“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.”

—  Joseph Stalin

In Russian: Я считаю, что совершенно неважно, кто и как будет в партии голосовать; но вот что чрезвычайно важно, это - кто и как будет считать голоса.
Said in 1923, as quoted in The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary http://www.panrus.com/books/details.php?langID=1&bookID=5905 (1992) by Boris Bazhanov [Saint Petersburg] (Борис Бажанов. Воспоминания бывшего секретаря Сталина). (Text online in Russian) http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/BAZHANOW/stalin.txt.
Variant (loose) translation: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Contemporary witnesses

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 28, 2023. History

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Joseph Stalin 95
General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1879–1953

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