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Leon Trotsky Quotes about War

All Leon Trotsky Quotes Art Bureaucracy Character Consciousness Country Evil Fascism Fighting Giving Inspirational Lying Philosophy Politics Reality Revolution Socialism Strategy Struggle Victory Violence War quotes
There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances.

Leon Trotsky
Peace, War, Circumstances
Leon Trotsky (2007). “My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography”, p.429, Courier Corporation

History has different yardsticks for the cruelty of the Northerners and the cruelty of the Southerners in the Civil War. A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning or violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!

Leon Trotsky
War, Slave Owners, Different
Leon Trotsky (1968). “Their morals and ours: and , The moralists and sycophants against Marxism”

To renounce the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with those who wield it, the exploiters. The essence of every revolution consisted and consists in putting a new class in power, thus enabling it to realize its own program in life. It is impossible to wage war and to reject victory.

Leon Trotsky
War, Essence, Class

The struggle against war and its social source, capitalism, presupposes direct, active, unequivocal support to the oppressed colonial peoples in their struggles and wars against imperialism. A 'neutral' position is tantamount to support of imperialism.

Leon Trotsky
War, Struggle, Support
Resolution on the Antiwar Congress of the London Bureau, July 1936.

The slanders poured down like Niagara. If you take into consideration the setting - the war and the revolution - and the character of the accused - revolutionary leaders of millions who were conducting their party to the sovereign power - you can say without exaggeration that July 1917 was the month of the most gigantic slander in world history.

Leon Trotsky
War, Party, Character
Leon Trotsky (2017). “History of the Russian Revolution”, p.596, Penguin UK

A program of "disarmament," while imperialist antagonisms survive, is the most pernicious of fictions. Even if it were realized by way of general agreement - an obviously fantastic assumption!- that would by no means prevent a new war. The imperialists do not make war because there are armaments; on the contrary, they forge arms when they need to fight.

Leon Trotsky
War, Mean, Fighting
Leon Trotsky (1937). “The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going?”, p.171, Mehring Books

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