On January 21, 1924, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), the ideological inspirer, passed away October Revolution 1917 and the first leader of the Soviet state. In the years following the leader's death, a real cult of Lenin was created. His body still lies in the center of the capital as a symbol of an entire era. We have collected excerpts from Lenin's multi-volume works and declassified telegrams from Ilyich.
Litvin A. L. “Red and White terror in Russia in 1917-1922"
“...Great plan! Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of “greens” (we will blame them later) we will march 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rub. for a hanged man..."
December 24 – 27, 1917 (Lenin V.I. Complete collected works. T. 35. P. 200, 201, 204. - From the work “How to organize a competition?”)
“It’s a war of life and death for the rich and hangers-on, bourgeois intellectuals... they must be dealt with at the slightest violation... In one place they will be sent to prison... In another they will be put to clean toilets. In the third, they will be provided with yellow tickets after leaving the punishment cell... In the fourth, they will be shot on the spot... The more varied, the better, the richer the overall experience will be...”
June 3, 1918 (Volkogonov D.A. Lenin. Political portrait.
Lenin's handwritten order to the Chairman of the Baku Cheka S. Ter-Gabrielyan)
“...Can you also tell Theroux to prepare everything for the complete burning of Baku in the event of an invasion, and to announce this in print in Baku?”
August 9, 1918 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 50. P. 143-144).
“Penza, Gubernia Executive Committee. ...carry out a merciless mass terror against kulaks, priests and white guards; doubtful ones locked in concentration camp outside the city."
(Latyshev A.G. Declassified Lenin. M., 1996. P. 57.).
“Comrades Kuraev, Bosch, Minkin and other Penza communists. Comrades! The uprising of the five kulak volosts must lead to merciless suppression. This is required by the interests of the entire revolution, for now the “last decisive battle” with the kulaks has been taken. You need to give a sample. Hang (be sure to hang, so that the people can see) at least 100 notorious kulaks, rich people, bloodsuckers. Publish their names. Take away all their bread. Assign hostages according to yesterday's telegram. Make it so that hundreds of miles around people see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle the bloodsucking kulaks. Wire receipt and execution. Your Lenin."
August 22, 1918 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 50. P. 165).
“Saratov, (Narkomfood Commissioner) Pikes. ...I advise you to appoint your bosses and shoot conspirators and hesitant ones, without asking anyone and without allowing idiotic red tape.”
September 10, 1918 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T.50. P. 178).
“Sviyazhsk, Trotsky. I am surprised and alarmed by the slowdown in the operation against Kazan, especially if what I was told is true that you have full opportunity destroy the enemy with artillery. In my opinion, we cannot spare the city and postpone it longer, because merciless extermination is necessary ... "
June 3, 1919 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 50. P. 335).
“As for foreigners, I advise you not to rush into deportation. Wouldn't it be better to go to a concentration camp..."
(Latyshev A.G. Declassified Lenin. M., 1996, P. 56).
“All foreign citizens living on the territory of the RSFSR from the ranks of the bourgeoisie of those states that are conducting hostile and military actions against us, between the ages of 17 and 55 years, should be imprisoned in concentration camps...”
November 19, 1919 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 39. P. 315).
“...far from all the peasants understand that free trade bread is a crime against the state. “I produced bread, this is my product, and I have the right to trade it” - this is how the peasant argues, out of habit, according to the old days. And we say that this is a state crime.”
Lenin, August 26, 1921 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 53. P. 142.)
"T. Lunacharsky... I advise you to put all theaters in a coffin. The People's Commissar of Education should not engage in theater, but in teaching literacy."
March 19, 1922 (News of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1990. No. 4. P. 190-193).
“... I come to the absolute conclusion that we must now give the most decisive and merciless battle to the Black Hundred clergy and suppress their resistance with such cruelty that they will not forget this for several decades... Than larger number representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie If we get shot over this, so much the better.”
Lenin, August 1920 (Latyshev A.G. Declassified Lenin. M., 1996).
“...Take military measures, i.e. try to punish Latvia and Estonia militarily (for example, cross the border somewhere 1 mile “on the shoulders” of Balakhovich and hang 100–1000 of their officials and rich people there).”
May 17, 1922 (Lenin V.I. Complete collection of works. T. 45. P. 190).
“...The court must not eliminate terror; to promise this would be self-deception or deception, but to justify and legitimize it in principle, clearly, without falsehood and without embellishment.”
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Ideas are reborn qualitatively, filled with power when the masses take them into service.
Only those who rely entirely on people will win and retain power. folk art, an inexhaustible spring civil society. – Vladimir Lenin
Truth cannot be abstract; it is always concretized and strictly tied to place and time.
The ideas of the Almighty were invented to pacify humanity, to dull for a time the feelings of injustice, hunger and lack of demand, replacing lively participation with long-incinerated ideas of bygone years, and turning people into slaves. – Ulyanov
The ideals of a future society cannot be imagined without a synthesis of science and practice, school and labor training.
Lenin: Cramming is not suitable when studying science - comprehension and understanding of processes is important.
You can solve any problem if you face the bitter truth.
The truth is simple - create a revolutionary theory, then implement it in practice with reference to the power, people and time.
The idea of God is not the connection between the individual, the individual and society, but the relationship between the oppressed classes and divine enslavers.
Continuation beautiful quotes Read Lenin on the pages:
Freedom to divorce does not mean breakup family connections, but, on the contrary, strengthening them on the only possible and sustainable democratic foundations in a civilized society.
Honesty in politics is the result of strength, hypocrisy is the result of weakness.
The idea is the knowledge and desire of a person.
If we conscientiously teach discipline to workers and peasants, then we must start with ourselves.
A wonderful prophecy is a fairy tale. But scientific prophecy is a fact.
Don’t philosophize, don’t put on airs of communism, don’t use great words to cover up negligence, idleness, Oblomovism, and backwardness.
The state is a machine for maintaining the dominance of one class over another.
In order to participate intelligently, meaningfully, and successfully in the revolution, you need to study.
You can become a communist only when you enrich your memory with the knowledge of all the riches that humanity has developed.
We can't do without romance. An excess of it is better than a deficiency. We have always sympathized with the revolutionary romantics, even when we disagreed with them.
A person is judged not by what he says or thinks about himself, but by what he does.
Broken armies learn well.
The proletariat needs the truth, and there is nothing more harmful to its cause than a plausible, decent, philistine lie.
Matter is objective reality given to us in sensation...
Universal faith in revolution is already the beginning of revolution.
Cooperation between representatives of science and workers - only such cooperation will be able to destroy all the oppression of poverty, disease, and dirt. And it will be done. No dark force can resist the union of representatives of science, the proletariat and technology.
One can say about any law that it concerns national needs!
The most dangerous thing in war is to underestimate the enemy and rest in the belief that we are stronger.
God is (historically and in everyday life) first of all a complex of ideas generated by the dull oppression of man and external nature, and class oppression - ideas that consolidate this oppression, lulling the class struggle.
Political freedom means the freedom of the people to manage their national, state affairs.
Patriotism is one of the deepest feelings, strengthened by centuries and millennia of isolated fatherlands.
More pleasant and more useful experience make revolutions than write about it.
Keeping an inheritance does not at all mean limiting oneself to the inheritance. -What inheritance are we giving up?
Without knowledge, workers are defenseless, with knowledge they are power!
Only then will we learn to win when we are not afraid to admit our defeats and shortcomings.
Religious prejudices must be combated extremely carefully; a lot of harm is done by those who bring insult to this fight religious feeling. We need to fight through propaganda, through education.
Criticism is the duty of a revolutionary.
The capitalists are ready to sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
Man needs an ideal, but a human one, corresponding to nature, and not a supernatural one.
How dirty must be the sources that replace the struggle of ideas with the spread of slander!
