Top 187 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph Stalin

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Georgian leader Joseph Stalin.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism.

A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.
The writer is the engineer of the human soul. — © Joseph Stalin
The writer is the engineer of the human soul.
If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a 'peace conference', you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.
We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?
When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.
History shows that there are no invincible armies.
Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited; and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division; and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.
The only real power comes out of a long rifle.
One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed. — © Joseph Stalin
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.
You cannot make a revolution with silk gloves.
If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.
The Pope? How many divisions has he got?
Print is the sharpest and the strongest weapon of our party.
The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.
Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.
The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.
I trust no one, not even myself.
Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs.
In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance.
I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.
The leaders come and go, but the people remain. Only the people are immortal.
You know, they are fooling us, there is no God.
By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes.
It takes a brave man to be a coward in the Red Army.
In speaking of the capitalists who strive only for profit, only to get rich, I do not want to say that these are the most worthless people capable of doing nothing else. Many of them undoubtedly possess great organising talent, which I would not dream of denying. We Soviet people learn a lot from the capitalists. But if you mean people who are prepared to reconstruct the world, of course you will not be able to find them in the ranks of those who faithfully serve the cause of profit. ..The capitalist is riveted in profit and nothing can tear him away from it.
The press must grow day in and day out - it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon.
Die, but do not retreat.
Great Britain provided time; the United States provided money and Soviet Russia provided blood.
How do you expect the Germans to revolt when they don't even dare walk on the grass?
Political power does not rest with those who cast votes; political power rests with those who count votes.
[American Communist Party] legally exists in the U.S.A., it nominates its candidates in the elections, including Presidential elections.
It doesn't matter who they vote for, they always vote for us.
Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish army — © Joseph Stalin
Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish army
Education is a weapon the effect of which is determined by the hands which wield it, by who is to be struck down.
Voters decide nothing. Vote counters decide everything!
When there's a person, there's a problem. When there's no person, there's no problem. Josef Stalin
Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege.
[After Communism succeeds] ...then, there will come a peace across the earth.
The United States should get rid of its militias.
This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.
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.
A man's eyes should be torn out if he can only see the past
Quantity has a quality all its own. — © Joseph Stalin
Quantity has a quality all its own.
Ah, these diplomats! What chatterboxes! There's only one way to shut them up - cut them down with machine guns. Bulganin, go and get me one!
Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U.S.S.R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U.S.S.R. active anti-Semites are punished with death.
The death of one man is tragic, but the death of thousands is statistic.
Divide the world into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together all the way into a single world dictatorship.
It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper.
Marxism is not only the theory of socialism, it is an integral world outlook, a philosophical system, from which Marx’s proletarian socialism logically follows. This philosophical system is called dialectical materialism.
To choose one's victims, to prepare one's plan minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed... There is nothing sweeter in the world.
Words are one thing - deeds something entirely different. Fine words are a mask to cover shady deeds. A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this - who will count the votes, and how.
It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes.
It is not heroes that make history, but history that makes heroes.
He who votes does not have power. He who counts the votes has power.
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