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"By revolutionary phrase making we mean the repetition of revolutionary slogans irrespective of objective circumstances at a given turn invents, in the given state of affairs obtaining at the time. The slogans are superb, alluring, intoxicating, but there are no grounds for them; such is the nature of the revolutionary phrase. (...) Anyone who does not want to comfort himself with mo rewords, bombastic declarations and exclamations must see that the “slogan” of revolutionary war in February 1918 is the emptiest of phrases, that it has nothing real, nothing objective behind it. This slogan today contains nothing but sentiment, wishes, indignation and resentment. Ada slogan with such a content is called a revolutionary phrase. (...) It is clear to everyone (except those intoxicated with empty phrases) that to undertake a serious insurrectionary or military clash knowing that we have no forces, knowing that we have no army, is a gamble that will not help the German workers but will make their struggle more difficult and make matters easier for their enemy and for our enemy."
Lenin, The Revolutionary Phrase, February 1918.
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