Against the assertion that the workers' state is 
apparently already liquidated there arises, first 
and foremost, the important methodological 
position of Marxism. The dictatorship of the 
proletariat was established by means of a 
political overturn and a civil war of three years. 
The class theory of society and historical 
experience equally testify to the impossibility of 
the victory of the proletariat through peaceful 
methods, that is, without grandiose class battles, 
weapons in hand. How, in that case, is the 
imperceptible, "gradual," bourgeois 
counterrevolution conceivable? Until now, in any 
case, feudal as well as bourgeois 
counterrevolutions have never taken place 
"organically," but they have invariably required 
the intervention of military surgery. In the last 
analysis, the theories of reformism, insofar as 
reformism generally has attained to theory, are 
always based upon the inability to understand that 
class antagonisms are profound and irreconcilable; 
hence, the perspective of a peaceful 
transformation of capitalism into socialism. The 
Marxist thesis relating to the catastrophic 
character of the transfer of power from the hands 
of one class into the hands of another applies not 
only to revolutionary periods, when history sweeps 
madly ahead, but also to the periods of 
counterrevolution, when society rolls backwards. 
He who asserts that the Soviet government has been 
gradually changed from proletarian to bourgeois is 
only, so to speak, running backwards the film of 
reformism.

--Leon Trotsky, "The Class Nature of the Soviet State,"
1933

[Why this quote is wrong:
While he was alive, Trotsky usually said that the Soviet Union
was still a "dictatorship of the proletariat"; even though
he did not like Stalin. Actually, we agree on that; even though
we follow on Stalin's road.

However, subsequent Trotskyists called Khruschev a "Stalinist"
after Khruschev denounced Stalin and let it be known that the
bourgeoisie in the party faced no threat from him for its
corrupt activities. Even when the Soviet Union finally
faced a business cycle like any other capitalist country, 
Trotskyists were found spouting the 1933 quote. In fact,
even after Yelstin came to power, Trotskyists were still
found quoting the 1933 quote.

The fact is that the Soviet Union went capitalist without
a massive civil war. Yeltsin and Putin have ruled and
they have brought down the life expectancy hugely, but
not through a civil war.]