Communism needs democracy like the human body needs oxygen.
Leon TrotskyRead
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 – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the moral equivalence between oppressors and those who resist oppression during the Civil War.
Trotsky emphasizes the disparity in moral judgment between those who enslave and those who fight against slavery. He argues that the actions of a slave-owner, who subjects others to cruelty, cannot be equated with those of a slave who rebels against their oppression, highlighting the moral outrage inherent in their respective actions.
Themes
MoralitySlaveryOppressionResistanceJusticeCivil WarEquality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of differentiating the morality of oppressors versus those who fight for freedom.
More from Leon Trotsky
All quotes →Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.
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In 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 The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.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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The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.
Leon TrotskyRead
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