Joseph Stalin Historical Quotations

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.

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

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.

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.

The easiest way to gain control of the population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened.