Joseph Stalin Quotes: 95 Quotes from the Captivating and Controversial Figure Who Shaped a Nation

“In my opinion there are two seats of war danger. The first is in the Far East, in the zone of Japan. I have in mind the numerous statements made by Japanese military men containing threats against other powers. The second seat is in the zone of Germany. It is hard to say which is the most menacing, but both exist and are active. Compared with these two principal seats of war danger, the Italian-Abyssinian war is an episode. At present, the Far Eastern seat of danger reveals the greatest activity. However, the centre of this danger may shift to Europe. This is indicated, for example, by the interview which Herr Hitler recently gave to a French newspaper. In this interview Hitler seems to have tried to say peaceful things, but he sprinkled his "peacefulness" so plentifully with threats against both France and the Soviet Union that nothing remained of his "peacefulness."”

Joseph Stalin

You see, even when Herr Hitler wants to speak of peace he cannot avoid uttering threats. This is symptomatic.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1936/03/01.htmInterview Between J. Stalin and Roy Howard; March 1, 1936
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Men , War , Peace

“Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.”

Joseph Stalin

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)

World

“[The Albanians] seem to be rather backward and primitive people… they can be as faithful as a dog; that is one of the traits of the primitive. Our Chuvash were the same. The Russian tsars always used them for their bodyguards.”

Joseph Stalin

Said to Edvard Kardelj (1947), as quoted in Vladimir Dedijer (1954), Tito Speaks, page 312
Contemporary witnesses

People , Faith , Dogs

“Leninism is Marxism of the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular. Marx and Engels pursued their activities in the pre-revolutionary period (we have the proletarian revolution in mind), when developed imperialism did not yet exist, in the period of the proletarians' preparation for revolution, in the period when the proletarian revolution was not yet an immediate practical inevitability. But Lenin, the disciple of Marx and Engels, pursued his activities in the period of developed imperialism, in the period of the unfolding proletarian revolution, when the proletarian revolution had already triumphed in one country, had smashed bourgeois democracy and had ushered in the era of proletarian democracy, the era of the Soviets.”

Joseph Stalin

The Foundations of Leninism

Democracy , Country

“Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.”

Joseph Stalin

In Russian: Жить стало лучше, товарищи. Жить стало веселее.
Speech at the Conference of Stakhanovites http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SCS35.html (17 November 1935)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Life

“Why did you beat me so hard?”

Joseph Stalin

to his mother in her later years. Her response was "That's why you turned out so well". Source: Edvard Radzinsky, p. 32
Contemporary witnesses

“I have no son named Yakov.”

Joseph Stalin

as quoted in Joseph Stalin: Dictator of the Soviet Union (2006) by Brenda Haugen, p. 11
Contemporary witnesses

“e achievement and maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a party which is strong by reason of its solidarity and iron discipline. But iron discipline in the Party is inconceivable without unity of will, without complete and absolute unity of action on the part of all members of the Party. This does not mean, of course, that the possibility of conflicts of opinion within the Party is thereby precluded. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes criticism and conflict of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it mean that discipline must be "blind." On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes conscious and voluntary submission, for only conscious discipline can be truly iron discipline. But after a conflict of opinion has been closed, after criticism has been exhausted and a decision has been arrived at, unity of will and unity of action of all Party members are the necessary conditions without which neither Party unity nor iron discipline in the Party is conceivable.”

Joseph Stalin

Source: The Foundations of Leninism, Ch.8

Decision , Strong , Parting

“Strikes, boycott, parliamentarism, meetings and demonstrations are all good forms of struggle as means for preparing and organising the proletariat. But not one of these means is capable of abolishing existing inequality. All these means must be concentrated in one principal and decisive means; the proletariat must rise and launch a determined attack upon the bourgeoisie in order to destroy capitalism to its foundations. This principal and decisive means is the socialist revolution.”

Joseph Stalin

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)

Decision

“Before your eyes rises the hero of Gogol's story who, in a fit of aberration, imagined that he was the King of Spain. Such is the fate of all megalomaniacs.”

