“The bourgeoisie today is a falling class. … By its imperialist methods of appropriation [it] is destroying the economic structure of the world and human culture generally. Nevertheless, the historical persistence of the bourgeoisie is colossal. It holds to power, and does not wish to abandon it. Thereby it threatens to drag after it into the abyss the whole of society. We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.”

— Leon Trotsky , book Terrorism and Communism

Source: Terrorism and Communism (1920), p. 83

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Leon Trotsky 106

Marxist revolutionary from Russia 1879–1940

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Attributions

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Section 1, paragraph 44, lines 1-2.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

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