Vladimir Lenin Quotes in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)

The German Consul: It's outrageous. We are here in Zurich, and if I understand you, you want the German government, which is at war with Russia, to take you to Sweden, because you can get to Russia from there.

Vladimir Lenin: I'm offering to stop the war.

The German Consul: I didn't know you had so much authority.

Vladimir Lenin: If there was a Bolshevik government in Russia, we'd immediately make peace with Germany. Then how many German divisions could you transfer to the western front ?

The German Consul: And now you are asking for classified information. Do you realize my government has locked up more Bolsheviks than anyone else? How can you expect us to help you make a revolution? You have no sense of proportion!

Vladimir Lenin: All I'm interested in is power in Russia and it's lying there on the streets, waiting to be picked up. Kerensky won't last. He's still fighting the war, and the people are desperate for peace. I shall offer them peace. Then you'll see the real revolution.

Trotsky: I'll never understand you. You hate anyone who's not your kind of Bolshevik more than you hate the Tsar.

Martov: No wonder they call you Robespierre. Everyone's got to think like you, or they're out!

Trotsky: He thinks freedom is something you write on a wall, you don't actually practice it.

Vladimir Lenin: That's not true. Of course, I agree you're free to say what you like. And you must agree I'm free to shoot you for saying it.

Vladimir Lenin: [to a journalist attending a Communist Party congress in London] Pay attention! You're about to witness the birth of the Bolshevik Party.

Vladimir Lenin: Murder, arson, terror, I'll agree to anything that gives us power. Power! And we can't have power if we compromise. Even though it takes years, terror and power.

Vladimir Lenin: Revolution! Revolution now! Land! Peace! All power to the soviets!

Vladimir Lenin: The Government has fallen. We shall now begin to construct the socialist order.

Vladimir Lenin: [depressed] In the last ten years I've spent... three months in Russia. I'm out of fashion. No one's wearing me this year, hmmm? I talk and no one listens, and I write and no one reads. Think what we'll be like in 10 or 15 years. Emigres go off their heads in the end, you know.

Mme. Krupskaya: No!

Vladimir Lenin: Mad old cranks with no money, no country, always worrying about the laundry, complaining when the mail's late, being ill in charity hospitals, and buried with paupers.