Joseph Stalin

Proletariatis Brdzola August 1905, as quoted in Young Stalin (2007) by Simon Sebag Montefiore, p. 376
Contemporary witnesses

Fate , Imagination

“Bukharin's a swine and surely worse than a swine because he thinks it below his dignity to write a couple of lines.”

Joseph Stalin

Bol'shevistskoe rukovodstvo. Perepiska 1912-1927, [Bolshevik Leadership, Correspondence 1912-1927], p. 90
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Thinking , Swine

“You know, they are fooling us, there is no God.”

Joseph Stalin

A teenaged Stalin to a fellow student while studying to become a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, as quoted in Landmarks in the Life of Stalin (1942) by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, p. 9
Contemporary witnesses

God , Fools

“God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil's on my side, he's a good Communist.”

Joseph Stalin

Said to Winston Churchill in Tehran, November 1943, as quoted in Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich (1995) by Robin Cross, p. 21
Contemporary witnesses

God

“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?”

Joseph Stalin

Said sarcastically to Pierre Laval in 1935, in response to being asked whether he could do anything with Russian Catholics to help Laval win favour with the Pope, to counter the increasing threat of Nazism; as quoted in The Second World War (1948) by Winston Churchill vol. 1, ch. 8, p. 105.
Contemporary witnesses

“I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.”

Joseph Stalin

Said to Molotov in 1943, as quoted in Felix Chuev's 140 Conversations with Molotov Moscow, 1991.
Contemporary witnesses

Death , History

“There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm.”

Joseph Stalin

Clive Foss, The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption, London: Quercus Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1905204965 , p. 131
Contemporary witnesses

“Tsar Alexander reached Paris.”

Joseph Stalin

Said to an American diplomat who remarked how grateful it must be to see Russian troops in Berlin. Quoted in Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger
Contemporary witnesses

“For some people, four walls are three too many.”

Joseph Stalin

This seems to have originated with the Spanish military leader Juan Domingo de Monteverde, who, in Francisco de Miranda, a Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution (2003) by Karen Racine, p. 239, is quoted as having said: "four walls are three too many for a prison — you only need one for an execution."
Misattributed

People

“The Jews are not a nation!”

Joseph Stalin

As quoted in Stalin : A Biography (2004) by Robert Service, p. 156
Contemporary witnesses

“We must finally understand that of all the precious capital in the world, the most precious capital, the most decisive capital, is human beings […]. Cadres decide everything!”

Joseph Stalin

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2495035?uid=3738776&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104844992271
A more accurate translation, with respect to the context, might read: "Cadres are the key to everything"
In Russian: [...] из всех ценных капиталов, имеющихся в мире, самым ценным и самым решающим капиталом являются люди [...]. Кадры решают все!
Address to the Graduates from the Red Army Academies http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/GRA35.html. (4 May 1935); Variant translation: Human resources solve all!
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

World , Understanding , Decision

“Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.”

Joseph Stalin

Problems of Leninism, August 1924 edition
The Foundations of Leninism

Victory , Country

“We do not want a single foot of foreign territory; but of our territory we shall not surrender a single inch to anyone.”

Joseph Stalin

Russian: Чужой земли мы не хотим ни пяди, но и своей вершка ни отдадим.

Political Report of the C.C. to XVI Party Congress (29 June 1930) http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SC30.html
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

“The Communists base themselves on rich historical experience which teaches that obsolete classes do not voluntarily abandon the stage of history.”

Joseph Stalin

“Stalin-Wells Talk: The Verbatim Report and A Discussion”, G.B. Shaw, J.M. Keynes et al., London, The New Statesman and Nation, (1934) p. 13
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

History

“There is not, nor should there be, an irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective,… There should be no such contrast, because collectivism, Socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective. Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. More than that, socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between Individualism and Socialism.”

Joseph Stalin

“Stalin-Wells Talk: The Verbatim Report and A Discussion”, G.B. Shaw, J.M. Keynes et al., London, The New Statesman and Nation, (1934) p. 7
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

Sense