Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Trotsky calls for harsh punishment of counter-revolutionaries and suspicious individuals.
In plain terms
He supports locking up or shooting people who oppose the revolution.
What can you take from it?
Opponents must be removed without mercy.

Where it applies

  • revolutionary government
  • internal conflict
  • policing

Putting it to work

  • security policy
  • revolutionary manifesto
  • deterrence

Questions to consider

  • How far should justice go?
  • Is security worth cruelty?

Another view

It promotes extreme human rights violations under guise of security.

More from Leon Trotsky

  1. We have to run a hot iron down the spine of the Ukrainian kulaks - that will create a good working environment.

    Permalink to quote #11
  2. The life of a revolutionary would be quite impossible without a certain amount of 'fatalism.'

    Permalink to quote #13
  3. The road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state : Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up…

    Permalink to quote #10

Related quotes

  1. There will not be order until we'll march through the parliament with Kalashnikovs.

    Vytautas SustauskasVytautas Sustauskas quote #1
  2. All those against the revolution must disappear and quickly be executed.

    Ruhollah KhomeiniRuhollah Khomeini quote #5
  3. As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the 'sacredness of human life.'

    Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky quote #9