Leon Trotsky/Quotes

"The more impotent the police regime of the Nazi is in the field of national economy, the more it is forced to transfer its efforts to the field of foreign policy. This corresponds fully to the inner dynamics of German capitalism, aggressive through and through. The sudden turn of the Nazi leaders to peaceful declarations could deceive only utter simpletons. What other method remains at Hitler’s disposal to transfer the responsibility for internal distresses to external enemies and to accumulate under the press of the dictatorship the explosive force of nationalism? This part of the program, outlined openly even prior to the Nazis” assumption of power, is now being fulfilled with iron logic before the eyes of the world. The date of the new European catastrophe will be determined by the time necessary for the arming of Germany. It is not a question of months, but neither is it a question of decades. It will be but a few years before Europe is again plunged into a war, unless Hitler is forestalled in time by the inner forces of Germany.

—Leon Trotsky, What is National Socialism? (November 2, 1933)

"As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!"

—Leon Trotsky, On Optimism and Pessimism, on the Twentieth Century, and on Many Other Things (1901)

"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end."

—Leon Trotsky, Their Morals and Ours (1938)

"Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to man."

—Leon Trotsky, Diary in Exile (1935)

"Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other."

—Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (1936)

"When Victor Adler objected to Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in the Habsburg monarchy, he replied: "And who will lead this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein [Trotsky] sitting over there at the Cafe Central?"

—A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918 (1980)

"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, Trotsky's Testament (27 February, 1940)