It is necessary that the whole task of upbringing, educating and teaching modern youth should be the inculcation of communist morality in them.
Every abstract truth becomes a phrase when applied to any concrete situation.
Ideas become power when they take hold of the masses.
Communism should not bring with it asceticism, but cheerfulness and vigor, also caused by the fullness of love life.
From living contemplation to abstract thinking and from it to practice - this is the dialectical path of cognition of truth, cognition of objective reality,
Working people are drawn to knowledge because they need it to win.
We would not believe in teaching, upbringing and education if it were confined only to school and divorced from stormy life.
Human dignity - there is nothing to look for in the world of capitalists.
There is no need to deceive yourself with lies. It's harmful.
To really know a subject, one must embrace and study all its sides, all connections and mediations. We will never achieve this completely, but the requirement of comprehensiveness will prevent us from making mistakes.
Direct policy is the most best policy. Principled policy is the most practical policy.
Without violence against rapists, it is impossible to rid the people of rapists.
The party of the revolutionary proletariat is strong enough to openly criticize itself, to bluntly call mistakes and weaknesses mistakes and weaknesses.
Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots in the very depths of the working masses. It must unite the feeling, thought and will of these masses, lift them up. It should awaken the artists in them and develop them.
Sincerity in politics is a completely verifiable correspondence between word and deed.
Ignorance is less distant from the truth than prejudice.
It is impossible to live in society and be free from society.
In our ideal, there is no place for violence against people.
If we are not afraid to speak even the bitter and difficult truth directly, we will certainly and unconditionally learn to overcome each and every difficulty.
We need action, not phrases.
Order, purpose, law are nothing more than words with which man translates the affairs of nature into his own language in order to understand them.
The people need to be told the truth, only then will their eyes be opened and they will learn to fight against untruth.
To be a materialist means to recognize the objective truth revealed to us by the senses.
The state is strong in the consciousness of the masses. It is strong when the masses know everything, can judge everything and do everything consciously.
Truth is a process. From a subjective idea, a person goes to objective truth through practice (and technology).
Every, even the most subtle, well-intentioned defense or justification of the idea of God is a justification of reaction.
The slightest iniquity, the slightest violation Soviet order there is already a hole that the enemies of the working people are immediately exploiting.
It is better to tell the truth unsuccessfully than to remain silent about it if the matter is serious.
The authority of the central institution must be based on moral and mental authority.
Without a certain amount of independent work, the truth cannot be found in any serious issue, and whoever is afraid of work deprives himself of the opportunity to find the truth.
Fantasy is a quality of the greatest value.
We need science to really become part of our flesh and blood, to turn into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way.
Self-control, self-discipline are not slavery; they are also necessary in love.
To get to more, you need to start with less.
Glasnost is a sword that itself heals the wounds it inflicts.
We must always and unconditionally strive for the closest possible unification of the proletariat of all nationalities.
We must organize every work, no matter how dirty and difficult it may be, so that every worker and peasant looks at himself like this: I am part great army free labor.
Indifference is the silent support of the one who is strong, the one who dominates.
In politics, as in everything public life, not to go forward means to be thrown back.
Our school must give young people the basics of knowledge, the ability to develop communist views themselves, and must turn them into educated people.
In order to combine universal productive labor with universal education, it is obviously necessary to impose on everyone the obligation to take part in productive labor.
Anyone who fights for the freedom of the people without fighting for the full power of the people in the state is either inconsistent or insincere.
Life moves forward with contradictions, and living contradictions are many times richer, more versatile, more meaningful than the human mind at first seems.
Incontinence in sexual life is bourgeois: it is a sign of decay.
In sexual life, not only what is given by nature is manifested, but also what is introduced by culture.
In a new, extraordinary difficult task you need to be able to start from the beginning several times: you started, you hit a dead end - start again - and so on ten times, but achieve your goal.
Religion is one of the types of spiritual oppression that lies everywhere on the masses, crushed eternal work on others, by need and loneliness.
