Joseph Stalin

World War II was fought for the abolition of racial exclusiveness, equality of nations and the integrity of their territories, liberation of enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights, the right of every nation to arrange its affairs as it wishes, economic aid to nations that have suffered and assistance to them in attaining their material welfare, restoration of democratic liberties, and destruction of the Hitlerite regime.

A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.

World dictatorship can be established only when the victory of socialism has been achieved in certain countries or groups of countries … [and] when these federation of republics have finally grown into a world union of Soviet Socialist Republics uniting the whole of mankind under the hegemony of the international proletariat organized as a state.

Artillery is the god of war.

Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.

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

I tell you folks, all politics is applesauce.

What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master.

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don’t let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?

Most problems of teaching are not problems of growth but helping cultivate growth. As far as I know, and this is only from personal experience in teaching, I think about ninety percent of the problem in teaching, or maybe ninety-eight percent, is just to help the students get interested. Or what it usually amounts to is to not prevent them from being interested. Typically they come in interested, and the process of education is a way of driving that defect out of their minds. But if children[‘s] … normal interest is maintained or even aroused, they can do all kinds of things in ways we don’t understand.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

We need not stride resolutely towards catastrophe, merely because those are the marching orders.

Social Security is actually in pretty good shape despite what everybody screams about. But if you can defund it, it won’t be in good shape. And there is a standard technique of privatization, namely defund what you want to privatize.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time.

I believe health care is a basic right. If education – you’re entitled to an education, why wouldn’t you be entitled to adequate health care? Period.

It’s better to be hanged for loyalty than be rewarded for betrayal.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

Do you remember the tsar? Well, I‘m like a tsar.

Imagine, a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction. It’s not 3,000. It’s tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children.