Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, oneβs own and that of other people.
Leon TrotskyRead
Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Communism relies on democracy for its survival and effectiveness, just as the human body needs oxygen to function.
This quote by Leon Trotsky expresses the idea that a successful communist society must incorporate democratic principles to thrive, much like how human life depends on the presence of oxygen. It suggests that without the democratic process, communism cannot truly embody its ideals of equality and freedom, as it requires the engagement and consent of the people to be legitimate and effective.
Themes
CommunismDemocracyOxygenPoliticsBodySurvival
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a political debate to emphasize the importance of democratic processes in socialist movements.
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All quotes βIn a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.
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Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.
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The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime. Only the guiding layers of a class have a political program, and even this still requires the test of events and the approval of the masses.
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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 β let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
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The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
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I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It's enough. Because it's important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.
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