Vladimir Lenin: Quotes about people

Vladimir Lenin was Russian politician, led the October Revolution. Explore interesting quotes on people.

Vladimir Lenin: 672 quotes145 likes

“We must not depict socialism as if socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters — then we are for it!”

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

“We have the following of the majority of a class, the vanguard of the revolution, the vanguard of the people, which is capable of carrying the masses with it.”

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 22–27.
Collected Works

“The civil war which was started by the Cadet-Kaledin counter-revolutionary revolt against the Soviet authorities, against the workers’ and peasants’ government, has finally brought the class struggle to a head and has destroyed every chance of setting in a formally democratic way the very acute problems with which history has confronted the peoples of Russia, and in the first place her working class and peasants.”

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 379–383.
Collected Works

“Only the most ignorant people can close their eyes to the bourgeois nature of the democratic revolution which is now taking place. Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense.”

"Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution"
1900s, The Two Tactics of Social Democracy (1905)

“To be successful, insurrection must rely not upon conspiracy and not upon a party, but upon the advanced class. That is the first point. Insurrection must rely upon a revolutionary upsurge of the people. That is the second point. Insurrection must rely upon that turning-point in the history of the growing revolution when the activity of the advanced ranks of the people is at its height, and when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemy and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted and irresolute friends of the revolution are strongest. That is the third point. And these three conditions for raising the question of insurrection distinguish Marxism from Blanquism.”

Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 22–27.
Collected Works

“In the sea of people we are after all but a drop in the ocean, and we can administer only when we express correctly what the people are conscious of. Unless we do this the Communist Party will not lead the proletariat, the proletariat will not lead the masses, and the whole machine will collapse.”

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

“The idea of building communist society exclusively with the hands of the Communists is childish, absolutely childish. We communists are but a drop in the ocean, a drop in the ocean of the people.”

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s