WIST Quotations

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Why should freedom of speech and freedom of press be allowed? Why should a government which is doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are much more fatal things than guns. Why should any man be allowed to buy a printing press and disseminate pernicious opinions calculated to embarrass the government?

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) Russian politician, revolutionary, political theorist [b. Vladimir Ilich Ulyamov]
(Attributed)

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 20:18:14 +0000

We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war; everything is moral which is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat. Our morality consists solely in close discipline and conscious warfare against the exploiters.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) Russian politician, revolutionary, political theorist [b. Vladimir Ilich Ulyamov]
(Attributed)
(Source)

Quoted in René Fülöp-Miller, Lenin and Gandhi (1927).

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich -- The State and Revolution, 1.1 (1917)

Dave — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:57:58 +0000

During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, … and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) Russian politician, revolutionary, political theorist [b. Vladimir Ilich Ulyamov]
The State and Revolution, 1.1 (1917)

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich -- Speech (Sep 1915)

Dave — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:04:25 +0000

There is no morality in politics; there is only expediency.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) Russian politician, revolutionary, political theorist [b. Vladimir Ilich Ulyamov]
Speech (Sep 1915)