Vladimir Lenin — "Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves whe…"
Oh, yes, gentlemen! You are free not only to invite us, but to go yourselves wherever you will, even into the marsh. In fact, we think that the marsh is your proper place, and we are prepared to render you every assistance to get there. Only let go of our hands, don't clutch at us and don't besmirch the grand word freedom, for we too are 'free' to go where we please, free to fight not only against the marsh, but also against those who are turning towards the marsh!
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Russian revolutionary who led the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and founded the Soviet state; What Is to Be Done? (1902) shaped 20th-century revolutionary practice.
Closely associated with
Leon Trotsky (his Red Army organizer and 1917 partner) and Karl Marx (the source Lenin claimed (and adapted)).
For an intellectual contrast, see
Karl Popper, Austrian-British philosopher — Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) systematically attacked Marx-and-Lenin 'historical inevitability' as the philosophical structure that produces totalitarianism — Lenin's vanguard-party doctrine is Popper's primary 20th-century target.
Details
From 'What Is to Be Done?', a sarcastic dismissal of political opponents
