110+ Vladimir Lenin Quotes on Social Justice and Collective Action

Vladimir Lenin was the leader of the Russian Revolution and the first head of the Soviet Union. He was a Marxist revolutionary and theorist who was instrumental in transforming Russia from a monarchy to a one-party communist state. Lenin's Marxist theories, including the concept of a vanguard party and a revolutionary vanguard, became the foundation of the Soviet Union. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Vladimir Lenin on communism, education, capitalism.

Top 10 Vladimir Lenin Quotes

1. We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.
2. People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.
3. You must have your heart on fire and your brain on ice.
4. The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.
5. Learning is never done without errors and defeat.
6. The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.
7. One man with a gun can control 100 without one.
8. The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.
9. It is, of course, much easier to shout, abuse, and howl than to attempt to relate, to explain.
10. No amount of political freedom will satisfy the hungry masses.

Vladimir Lenin Short Quotes

• The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.
• Any cook should be able to run the country.
• Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.
• It is true that liberty is precious. So precious that it must be rationed.
• Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice.
• Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
• Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.
• Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.
• While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State.
• Give me your four year olds, and in a generation I will build a socialist state.

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Communism

Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country. — Vladimir Lenin

Our power does not know liberty or justice. It is established on the destruction of the individual will. — Vladimir Lenin

If Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years. — Vladimir Lenin

Under socialism all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing. — Vladimir Lenin

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital. — Vladimir Lenin

The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie must teach the people to trust the bourgeoisie. The proletarians must teach the people to distrust the bourgeoisie. — Vladimir Lenin

But democracy is by no means a limit one may not overstep; it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism. — Vladimir Lenin

Behind the October Revolution there are more influential personalities than the thinkers and executors of Marxism. — Vladimir Lenin

Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers’ cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism. — Vladimir Lenin

The political form of a society wherein the proletariat is victorious in overthrowing the bourgeoisie will be a democratic republic. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Capitalism

Fascism is capitalism in decay. — Vladimir Lenin

Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps. — Vladimir Lenin

If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism, we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. — Vladimir Lenin

Hundreds of thousands and millions of wage slaves of capital and peasants downtrodden by the serf-owners are going to the slaughter for the dynastic interests of a handful of crowned brigands, for the profits of the bourgeoisie in its drive to plunder foreign lands. — Vladimir Lenin

The progressive historical role of capitalism may be summed up in two brief propositions: increase in the productive forces of social labour, and the socialisation of that labour. But both these facts manifest themselves in extremely diverse processes in different branches of the national economy. — Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

The functionaries of our political organizations and trade unions are corrupted - or rather tend to be corrupted - by the conditions of capitalism and betray a tendency to become bureaucrats, i.e., privileged persons divorced from the people and standing above the people. — Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism, in a sense, is the transition stage from capitalism to Socialism. . . . It is capitalism dying, not dead. — Vladimir Lenin

We Social-Democrats always stand for democracy, not "in the name of capitalism," but in the name of clearing the path for our movement, which clearing is impossible without the development of capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Revolution

One of the chief symptoms of every revolution is the sharp and sudden increase in the number of ordinary people who take an active, independent and forceful interest in politics. — Vladimir Lenin

A revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, not every revolutionary situation leads to revolution. — Vladimir Lenin

It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws. — Vladimir Lenin

You cannot make a revolution in white gloves. — Vladimir Lenin

We need the real, nation-wide terror which reinvigorates the country and through which the Great French Revolution achieved glory. — Vladimir Lenin

The suppression of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without violent revolution. — Vladimir Lenin

Revolution can never be forecast; it cannot be foretold; it comes of itself. Revolution is brewing and is bound to flare up. — Vladimir Lenin

When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward--or go back — Vladimir Lenin

I don't care what becomes of Russia. To hell with it. All this is only the road to a World Revolution. — Vladimir Lenin

It is more pleasant and useful to go through the 'experience of the revolution' than to write about it. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Life

It is essential to grasp the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity. — Vladimir Lenin

Victory will belong only to those who have faith in the people, those who are immersed in the life-giving spring of popular creativity. — Vladimir Lenin

Give me a child for the first 5 years of his life and he will be mine forever. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Democracy

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society. — Vladimir Lenin

Bourgeois democracy is democracy of pompous phrases, solemn words, exuberant promises and the high-sounding slogans of freedom and equality. But, in fact, it screens the non-freedom and inferiority of women, the non-freedom and inferiority of the toilers and exploited. — Vladimir Lenin

