"It is obvious to anyone who thinks dialectically that actions which are ostensibly the same kind of actions can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances -- or rather, on the cause in the name of which they were performed. Both Lenin and Trotsky were quite explicit on this point. Is there, for instance, anything wrong with slaughtering children? No. It was right, argued Trotsky, to slaughter the children of the Russian czar because it was politically expedient. (Presumably it was not right to kill Trotsky’s sons, however, because Stalin did not represent the historical interests of the proletariat; Trotsky, as far as I know, did not deal with this question directly, but such an answer would be in keeping with his fanatical mentality). If we reject the principle that the end justifies the means, we can only appeal to higher, politically irrelevant moral criteria; and this, Trotsky says, amounts to believing in God."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Leszek Kolakowski, “Leibnitz and Job,” first printed in The New Criterion, Dec. 2003; reprinted in Is God Happy? Selected Essays (2013, NY: Basic Books)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leon_Trotsky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky (Лев Давидович Троцкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronstein; Лев Давидович Бронштейн]; 7 November (O.S. 26 October) 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist, intellectual, and revolutionary. In the early Soviet Union, he founded the Politburo, served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and created and led the Red Army. After Lenin's death, Trotsky was exiled for his opposition to Joseph Stalin's policies. His 1940 assassination (with an ice axe) in Mexico was carried out by a S
165 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Leon Trotsky →
Related Quotes
"Bureaucracy and social harmony are inversely proportional to each other."
"The owl of wisdom flies, as is well known, after sunset. Thus the theory of a "socialist" system of money and prices …"
"Trotsky carried to excess the weakness of the intellectual in politics. He was ruthless in stating principles; he was…"
"All anti-Stalinist forces had been wiped out … Trotskyism, Zinovievism, and Bukharinism, all drowned in blood, had, l…"
"During war all institutions and organs of the State and of public opinion become, directly or indirectly, weapons of …"
"In war, where both success and failure are repaid by death, hostile agents who penetrate into the rear are subject to…"
"We are fighting. We are fighting a life-and-death struggle. The Press is a weapon not of an abstract society, but of …"
"As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, st…"
"Lenin's methods [of "hard" centralism and mistrust of the working class] lead to this: the party organization substit…"
"Stalin's Problems of Leninism constitutes a codification of this ideological garbage, an official manual of narrow-mi…"