Imperialism, in a sense, is the transition stage from capitalism to Socialism. . . . It is capitalism dying, not dead.

To decide once every few years which members of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament-this is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary- constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.

Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom.

Trust is good, but control is better.

The leaders of the petty bourgeoisie must teach the people to trust the bourgeoisie. The proletarians must teach the people to distrust the bourgeoisie.

Hundreds of thousands and millions of wage slaves of capital and peasants downtrodden by the serf-owners are going to the slaughter for the dynastic interests of a handful of crowned brigands, for the profits of the bourgeoisie in its drive to plunder foreign lands.

Politics is the most concentrated expression of economics.