Complete separation of church and state is the demand that the socialist proletariat makes of modern state and the modern church.
One must be able to recognize evil fearlessly in order to fight it more firmly.
The human mind has discovered many strange things in nature and will discover even more, thereby increasing its power over it.
It is impossible to live in society and be free from society.
Human thinking, by its nature, is capable of and does give us absolute truth, which consists of the sum of relative truths.
Self-criticism is absolutely necessary for every living and vital party. There is nothing more vulgar than smug optimism.
The smart one is not the one who doesn't make mistakes. There are no such people and there cannot be. Smart is the one who makes minor mistakes and who knows how to correct them easily and quickly.
War is a test of all the economic and organizational forces of every nation.
Less political chatter. Less intellectual reasoning. Closer to life.
The truth should not depend on who it is to serve.
Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes, don’t be afraid of repeated, repeated work to correct them - and we will be at the very top. - Notes from a publicist (late February 1922).
Build a new labor discipline, build new forms public relations between people, to build new forms and methods of attracting people to work - this is the work of many years and decades. This is the noblest and most rewarding work.
Morality serves to human society rise higher.
One technique of the bourgeois press always and in all countries turns out to be the most popular and unmistakably valid. Lie, make noise, shout, repeat lies - something will remain.
Talent is rare. It must be systematically and carefully maintained.
The deepest source of religious prejudice is poverty; It is this evil that we must fight.
Labor has made us the force that unites all workers.
As long as there is a state, there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state.
The history of ideas is the history of change and, therefore, the struggle of ideas.
Many of Lenin’s statements entered everyday life, becoming common phrases. People quote them, often without knowing the source. I collected one hundred of the most famous sayings Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Check yourself - if you like some of them and use them regularly - then maybe you yourself are a Bolshevik? ;)
2. There is no abstract truth, truth is always concrete
3. Everything in the world has two sides
4. You must be able to take the moment into account and be bold in decisions
5. It’s better to tell the truth unsuccessfully than to keep silent about it if the matter is serious.
6. It is the youth who face the real task of creating a communist society.
7. Every extreme is bad; everything good and useful, taken to the extreme, can even become known limit, necessarily becomes evil and harmful
8. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement
9. The rich and the crooks are two sides of the same coin.
10. Big words should not be thrown into the wind
11. War is a test of all the economic and organizational forces of every nation
12. In general, anger usually plays the worst role in politics.
13. Universal faith in the revolution is already the beginning of the revolution
14. The authority of the central institution must be based on moral and mental authority
15. If I know that I know little, I will achieve to know more.
16. Smart is not the one who doesn’t make mistakes. Smart is the one who can easily and quickly correct them
17. Words bind to deeds
18. One must be careful not to cross the line where gossip begins when criticizing shortcomings.
19. In a personal sense, the difference between a traitor by weakness and a traitor by intent and calculation is very great; V politically there is no difference
20. It is impossible to live in society and be free from society
21. Ideas become power when they capture the masses.
22. Indifference is the silent support of the one who is strong, the one who dominates
23. Equality under the law is not yet equality in life
24. Despair is characteristic of those who do not understand the causes of evil.
25. Of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us
26. Art belongs to the people. It must have its deepest roots in the very depths of the broad working masses. It must unite the feeling, thought and will of these masses, lift them up. It should awaken the artists in them and develop them
27. Capitalists are ready to sell us a rope with which we will hang them
28. A book is a huge power
29. Any state is oppression. Workers are obliged to fight even against Soviet state- and at the same time cherish it like the apple of your eye
30. People have always been and will always be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises
31. No one is guilty if he was born a slave; but a slave who not only shuns the desire for his freedom, but justifies and embellishes his slavery, such a slave is a lackey and boor who evokes a legitimate feeling of indignation, contempt and disgust
32. We must fight religion. This is the ABC of all materialism and, therefore, Marxism. But Marxism is not materialism that stops at the ABC. Marxism goes further. He says: one must be able to fight religion, and for this one must materialistically explain the source of faith and religion among the masses
33. We must systematically undertake to ensure that the work of creating a press that does not amuse or fool the masses is carried out
34. You need to be able to work with the human material that is available. They won't give us other people
35. Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes, don’t be afraid of repeated, repeated work to correct them - and we will be at the very top
