“War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."”

—  Leon Trotsky

Misattributed
Context: : In a later work, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (2000) by Michael Walzer, the author states: War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." This statement on dialectic itself seems to be a paraphrase, with the original in In Defense of Marxism Part VII : "Petty-Bourgeois Moralists and the Proletarian Party" (1942) https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/32-goldman2.htm — where Trotsky publishes a letter to Albert Goldman (5 June 1940) has been translated as "Burnham doesn't recognize dialectics but dialectics does not permit him to escape from its net." More discussion on the origins of this quotation can be found at The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: Fair and Balanced Almost Every Day http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/2003_archives/002422.html.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "War is most often a form of tyranny. It is best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's aphorism about the dialectic: "You …" by Leon Trotsky?
Leon Trotsky photo
Leon Trotsky 106
Marxist revolutionary from Russia 1879–1940

Related quotes

Leon Trotsky photo

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Misattributed

Kenneth N. Waltz photo

“The transitory interests of royal houses may be advanced in war; the real interests of all people are furthered by the peace.”

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter IV, The Second Image, p. 98

Noam Chomsky photo

“Armies usually aren’t interested in wars.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Hugh Gusterson, November 2000 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/2002----.pdf.
Quotes 2000s, 2002
Context: Armies usually aren’t interested in wars. They like preparation for war. But they have an understandable reluctance to fight a war. So I think if you look at, at least the history that I know, it’s usually the civilian leadership who is pushing the military to do something. It was the case in the early days of the Vietnam War.

Margaret Caroline Anderson photo

“How can anyone be interested in war?”

Margaret Caroline Anderson (1886–1973) American magazine editor

that glorious pursuit of annihilation with its ceremonious bellowings and trumpetings over the mangling of human bones and muscles and organs and eyes, its inconceivable agonies which could have been prevented by a few well-chosen, reasonable words. How, why, did this unnecessary business begin? Why does anyone want to read about it — this redundant human madness which men accept as inevitable?
The Strange Necessity (1969), part 1.

Vasily Grossman photo
James Madison photo

“The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to Thomas Jefferson (2 April 1798); published in The Writings of James Madison (1906) edited by Gaillard Hunt, Vol. 6, pp. 312-14
1790s
Context: The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature. But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it. For if the opinion of the President not the facts & proofs themselves are to sway the judgment of Congress, in declaring war, and if the President in the recess of Congress create a foreign mission, appoint the minister, & negociate a War Treaty, without the possibility of a check even from the Senate, untill the measures present alternatives overruling the freedom of its judgment; if again a Treaty when made obliges the Legislature to declare war contrary to its judgment, and in pursuance of the same doctrine, a law declaring war, imposes a like moral obligation, to grant the requisite supplies until it be formally repealed with the consent of the President & Senate, it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in their Government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings.

James Nasmyth photo

“Everything connected with war and warlike exploits is interesting to a boy.”

James Nasmyth (1808–1890) Scottish mechanical engineer and inventor

Source: James Nasmyth engineer, 1883, p. 52 (in 2010 edition)

Related topics