the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations between them make up the greater part of the danger of a split. -- Lenin, Letter to the Congress (1922)

It is untrue that revolutionary art can be created only by workers. Just because the revolution is a working-class revolution, it releases - to repeat what was said before - very little working-class energy for art. -- Trotsky, Communist Policy Toward Art (1923)

If one man has a dollar he didn't work for, some other man worked for a dollar he didn't get -- Bill Haywood

It is only those who do nothing who makes no mistake. -- Peter Kropotkin

Every Communist must grasp the truth; "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." -- "Problems of War and Strategy" (November 6, 1938), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 224.

All science would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided. -- Karl Marx, Capital Vol. III Chapter 48 (1883)

It is not our immediate task to "introduce" socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. -- Lenin, April Theses (1917)

The History of the World travels from East to West, for Europe is absolutely the end of History, Asia the beginning. -- Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1831)

Two types of social contradictions - those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves confront us. The two are totally different in their nature. -- Mao Zedong On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, (February 27, 1957), first pocket ed.. p. 2.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. -- Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto (1848)

The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property. -- Karl Marx

Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. -- Engels, Anti-Dühring (1877)

The masses must have their own staunch vanguard which, for its part, must maintain close ties with the widest possible section of the masses. Only thus will the emancipation of the people be possible. -- Liu Shaoqi, On the Party (1945)

Our stand is that of the proletariat and of the masses. For members of the Communist Party, this means keeping to the stand of the Party, keeping to Party spirit and Party policy. -- "Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art" (May 1942), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 70.

On the 3rd of April Lenin arrived in Petrograd from abroad. Only from that moment does the Bolshevik Party begin to speak out loud, and, what is more important, with its own voice. -- Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, Chapter 15 (1930)

Without an alliance with non-Communists in the most diverse spheres of activity there can be no question of any successful communist construction. -- Lenin, The Significance of Militant Materialism (1922)

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. -- Lenin, Letter to the Congress (1922)

This army has an indomitable spirit and is determined to vanquish all enemies and never to yield. No matter what the difficulties and hardships, so long as a single man remains, he will fight on. -- "On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 264.

History is the judge - its executioner, the proletarian. -- Marx, Speech at Anniversary of The People's Paper (1856)

There are no underdeveloped nations, just over-exploited ones -- Michael Parenti

Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women -- Thomas Sankara

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. -- Karl Marx

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand. -- Karl Marx

Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done. -- Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

Marx's economic doctrine is the most profound, comprehensive and detailed confirmation and application of his theory. -- V.I. Lenin, The Marxist Doctrine in Karl Marx: A Brief Biographical Sketch with an Exposition of Marxism (1914)

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. -- Lenin, The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism (1913)

The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles. -- Karl Marx

Democracy is the road to socialism. -- Karl Marx

Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment. -- Engels, Outlines of Political Economy (1844)

...We should try to link our personal lives with the cause for which we struggle, with the cause of building communism. -- Nadezhda K. Krupskaya, On Communist Ethics (1924)

Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state. -- Karl Marx

Question everything, accept nothing. -- Quoted by Ethan Skyler; used in 2002 in reference to Galileo, para 9 [1]

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament. -- Lenin, State and Revolution (1917)

The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour. -- Karl Marx

Without such thorough, circumspect and long preparations [since 1903], we could not have achieved victory in October 1917, or have consolidated that victory. -- Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

The unification of our country, the unity of our people and the unity of our various nationalities - these are the basic guarantees of the sure triumph of our cause. -- Mao Zedong On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, (February 27, 1957). 1st pocket ed., pp. 1-2.

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. -- Karl Marx

Policy and tactics are the life of the Party; leading comrades at all levels must give them full attention and must never on any account be negligent. -- "A Circular on the Situation" (March 20, 1948), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 220.

All forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are false to the extent that they are not democracy. -- Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843)

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. -- Lenin, Letter to Inessa Armand (1916)

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. -- Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter One (1867)

We must thoroughly clear away all ideas among our cadres of winning easy victories through good luck, without hard and bitter struggle, without sweat and blood. -- "Build Stable Base Areas in the Northeast" (December 28, 1945), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 84.

Socialists must explain to the masses that they have no other road of salvation except the revolutionary overthrow of "their" governments, and that advantage must be taken of these governments' embarrassments in the present war precisely for this purpose. -- Lenin, Socialism and War (1915)

Without a People's army, the people have nothing. -- "On Coalition Government" (April 24, 1945), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. III, pp. 296-97.

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex. -- Karl Marx

The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; only mobilizing the masses and relying on them can wage it. -- "Be Concerned with the Well-Being of the Masses, Pay Attention to Methods of Work" (January 27, 1934), Mao Zedong Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 147.

Capital is money: Capital is commodities. ... Because it is value, it has acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs. -- Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 4 (1867)

It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear... -- Bhagat Singh, The Red Pamphlet (1929)

Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution. -- Marx, Private Property and Communism (1844)