36. Defeat is not as dangerous as the fear of admitting defeat.
37. Ignorance is less distant from the truth than prejudice
38. The deepest source of religious prejudice is poverty and darkness; we must fight this evil
39. In sexual life, not only what is given by nature is manifested, but also what is introduced by culture
40. Morality serves to raise human society higher
41. A person’s shortcomings are, as it were, a continuation of his advantages. But if advantages continue longer than necessary, are revealed not when necessary, and not where necessary, then they are shortcomings
42. Patriotism is one of the deepest feelings, consolidated by centuries and millennia of isolated fatherlands
43. As long as there is a state, there is no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no state
44. Politics is the most concentrated expression of economics
45. Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the entire country
46. We will work to introduce into the consciousness, into habit, into the everyday life of the masses the rule: “all for one and one for all”, the rule: “each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, to introduce gradually but steadily communist discipline and communist labor
47. Communism is the highest, against capitalist, labor productivity of voluntary, conscious, united, using advanced technology, workers
48. Communism is the highest stage of development of socialism, when people work out of the consciousness of the need to work for the common benefit
49. The revolution of the proletariat will completely destroy the division of society into classes, and consequently all social and political inequality
50. Political events always very confusing and complex. They can be compared to a chain. To hold the entire chain, you need to cling to the main link
51. Less political chatter. Less intellectual reasoning. Closer to life
52. Revolutions are not made with white gloves.
53. The most dangerous thing in war is to underestimate the enemy and calm down on the fact that we are stronger
54. It’s easy to tell a lie. But sometimes it takes a lot of time to find the truth.
55. Talent is rare. It must be systematically and carefully maintained.
56. Talent should be encouraged
57. You must know how to deal with inventors, even if they are a little capricious.
58. We can't do without romance. An excess of it is better than a deficiency. We have always sympathized with the revolutionary romantics, even when we disagreed with them
59. Every fairy tale has elements of reality
60. Fantasy is a quality of greatest value
61. You need to learn that without a car, without discipline, you can live in modern society you can’t - you either have to overcome the highest technology, or be crushed
62. An economist must always look forward, towards the progress of technology, otherwise he will immediately find himself lagging behind, because whoever does not want to look forward turns backwards to history
63. Ignorance is not an argument
64. The human mind has discovered many wonders in nature and will discover even more, thereby increasing its power over it
65. Only then will we learn to win when we are not afraid to admit our defeats and shortcomings
66. Honesty in politics is the result of strength, hypocrisy is the result of weakness.
67. Study, study and study!
68. The rise in the general cultural level of the masses will create that solid, healthy soil from which powerful, inexhaustible forces will grow for the development of art, science and technology
69. From living contemplation to abstract thinking and from it to practice - this is the dialectical path of knowledge of truth, knowledge of objective reality
70. Without a certain amount of independent work, the truth cannot be found in any serious question, and whoever is afraid of work deprives himself of the opportunity to find the truth
71. We must carefully study the sprouts of the new, pay close attention to them, and help their growth in every possible way
72. Honesty in politics is the result of strength, hypocrisy is the result of weakness
73. Lawyers must be taken with a tight rein and placed in a state of siege, because this intellectual bastard often plays dirty tricks
74. Less is more
75. We rob the loot
76. Broken armies learn well
77. Religion is a kind of spiritual booze
78. The intelligentsia is not the brain of the nation, but shit
79. I love it when people swear, it means they know what they are doing and have a line
80. Throwing ringing phrases is a characteristic of the declassed petty-bourgeois intelligentsia... We must tell the masses the bitter truth simply, clearly, directly
81. We do not need rote learning, but we need to develop and improve the memory of every student with knowledge of basic facts
82. School is outside of life, outside of politics - it’s a lie and hypocrisy
83. We put forward the broadest first public education and education. It creates the soil for culture
84. Working people are drawn to knowledge because they need it to win
85. You can always make a monstrously big mistake out of a small mistake if you insist on the mistake, if you substantiate it in depth, if you “carry it through to the end”
86. Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes, don’t be afraid of repeated, repeated work to correct them - and we will be at the very top
87. By analyzing the mistakes of yesterday, we thereby learn to avoid mistakes today and tomorrow
88. Smart is not the one who doesn’t make mistakes. There are no such people and there cannot be. Smart is someone who makes mistakes that are not very significant, and who can correct them easily and quickly.
