Quote #34

We must accept decisively and without any reservation the complete and unconditional right of the blacks to independence . . . The proletarian revolutionaries must never forget the right of the oppressed nationalities to self-determination, including full separation, and the duty of the proletariat of the oppressing nation to defend this right with arms if necessary. . .

More from Leon Trotsky

  1. You may not be interested in the dialectic, but the dialectic is interested in you.
  2. In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time.
  3. The German soldiers, that is, the workers and peasants, will in the majority of cases have far more sympathy for the vanquished peoples tha…
  4. When Victor Adler objected to Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in t…
  5. There is a limit to the application of democratic methods. You can inquire of all the passengers as to what type of car they like to ride i…
  6. Proof of Trotsky's farsightedness is that none of his predictions has yet come true.
  7. The historic ascent of humanity, taken as a whole, may be summarized as a succession of victories of consciousness over blind forces - in n…
  8. You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

All Leon Trotsky quotes