Russia AOS2 Quotes Flashcards
Lenin to his followers in early 1918 regarding the Constituent Assembly
“Trust in the mood, but don’t forget your rifles.”
Lenin on handing over power to the Constituent Assembly
“To hand over power to the Constituent Assembly would again be compromising with the malignant bourgeoisie”
Trotsky’s Brest-Litovsk Negotiation Policy
“Neither peace, nor war”
Lenin on Brest-Litovsk (March 1918)
“It is a fact that at the moment…the army at the front, being in no condition to fight, is fleeing in panic…the new terms are worse, more onerous and humiliating…it is our pseudo-Lefts…who are to blame.”
Decree on Red Terror (5th September 1918)
“In the present situation, it is necessary to safeguard the rear by means of terror”
Nikolai Krylenko (Commissar of Justice) on Red Terror
“We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more”
An unknown Chekist on how to identify an ‘enemy of the people’
“One needs only to go into the kitchen and look into his soup pot. If there is meat in it, then he is an enemy of the people. Stand him up against the wall!”
White Army General Denekin on his Troops
“If I raise the republican flag, I lose half my volunteers, and if I raise the monarchist flag, I lose the other half. But we have to save Russia.”
Lenin on State Capitalism (April 1918)
“State monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, or several steps, towards Socialism!”
Trotsky’s War Communism Catchcry (1918)
“Everything for the front!”
Lenin on the Class Based Ration System (July 1918)
“He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”
Lenin on War Communism (1921)
“It was not, nor could it be a policy that corresponded to the economic tasks of the proletariat. It was a temporary measure.”
Lenin on the Economy at the Tenth Party Congress
“The national economy must be put back on its feet at all costs. The first thing to do is to restore, consolidate, and improve peasant farming.”
Critics of the NEP Branded It…
“New Exploitation of the Proletariat.”
Christopher Hill on NEP
“Lenin always insisted that the New Economic Policy…was really the old economic policy of 1918, but he never attempted to disguise the fact that it was a large scale retreat, another breathing space, a Brest-Litovsk on the economic front.”
On Party Unity (March 1921)
In order to ensure strict discipline…the Congress gives the Central Committee full powers to apply all measures of party punishment.”
Trotsky on the Kronstadt Sailors
“The pride and glory of the revolution…the reddest of the red”
Point 1 of the Petropavlosk Resolution (28th February 1921)
“The present soviets do not represent the will of the workers and peasants…re-elect the soviets immediately by secret voting.”
Alexander Berkman’s Diary Entry on Kronstadt
“My heart is numb with despair; something has died within me… terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October. Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot. The revolution is dead.”
Felix Dzerzhinsky on the Role of the Cheka (June 1918)
“The Cheka is obliged to defend the revolution and conquer the enemy even if its sword does by chance sometimes fall on the heads of the innocent.”
The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger! (21st February 1918)
“Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators and German spies, are to be summarily shot.”
Decree on Land (26th October 1917)
“Private ownership of land shall be abolished forever.”
Decree on Suppression of Hostile Newspapers (27th October 1917)
“Temporary and extraordinary measures have been adopted for the purpose of cutting off the stream of lies in which the press would be glad to drown the young victory of the people.”
Decree on Eight-Hour Working Day (29th October 1917)
“The working time determined by enterprises shall not exceed 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week.”
Peasant Letter to the Government (1920)
“We welcome soviet power, but give us ploughs, harrows and machines and stop seizing our grain, milk, eggs and meat.”
Ron Suny on Continuity and Change (6)
“By the end of the 1920s the Soviet people enjoyed greater security, better health care, higher literacy, better nutrition, greater social mobility, and more social equality than most of them had ever experienced.”
Robert Service on Continuity and Change
“The RSFSR had facets reminiscent of the tsarist order at its worst. Central power was being asserted in an authoritarian fashion. Ideological intolerance was being asserted and organised dissent repressed.”
Richard Pipes on Lenin
“Lenin was, not an idealist, but a mass murderer, a man who believed that the best way to solve problems … was to kill off the people who caused them.”
