We must not depict socialism as if socialists will bring it to us on a plate all nicely dressed. That will never happen. Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters — then we are for it!

"Report on the Activities of the Council of People's Commissars" (24 January 1918); Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp. 459-61.