Ronald William Clark

“Lenin was buttressed throughout his life by a moral justification which he outlined in Krasnyi Mech (The Red Sword), a weekly periodical of the Political Department of the Special Corps of Ukranian Cheka Troops.

'For us there do not, and cannot, exist the old systems of morality and "humanity" invented by the bourgeoisie for the old purpose of oppressing and exploiting the "lower classes" [he wrote]. Our morality is new, our humanity is absolute, for it rests on the bright ideal of destroying all oppression and coercion.
To us, all is permitted, for we are the first in the world to raise the sword not in the name of enslaving and oppressing anyone, but ibn the name of freeing all from bondage....Blood? Let there be blood, if it alone can turn the grey-white-and-black banner of the old piratical world to a scarlet hue, for only the complete and final death of that world will save us from the return of the old jackals.”
― Ronald William Clark, Lenin

“Among those who trimmed their political principles after the outbreak of the war was Katusky, who particularly aroused Lenin's ire.

'I hate Katusky and at the moment I despise him more than anyone [he wrote to Shlyapnikov in October]: a beastly, rotten, smug, hypocrite. Oh no, - they say- nothing has happened, no principles have been violated; every one was right in protecting the Fatherland; internationalism (kindly note) consists in the workers of all countries shooting at each other in the name of the "Defence of the Fatherland".”
― Ronald William Clark, Lenin