The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting -- the war and the revolution -- and the character of the accused -- revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power -- you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history.
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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.
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In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a dictator substitutes himself for the central committee.
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If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.
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Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.
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There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride in, but it is impossible to question them as to whether to apply the brakes when the train is at full speed and accident threatens.
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If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
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Technique is noticed most markedly in the case of those who have not mastered it.
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The depth and strength of a human character are defined by its moral reserves. People reveal themselves completely only when they are thrown out of the customary conditions of their life, for only then do they have to fall back on their reserves.
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If we had more time for discussion, we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
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Ideas that enter the mind under fire remain there securely and for ever.
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Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man.
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If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any t...
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Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.
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You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on -- into the dustbin of history!
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Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction.
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Revolutions are always verbose.
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Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that happen to a man.
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Insurrection is an art, and like all arts has its own laws.
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Under all conditions well-organized violence seems to him the shortest distance between two points.
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