Joseph Stalin Quotes

I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.

We built [socialistic society] for the sake of real personal liberty, liberty without quotation marks.

In the future, there will be fewer but better Russians.

So far, the Far Eastern focal point of danger is the most active.It is possible, however, that the center of the menace may shift to Europe. Evidence of this is provided, for instance, by [Adolf] Hitler's recent interview given to a French paper. In this interview, Hitler seems to attempt to say peaceful things. But this "peacefulness" of his is so thickly interspersed with threats against France and the Soviet Union that nothing remains of the "peacefulness".

Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats.

In what do the activities of the Communist Parties consist? In what ways can they manifest themselves? These activities usually consist in the organization of working masses, in organizing meetings, demonstrations, strikes, etc. It is absolutely clear that American Communists cannot perform this in Soviet territory. The American workers are not in the U.S.S.R.

The writer is the engineer of the human soul.

The art of leadership is a serious matter. One must not lag behind a movement, because to do so is to become isolated from the masses. But one must not rush ahead, for to rush ahead is to lose contact with the masses. He who wished to lead a movement must conduct a fight on two fronts--against those who lag behind and those who rush ahead.

Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

We desire to give the Soviet people absolute liberty of voting for those they desire to elect, those whom they trust to ensure their interests.

If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.

- Oh no, The Collective Farm policy was a terrible struggle... Ten million (he said holding up his hands). It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary.

Admittedly communism has not been achieved in Russia. State socialism has been built.

We have no parties standing in opposition to each other, just as we have no class of capitalists and a class of workers exploited by capitalists in opposition to each other.

Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.

Have you or haven't you built a good school? Haven't you improved living conditions? Aren't you a bureaucrat? Have you helped to make our labor more effective, our life more cultured? Such will be the criteria with which millions of voters will approach candidates, casting away those who are unfit, striking them off lists, advancing better ones, nominating them for elections.

Why will our elections be universal?Because all citizens, excluding those deprived of vote by court, will have the right to vote and the right to be elected.

Voters decide nothing. Vote counters decide everything!

In my opinion, there are two focal points of the war danger. The first focal point is the Far East zone of Japan. The second focal point in the zone is Germany.

Quanity has it's own quality.

We have not yet built a communist society.It is not so easy to build such a society.

Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.

Many understand "state socialism" in this way. Sometimes a system is concealed behind this term in which the capitalist state, in the interests of preparation for the conduct of war, takes upon itself the maintenance of a certain number of private enterprises.

You do not lament the loss of hair of one who has been beheaded.

For instance, our country wanted to effect a revolution, and did effect it, and now we are building a new classless society.

Only when we succeed in creating such an order under which people receive for their labor from the society not according to the quantity and quality of labor, but according to their needs, will it be possible to say that we have built up a communist society.

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

The Pope? How many divisions has he got?

Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.

Great Britain provided time; the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood.

Writers are the engineers of human souls.

Our new Soviet constitution will, in my opinion, be the most democratic constitution of all those existing in the world.

Our Soviet society is socialist because private ownership of factories, plants, land, banks and means of transportation has been abolished in our country, and replaced by public ownership.

It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper.

There are no fortresses that Bolsheviks cannot storm.

When you chop wood, splinters fly

Universal, equal, direct and secret elections in the U.S.S.R. will be a whip in the hands of the population against poorly functioning organs of government.

Not a few organizations exist in our country which function poorly. Sometimes it happens that this or that local government or organ have to satisfy one or another of the many-sided and ever increasing demands of the working population of town and countryside.

By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes.

We [U.S.S.R. and U.S.A.] can exist peacefully together if we don't indulge in too much mutual fault-finding in all kinds of trifles.

Political power does not rest with those who cast votes; political power rests with those who count votes.

To assert that we desire to bring about revolution in other countries, by interfering with their lives, is to speak of something which does not exist and which we never preach.

Of all the treasures a state can possess, the human lives of its citizens are for us the most precious.

It was necessary, temporarily, to limit certain requirements, accumulate necessary means, strain forces. We acted precisely in this way and built a socialist society.

Ah, these diplomats! What chatterboxes! There's only one way to shut them up - cut them down with machine guns. Bulganin, go and get me one!

Bukharin's a swine and surely worse than a swine because he thinks it below his dignity to write a couple of lines.

Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.

Are there no American citizens sympathizing with whiteguard emigres who conduct propaganda in favor of capitalism, against the Soviets? Then what does the point involve? The point is not to assist these persons, not to finance their activities. The point is that officials of both countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of the other country.