"Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one's enemies"
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Revolutionaries like Trotsky don’t romanticize education; they weaponize it. “Learning carries within itself certain dangers” lands as a warning to comrades who want ideological purity without contamination. In his world, knowledge isn’t gathered in a seminar room, it’s extracted under pressure from opponents who are actively trying to destroy you. If you’re serious about winning, you can’t afford the luxury of ignoring what your enemies do well.
The subtext is a jab at two temptations inside any movement: dogma and innocence. Dogma says the enemy has nothing to teach you because they’re morally illegitimate. Innocence says you can build a new order without studying the old one’s machinery. Trotsky insists both are fatal. To learn “from one’s enemies” means watching how power actually functions: discipline, propaganda, logistics, the unglamorous systems that keep institutions standing. It also means risking mimicry. The danger isn’t merely exposure to hostile ideas; it’s that you may adopt their methods and end up reproducing the very domination you set out to abolish.
Context sharpens the edge. Trotsky lived through tsarist repression, civil war, and then Stalin’s consolidation, where former revolutionaries learned the techniques of surveillance and coercion with terrifying speed. The line reads like a grim footnote to the 20th century: the most effective radicals often become the best students of their adversaries, and that education can curdle into a blueprint for a new kind of tyranny.
The subtext is a jab at two temptations inside any movement: dogma and innocence. Dogma says the enemy has nothing to teach you because they’re morally illegitimate. Innocence says you can build a new order without studying the old one’s machinery. Trotsky insists both are fatal. To learn “from one’s enemies” means watching how power actually functions: discipline, propaganda, logistics, the unglamorous systems that keep institutions standing. It also means risking mimicry. The danger isn’t merely exposure to hostile ideas; it’s that you may adopt their methods and end up reproducing the very domination you set out to abolish.
Context sharpens the edge. Trotsky lived through tsarist repression, civil war, and then Stalin’s consolidation, where former revolutionaries learned the techniques of surveillance and coercion with terrifying speed. The line reads like a grim footnote to the 20th century: the most effective radicals often become the best students of their adversaries, and that education can curdle into a blueprint for a new kind of tyranny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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