By destroying the peasant economy and driving the peasant from the country to the town, the famine creates a proletariat... Furthermore the famine can and should be a progressive factor not only economically. It will force the peasant to reflect on the bases of the capitalist system, demolish faith in the tsar and tsarism, and consequently in due course make the victory of the revolution easier... Psychologically all this talk about feeding the starving and so on essentially reflects the usual sugary sentimentality of our intelligentsia.

Everyone is free to write and say whatever he likes, without any restrictions.

It is impossible to predict the time and progress of revolution. It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.

The most important thing in illness is never to lose heart.

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

No Marxist can deny that the interests of socialism are higher than the interests of the right of nations to self-determination.

Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country.