89. If we are not afraid to speak even the bitter and difficult truth directly, we will learn, we will certainly and unconditionally learn to overcome all and any difficulties
90. One must have the courage to look the unvarnished bitter truth straight in the face.
91. Don’t delude yourself with lies. It's harmful
92. Self-criticism is, of course, necessary for every living and vital party. There is nothing more vulgar than smug optimism
93. Man needs an ideal, but a human one, corresponding to nature, and not a supernatural one
94. Don’t philosophize, don’t put on airs about communism, don’t cover up negligence, idleness, Oblomovism, backwardness with great words
95. Check all your work so that words do not remain words, practical successes of economic construction
96. A person is judged not by what he says or thinks about himself, but by what he does
97. Labor has made of us the force that unites all workers
98. There are such winged words, which with amazing accuracy express the essence of quite complex phenomena
99. Cooperation between representatives of science and workers - only such cooperation will be able to destroy all the oppression of poverty, disease, and dirt. And it will be done. No dark force can resist the union of representatives of science, the proletariat and technology
100. He who does nothing practical makes no mistakes.
Considering the significant role of their author in the history and culture of the USSR, many of them became catchphrases. Moreover, a number of quotes in their well-known formulation do not belong to Lenin, but first appeared in literary works and cinema. These statements became widespread in the political and everyday languages of the USSR and post-Soviet Russia.
"We'll take a different route"
After the execution of his elder brother Alexander in 1887 as a participant in the Narodnaya Volya conspiracy to assassinate the emperor Alexandra III Vladimir Ulyanov allegedly said: “We will take a different path,” which meant his rejection of the methods of individual terror. In fact, this phrase is taken and paraphrased from the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” by Vladimir Mayakovsky.
And then
said
Ilyich, seventeen years old -
this word
stronger than vows
soldier with raised hand:
- Brother,
we are here
ready to replace you,
we will win
but we will take a different path
According to the recollections of his elder sister Anna Ilyinichna, Vladimir Ulyanov said the phrase in a different wording: “No, we won’t go that way. This is not the way to go.". The expression became widespread thanks to the painting of the same name by P. P. Belousov.
“Every cook must learn to govern the state”
In the article “Will the Bolsheviks hold state power? (originally published in October 1917 in No. 1 - 2 of the magazine Enlightenment) Lenin wrote:
“We are not utopians. We know that any laborer and any cook are not capable of immediately taking over the government. On this we agree with the Cadets, and with Breshkovskaya, and with Tsereteli. But we differ from these citizens in that we demand immediate a break with the prejudice that running a state, carrying out everyday life, daily work Only the rich or officials taken from rich families are able to govern. We require that training public administration was carried out by class-conscious workers and soldiers and that it should be started immediately, that is, all working people, all the poor, should immediately begin to be involved in this training."
The version “Any cook can rule the state,” attributed to V.I. Lenin, does not belong to him, but is often used when criticizing socialism and Soviet power. The option “Any cook should rule the state” is also used. Lenin meant, first of all, that even a cook, as a representative of the broad masses of working people, must learn to manage the state, must be involved in state administration.
