is how capitalist reality poses the basic issue of present-day foreign policy.

Shame on accursed tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations.

The whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory with equality of work an equality of pay.

Political events are always very confused and complicated. They can be compared with a chain. To hold the whole chain you must grasp the main link. Not a link chosen at random.

As quoted in S. D. Mstislavskii (1925), Memoirs.

The state does not function as we desired. The car does not obey. A man is at the wheel and he seems to lead it, but the car does not drive in the desired direction. It moves as another force wishes.

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.

The abolition of classes means, not merely ousting the landowners and the capitalists - that is something we accomplished with comparative ease; it also means abolishing the small commodity producers, and they cannot be ousted, or crushed; we must learn to live with them.

I am giving both Armand Hammer and B. Mishell a special recommendation on my own behalf and request all C.C. members to give these persons and their enterprise particular support. This is a small path leading to the American 'business' world, and this path should be made use of in every way.

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