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“The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i. e., he must be a dialectical materialist.”

Vladimir Lenin

Collected Works, Vol. 33, pp. 227–36.
Collected Works

“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

Source: (1917), Ch. 5 [Lenin, Vladmir Illych, The State and Revolution, 1917, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm, Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!]

“… when people charge us with harshness we wonder how they can forget the rudiments of Marxism.”

Vladimir Lenin

As quoted in Speech All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff, Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp. 169-70.
Attributions

“The train of history makes sharp turns and those who are not skilled riders fall off the train.”

Vladimir Lenin

As quoted in Dorothy Healey, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party (1993), p. 81.
Attributions
Variant: "When the train of history makes a sharp turn, said Lenin, the passengers who do not have a good grip on their seats are thrown off." Whittaker Chambers, The Revolt of the Intellectuals, TIME magazine, January 6, 1941.

“The “democratisation” of the ownership of shares, from which the bourgeois sophists and opportunist so-called “Social-Democrats” expect (or say that they expect) the “democratisation of capital”, the strengthening of the role and significance of small scale production, etc., is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of the financial oligarchy.”

Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism : The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch03.htm. <br class="br">1910s

“We want to achieve a new and better order of society: in this new and better society there must be neither rich nor poor; all will have to work. Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people. This new and better society is called socialist society.”

Vladimir Lenin

The teachings about this society are called socialism.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1903/rp/1.htm
To the Rural Poor
1903
Collected Works
6
366
Lenin
Vladimir Ilich
Marxists.
1900s

“The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief: either to perish, or to catch up with the advanced countries and outdistance them, too, in economic matters.”

Vladimir Lenin

The Impending Catastrophe and How to Fight It (1917).
1910s

“Revolutionary Social-Democracy has always included the struggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises “economic” agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government, not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government.”

Vladimir Lenin

What is to be Done? (1902)

“To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war which is a hundred times more difficult, protracted and complex than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between states, and to renounce in advance any change of tack, or any utilisation of a conflict of interests (even if temporary) among one’s enemies, or any conciliation or compromise with possible allies (even if they are temporary, unstable, vacillating or conditional allies) — is that not ridiculous in the extreme?”

Vladimir Lenin

Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder (April - May 1920) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch09.htm. <br class="br">1920s

“Present-day society is wholly based on the exploitation of the vast masses of the working class by a tiny minority of the population, the class of the landowners and that of the capitalists. It is a slave society, since the “free” workers, who all their life work for the capitalists, are “entitled” only to such means of subsistence as are essential for the maintenance of slaves who produce profit, for the safeguarding and perpetuation of capitalist slavery.”

Vladimir Lenin

Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp. 83–87.
Collected Works

“The Soviets are a new state apparatus which, in the first place, provides an armed force of workers and peasants; and this force is not divorced from the people, as was the old standing army, but is very closely bound up with the people, From the military point of view this force is incomparably more powerful than previous forces; from the revolutionary point of view, it cannot be replaced by anything else.”

Vladimir Lenin

Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?, (1917)
1910s

“… prepare eveything to burn Baku to the ground, if there is an attack…”

Vladimir Lenin

As quoted in Richard Pipes, The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive (1996), page 46.
Attributions

“Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.”

Vladimir Lenin

Collected Works, Vol. 24, p. 455–480.
Collected Works

“It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.”

Vladimir Lenin

April Thesis (1917)

“The proletariat needs state power, a centralized organisation of force, an organisation of violence, both to crush the resistance of the exploiters and to lead the enormous mass of the population - the peasants, the petty bourgeoisie, and semi-proletarians - in the work of organising a socialist economy.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

1.1, The Lenin Anthology
The State and Revolution (1917)

“No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism.”

Vladimir Lenin

"Reply to a Peasant’s Question" (15 February 1919) http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/feb/14b.htm; Collected Works, Vol. 36, p. 501. <br class="br">1910s

“About three million must be regarded as middle peasants, while barely two million consist of kulaks, rich peasants, grain profiteers… Ruthless war on the kulaks! Death to them! … [Class struggle entails] ruthless suppression of the kulaks, those bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who batten on famine.”

Vladimir Lenin

As quoted in Comrade Workers, Forward To The Last, Decisive Fight! Collected Works, Vol. 28, pages 53-7.
Attributions

“The only platform from which public exposures can be made is an all-Russian newspaper. "Without a political organ, a political movement deserving that name is inconceivable in modern Europe."In this connection Russia must undoubtedly by included in modern Europe. The press has long ago become a power in our country, otherwise the government would not spend tens of thousands of rubles to bribe it, and to subsidize the Katkovs and Meshcherskys. And it is no novelty in autocratic Russia for the underground press to break through the wall of sponsorship and compel the legal and conservative press to speak openly of it.”

Vladimir Lenin

Source: What is to be Done? (1902), Chapter Three, Section E, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)

“Under the old type of capitalism, when free competition prevailed, the export of goods was the most typical feature. Under modern capitalism, when monopolies prevail, the exporter of capital has become the typical feature.”

Vladimir Lenin

Source: Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), Chapter Four, "The Export of Capital"

“Does not the whole history of socialism, particularly of French socialism, which is so rich in revolutionary striving, show us that when the working people themselves take power in their hands the ruling classes resort to unheard-of crimes and shootings if it is a matter of protecting their money-bags.”

Vladimir Lenin

"Report on the Activities of the Council of People’s Commissars" (24 January 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.
1910s