“It could and must, be explained that in the civil war we destroyed the White Guards in order that they should not destroy the workers. Consequently, our problem is not the destruction of human life, but its preservation. But as we have to struggle for the preservation of human life with arms in our hands, it leads to the destruction of human life - a puzzle the dialectical secret of which was explained by old Hegel, without reckoning other still more ancient sages.”

—  Leon Trotsky , book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), Chapter three, p. 53

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Leon Trotsky photo
Leon Trotsky 106
Marxist revolutionary from Russia 1879–1940

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