# Quote — Richard Pipes, Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution

> By 1921 it had become clear to all but the more incorrigible optimists that there would be no repetition of October 1917 anywhere else and that for an indeterminate period the revolution would remain confined to Russia and her possessions. The concept of ‘socialism in one country’ was not launched by Stalin in his conflict with Trotsky, but earlier by Lenin himself.

- Author: [Richard Pipes](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes.md)
- Book: [Three "Whys" of the Russian Revolution](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution.md)
- Page: 72
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Pipes#Three_%E2%80%9CWhys%E2%80%9D_of_the_Russian_Revolution_(1995)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/by-1921-it-had

## More from this book

> The Empire was traditionally run by a bureaucracy and a gentry, after 1880 reinforced by a political-police organization. This political policing was a Russian invention; Russia was the first country to have two police systems, one to protect the state from its citizens, and the other to protect the citizens from each other. Subsequently, this dual structure became a fundamental feature of totalitarian states.

p. 17 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/the-empire-was.md)

> According to Marx, the evolution of capitalism would inevitably lead to the pauperization of the proletariat and then, just as inevitably, to its radicalization. It is interesting that Bento Mussolini arrived at an identical judgment ten years later. Before the outbreak of the first World War, Mussolini had been the closest analogue to Lenin in the European socialist movement, being equally revolutionary and anti-reformist. He was the Lenin of the Italian Socialist Party with the difference that, whereas Mussolini managed to rally behind him a revolutionary majority and expel the reformers, in Russia, Lenin found himself leading a minority and forced to break away from the Social-Democratic Establishment.

p. 36 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/according-to-marx.md)

> We cannot determine whether or not he had met Lenin during their common exile in Switzerland; Mussolini once cryptically remarked: ‘Lenin knew me better than I knew him.’

p. 37 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-pipes/three-whys-of-the-russian-revolution/we-cannot-determine.md)