Face the truth squarely. In politics that is always the best and the only correct attitude. — Vladimir Lenin

If democracy, in essence, means the abolition of class domination, then why should not a socialist minister charm the whole bourgeois world by orations on class collaboration? — Vladimir Lenin

A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another. — Vladimir Lenin

Democracy is a form of the state, it represents, on the one hand, the organized, systematic use of force against persons; but, on the other hand, it signifies the formal recognition of equality of citizens, the equal right of all to determine the structure of, and to administer, the state. — Vladimir Lenin

Democracy is indispensable to socialism. — Vladimir Lenin

To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics. — Vladimir Lenin

Whoever wants to reach socialism by any other path than that of political democracy will inevitably arrive at conclusions that are absurd and reactionary both in the economic and the political sense. — Vladimir Lenin

One cannot live in society and be free from society. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Socialism

No mercy for these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the working people! War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals; war on the rogues, the idlers and the rowdies! — Vladimir Lenin

Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism. — Vladimir Lenin

No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination. — Vladimir Lenin

Atheism is a natural and inseparable part of Marxism, of the theory and practice of scientific socialism. Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. — Vladimir Lenin

The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into smaller states and all-national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them. — Vladimir Lenin

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. — Vladimir Lenin

Crime is a product of social excess. — Vladimir Lenin

One of the basic conditions for the victory of socialism is the arming of the workers Communist and the disarming of the bourgeoisie the middle class. — Vladimir Lenin

No Bolshevik, no Communist, no intelligent socialist has ever entertained the idea of violence against the middle peasants. All socialists have always spoken of agreement with them and of their gradual and voluntary transition to socialism. — Vladimir Lenin

It is not national interests we are upholding - we claim that the interests of socialism, the interests of world socialism, rank higher than national interests, higher than the interests of the state. We are defenders of the socialist fatherland. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Revolutionary

Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws. — Vladimir Lenin

Bah, tombstones are only good for pigeons to sit on — Vladimir Lenin

A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery. — Vladimir Lenin

Without a revolutionary theory there cannot be a revolutionary movement. — Vladimir Lenin

We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination, as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action. — Vladimir Lenin

Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror. — Vladimir Lenin

An end to wars, peace among the nations, the cessation of pillaging and violence - such is our ideal, but only bourgeois sophists can seduce the masses with this ideal, if the latter is divorced from a direct and immediate call for revolutionary action. — Vladimir Lenin

Attention, must be devoted principally to raising the workers to the level of revolutionaries; it is not our task to descend to the level of the 'working masses'. — Vladimir Lenin

It is in prison ... that one becomes a real revolutionary. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Politics

All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. — Vladimir Lenin

A party is the vanguard of a class, and its duty is to lead the masses and not merely to reflect the average political level of the masses. — Vladimir Lenin

There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel. — Vladimir Lenin

When a war is waged by two opposing groups of robbers for the sake of deciding who shall have a freer hand to oppress more people, then the question of the origin of the war is of no real economic or political significance. — Vladimir Lenin

Political institutions are a superstructure resting on an economic foundation. — Vladimir Lenin

Ideological talk and phrase mongering about political liberties should be disposed with; all that is just mere chatter and phrase mongering. We should get away from those phrases. — Vladimir Lenin

We do not have time to play at "oppositions" at "conferences." We will keep our political opponents... whether open or disguised as "nonparty," in prison. — Vladimir Lenin

Any army which does not train to use all the weapons, all the means and methods of warfare that the enemy possesses, or may possess, is behaving in an unwise or even criminal manner. This applies to politics even more than it does to the art of war. — Vladimir Lenin

To rely upon conviction, devotion, and other excellent spiritual qualities; that is not to be taken seriously in politics. — Vladimir Lenin

Politics begin where the masses are, not where there are thousands, but where there are millions, that is where serious politics begin. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Quotes About Masses

You must act with all energy. Mass searches. Execution for concealing arms. — Vladimir Lenin

Where and when have riots and anarchy been provoked by wise measures? If the government had acted wisely, and if their measures had met the needs of the poor peasants, would there have been unrest among the peasant masses? — Vladimir Lenin

The most important thing is to know how to awaken in the still undeveloped masses an intelligent attitude towards religious questions and an intelligent criticism of religions. — Vladimir Lenin

One must not count in thousands, like the propagandist belonging to a small group that has not yet given leadership to the masses; in these circumstances one must count in millions and tens of millions. — Vladimir Lenin

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action. — Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Famous Quotes And Sayings

The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive. — Vladimir Lenin

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. — Vladimir Lenin

Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes. — Vladimir Lenin

America has become one of the foremost countries in regard to the depth of the abyss which lies between the handful of arrogant multimillionaires who wallow in filth and luxury, and the millions of working people who constantly live on the verge of pauperism. — Vladimir Lenin

We must not depict socialism as if socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters -- then we are for it! — Vladimir Lenin

They capitalists will furnish credits which will serve us for the support of the Communist Party in their countries and, by supplying us materials and technical equipment which we lack, will restore our military industry necessary for our future attacks against our suppliers. To put it in other words, they will work on the preparation of their own suicide. — Vladimir Lenin

Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations -- all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. — Vladimir Lenin

But I can't listen to music too often. It affects your nerves, makes you want to say stupid, nice things, and stroke the heads of people who could create such beauty while living in this vile hell. — Vladimir Lenin

All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else. — Vladimir Lenin

The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness. — Vladimir Lenin

I am a bad, wicked man, but I am practicing moral self-purification; I don't eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets. — Vladimir Lenin

Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizon, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will. — Vladimir Lenin

Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. — Vladimir Lenin

As an ultimate objective, "peace" simply means communist world control. — Vladimir Lenin

The majority of the so-called great powers have long been exploiting and enslaving a whole series of small and weak peoples. And the imperialist war is nothing other than a war for the division and redivision of this kind of booty. — Vladimir Lenin

Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class. — Vladimir Lenin

The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves. — Vladimir Lenin

The establishment of a central bank is 90% of communizing a nation. — Vladimir Lenin

Truth is the most precious thing. That's why we should ration it. — Vladimir Lenin

Those who are opposed to armed uprising ... must be ruthlessly kicked out as enemies, traitors and cowards. — Vladimir Lenin

Human reason has discovered many amazing things in nature and will discover still more, and will thereby increase its power over nature. — Vladimir Lenin

Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom. — Vladimir Lenin

The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart. — Vladimir Lenin

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. — Vladimir Lenin

The nearer we come to the full military suppression of the bourgeoisie, the more dangerous becomes to us the high flood of petty-bourgeois Anarchism. And the struggle against these elements cannot be waged with propaganda and agitation alone. ... The struggle must also be waged by applying force and compulsion. — Vladimir Lenin

The most important thing when ill is to never lose heart. — Vladimir Lenin

A country of inveterate, backwoods, thick-headed, egotistic philistines — Vladimir Lenin

It is necessary to be able to withstand all this, to agree to any and every sacrifice, and even - if need be - to resort to all sorts of stratagems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasion and subterfuges in order to penetrate the trade unions, to remain in them, and to carry on Communist work in them at all costs. — Vladimir Lenin

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. — Vladimir Lenin

I must say that the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organisations in particular, might be summed up in a single word: learn. — Vladimir Lenin

The Bolsheviks could not have retained power for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years, without the most rigorous and truly iron discipline in our Party. — Vladimir Lenin

All official and liberal science defends wage-slavery, whereas Marxism has declared relentless war on that slavery. — Vladimir Lenin

Lenin, the greatest man of action in our century and at the same time the most selfless. — Vladimir Lenin

We shall not bind ourselves by treaties. We shall not allow ourselves to be entangled by treaties. We reject all clauses on plunder and violence, but we shall welcome all clauses containing provisions for good-neighbourly relations and all economic agreements; we cannot reject these. — Vladimir Lenin

Act with the greatest determination and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of every armed rising. — Vladimir Lenin

The true leader must submerge himself in the fountain of the people. — Vladimir Lenin

One must always try to be as radical as reality itself. — Vladimir Lenin

The war is relentless: it puts the alternative in a ruthless relief. — Vladimir Lenin

Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions. — Vladimir Lenin

When a liberal is abused, he says, ‘Thank God they didn’t beat me.’ When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay. — Vladimir Lenin

Life Lessons by Vladimir Lenin

1. Vladimir Lenin taught the importance of taking bold and decisive action to achieve one's goals. He believed that the only way to bring about meaningful change was through decisive action and unwavering dedication.
2. He also taught the importance of having a clear vision and staying focused on the end goal. He was a master of strategic thinking and was able to see the big picture and plan accordingly.
3. Finally, he taught the importance of perseverance and hard work. He worked tirelessly to bring about the changes he wanted to see in Russia and never gave up even when faced with great adversity.