The expression was used by V.V. Mayakovsky in the poem “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”:
Good riddance!
We and the cook
every
let's learn
rule the state!
“Of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us”
Lenin’s famous phrase “You must firmly remember that of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us” is based on Lunacharsky’s recollections of a conversation with Lenin in February 1922, which he set out in a letter to Boltyansky dated January 29, 1925 (ref. No. 190) which was published:
in the book by G. M. Boltyansky “Lenin and Cinema”. - M.: L., 1925 - P.19; excerpts from the letter have been published, this is the first known publication;
in the magazine “Soviet Cinema” No. 1-2 for 1933 - P.10; The letter has been published in full;
in the publication by V.I. Lenin. Complete collection works, ed. 5th. M.: Publishing house political literature, 1970 - T.44 - P.579; An excerpt from the letter was published with reference to the magazine “Soviet Cinema”.
In the context of the conversation, Lenin spoke about the tasks of developing communist cinema, noted the need to “ a certain proportion between fascinating films and scientific ones,” especially pointed out the role of the chronicle, with which it is necessary to begin “the production of new films, imbued with communist ideas and reflecting Soviet reality,” emphasized the need for censorship (“of course, censorship is still needed. Counter-revolutionary and immoral films should not have a place") and at the end of the conversation he added: “you are considered a patron of art, so you must firmly remember that of all the arts, cinema is the most important for us.” In this form, the phrase can be understood as a call for Lunacharsky to turn to cinema special attention compared to more closely related “traditional” art forms.
Many people mistakenly believe that the phrase sounded differently, and such distortions end up in seemingly authoritative sources, for example, “While the people are illiterate, of all the arts, cinema and the circus are the most important for us.”
"Study, study and study"
Lenin’s famous words “study, study and study” were written by him in his work “The Retrograde Direction of Russian Social Democracy,” written at the end of 1899 and published in 1924 in the magazine “ Proletarian revolution» No. 8-9:
"While educated society loses interest in honest, illegal literature, a passionate desire for knowledge and for socialism grows among the workers, real heroes stand out among the workers, who - despite the ugly conditions of their lives, despite the stultifying hard labor in the factory - find in themselves so much character and strength the will to study, study and study and develop into conscious social democrats, “working intelligentsia.”
Perhaps Lenin used A.P. Chekhov’s phrase from the work “My Life (A Provincial’s Story)” ch. VI, the first publication of which was in the supplement to Niva in 1896:
We need to study, study and study, and with deep
Let’s wait for social trends: we have not yet grown up to them and, in all honesty, we don’t understand anything about them.
A similar repetition was made in the article “Less is better” (Pravda No. 49, March 4, 1923):
We must at all costs set ourselves the task of updating our state apparatus: firstly, to study, secondly, to study, and thirdly, to study, and then make sure that science does not remain a dead letter or a fashionable phrase in our country ( and this, to be honest, happens especially often among us), so that science really enters flesh and blood, turns into an integral element of everyday life in a completely and real way.
In the report at the IV Congress of the Comintern “Five Years Russian revolution and prospects for the world revolution" ("Pravda". No. 258, November 15, 1922; "Bulletin of the IV Congress Communist International"No. 8 of November 16, 1922) the word was repeated twice:
"Founded soviet schools, working faculties, several hundred thousand young people are studying, learning, perhaps too quickly, but, in any case, the work has begun, and I think that this work will bear fruit.”
“The entire party and all layers of Russia prove this with their thirst for knowledge. This desire to learn shows that the most important task for us is now: to study and study.”
In “Plans for the report “Five Years of the Russian Revolution and Prospects for the World Revolution” at the IV Congress of the Comintern” (“Pravda”. No. 17. January 21, 1926; magazine “Questions of the History of the CPSU”. - 1959. - No. 2.) it is said:
They will be even better if we continue to study (I guarantee you that)
It is a common misconception that Lenin first uttered this phrase in III All-Russian Congress of the RKSM on October 2, 1920. In fact, in this speech the words “learn” and “learn communism” were repeatedly heard, but the word “learn” was not repeated three times.
