Quotes by Stalin
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 aeroplanes.
A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
I believe in only one thing, the power of human will.
Cadres are a key to everything.
We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.
— Said in 1931, ten years before '41.
Fuck the Pope! How many divisions has he got?
—To Pierre Laval
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
Ours cause is just - victory will be ours
— Originally said by Molotov on 22 June 1941, but he claimed that this slogan was invented by Stalin.
History shows that there are no invincible armies and that there never have been.
— About Germans in 3rd July 1941.
Hitlers come and go, but Germany and the German people remain.
— November 1942
The writer is the engineer of the human soul.
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.
Finished badly, scoundrel! It is a pity that we didn't take him alive.
— On Hitler's death.
American Diplomat: Premier Stalin, after all of your trials and tribulations, it must be a great satisfaction to you to be here in Berlin.
Stalin: Tsar Alexander got to Paris.
Stalin: Tsar Alexander got to Paris.
—At the Potsdam Conference, 1945
I have no other writers for Comrade Polikarpov, but we will find another Polikarpov for the writers.
— To Secretary of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR Polikarpov D. A. after he companied about the writers, as quoted by Anatoly Rybakov.
I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy.
Fuck them!
—Remark about snubbing some American generals and politicians at a cinema, as quoted by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?
Stalin's Son Vasily: But I am a Stalin too.
Josef Stalin: No you're not. You're not Stalin and I'm not Stalin. (Indicates Portrait of himself) That is Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and portraits, not you, no, not even me.
Josef Stalin: No you're not. You're not Stalin and I'm not Stalin. (Indicates Portrait of himself) That is Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and portraits, not you, no, not even me.
He can't even shoot straight.
— About his son Yakov's failed suicide attempt.
It is difficult for me to imagine what "personal liberty" is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment. Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
— Interview between Stalin and Roy Howard
About him
He had found Russia working with wooden ploughs and leaving it equipped with atomic piles.
— Isaac Deutscher in an obituary
Stalin was, Mr. Montefiore writes, “that rare combination: both ‘intellectual’ and killer.” The roots of violence ran deep in his family life and in Gori, his hometown, where street brawling was the principal sport.
— William Grimes
Did Stalin make mistakes? Of course he did. In so long a period filled with heroism, trials, struggle, triumphs, it is inevitable not only for Joseph Stalin personally but also for the leadership as a collective body to make mistakes.
— Enver Hoxha
It was an experience of great interest to me to meet Premier Stalin ... It is very fortunate for Russia in her agony to have this great rugged war chief at her head. He is a man of massive outstanding personality, suited to the sombre and stormy times in which his life has been cast; a man of inexhaustible courage and will-power and a man direct and even blunt in speech, which, having been brought up in the House of Commons, I do not mind at all, especially when I have something to say of my own. Above all, he is a man with that saving sense of humour which is of high importance to all men and all nations, but particularly to great men and great nations. Stalin also left upon me the impression of a deep, cool wisdom and a complete absence of illusions of any kind. I believe I made him feel that we were good and faithful comrades in this war – but that, after all, is a matter which deeds not words will prove.
— Winston Churchill, 1942
I propose a toast, to Comrade Stalin, whose conduct of diplomacy and foreign policy manifests a desire for peace... (*inaudibly)... a piece of Poland, a piece of Czechoslovakia...
—Winston Churchill, at Yalta
"Is there still a Tsar?"
"Yes, but he is not a Romanoff [...] He is much more powerful and much more despotic."
—Randolph Churchill and Winston Churchill (from a dream conversation Winston Churchill had with his father's ghost), 1947
For De Gaulle it was unimportant, that we had anti-Stalin campaign. President of France, when he came to Moscow, placed a circlet of flowers on Stalin's grave. I imagine how our leaders, standing next to him, felt like, when the tall, straight, unbending De Gaulle stood on Red Square near the grave of Stalin, his hand under the peak...
— F. Chuev
He was of small stature, and disproportioned, his trunk too short, his arms too long. His face was pale and rough, ruddy around the cheekbones, his teeth black and irregular, his mustache and hair thin. An admirable head, though, like that of a mountain man, with lively and impish avid yellow eyes... One felt the intent, constant activity of the mind.
— Milovan Đilas
There was an old bastard named Lenin
Who did two or three million men in
That's a lot to have done in
But where he did one in
That old bastard Stalin did ten in!
— Robert Conquest, quoted by Hitch 22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens
Look into my eyes, you perverted witch,
You think I give a fuck about my wife?
You got off easy when they pickled that moose cock!
I'll leave your neck in a noose in a trench and shot,
Anyone who sold you pierogi, shot!
Drop the hammer on you harder than I bitch-slapped Hitler!