“In fact, this is not a brain, but shit” (about bourgeois intellectuals)
Lenin’s famous phrase about bourgeois intellectuals: “In fact, this is not the brain [of the nation], but shit.”
It is found in his letter to A. M. Gorky, sent on September 15, 1919 to Petrograd, which the author begins with a message about the meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on September 11, 1919: “we decided to appoint Kamenev and Bukharin to the Central Committee to verify the arrest of bourgeois intellectuals near-cadet type and for the release of anyone possible. For it is clear to us that there were mistakes here too.”)
And he explains:
“It is wrong to confuse the “intellectual forces” of the people with the “forces” of bourgeois intellectuals. I’ll take Korolenko as an example: I recently read his pamphlet “War, Fatherland and Humanity,” written in August 1917. Korolenko is the best of the “near-cadets,” almost a Menshevik. And what a vile, vile, vile defense of the imperialist war, covered up with sugary phrases! A pathetic bourgeois, captivated by bourgeois prejudices! For such gentlemen, 10,000,000 killed in an imperialist war is a cause worthy of support (in deeds, with sugary phrases “against” the war), and the death of hundreds of thousands in a just civil war against landowners and capitalists causes gasps, groans, sighs, hysterics.
No. It’s not a sin for such “talents” to spend a week in prison if this needs to be done to prevent conspiracies (like Krasnaya Gorka) and the death of tens of thousands. And we discovered these conspiracies of the cadets and “near-cadets.” And we know that professors around the cadets often give help to the conspirators. This is a fact.
The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and strengthening in the struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and its accomplices, intellectuals, lackeys of capital, who imagine themselves to be the brains of the nation. In fact, it’s not the brain, but the g...
We pay above-average salaries to the “intellectual forces” who want to bring science to the people (and not serve capital). This is a fact. We take care of them."
“There is such a party!”
“There is such a party!” — catchphrase, pronounced by V. I. Lenin at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in response to the thesis of the Menshevik I. G. Tsereteli.
"Political Prostitute"
Not a single document has survived where Lenin directly uses this term. But there is plenty of evidence that he used the word “prostitutes” in relation to his political opponents (Bund). In particular, Lenin’s letter to the Central Committee of the RSDLP dated September 7, 1905 has been preserved, where he wrote:
“For God’s sake, don’t rush into an official resolution and don’t give in one iota to this Bundist-new-Iskra conference. Will there really be no protocols?? Is it really possible to have a conference with these prostitutes without protocols?”
« Less is more »
The title of an article from 1923 about the measures that needed to be taken to strengthen and improve the Soviet state apparatus. Published in Pravda, No. 49, March 4, 1923.
"He who doesn't work doesn't eat"
A phrase that appears in many of Lenin’s works (“State and Revolution”, “Will the Bolsheviks retain state power?”, “How to organize competition?”, “On hunger (letter to St. Petersburg workers)”, etc.), where it is called “commandment socialism" or "the root principle of socialism." The expression was included in the text of Article 12 of the 1936 USSR Constitution.
It is noteworthy that the original phrase is taken from the New Testament: “...When we were with you, we commanded you this: if anyone does not want to work, neither should he eat” (2 Thess. 3:10).
“Trade unions are a school of communism”
A slogan put forward in relation to trade unions of the Soviet era. One of Ilyich's behests. The expression first appeared in April 1920 in Lenin’s work “The Infantile Disease of “Leftism” in Communism” even before the start of a broad discussion about trade unions. There is this characteristic in his article “Once again about trade unions, about the current moment and about errors vol. Trotsky and Bukharin,” written in January 1921. Subsequently, Lenin repeated the thesis about trade unions as a school of management, a school of economics, a school of communism in the “Draft Theses on the Role and Tasks of Trade Unions in the New economic policy"in January 1922.
