Nicholas and Alexandra (1971)

Vivian Pickles: Mme. Krupskaya

Quotes 

• Vladimir Lenin : In the last ten years, I've spent three months in Russia. I'm out of fashion. No one's wearing me this year. I talk, and no one listens. I write, and no one reads. Think what we'll be like in ten or fifteen years. Emigres go off their heads in the end, you know.

  Mme. Krupskaya : No.

  Vladimir Lenin : Mad old cranks with no money, no country, always worrying about the laundry, complaining when the mail's late, being ill in charity hospitals and buried with paupers.

  Mme. Krupskaya : No, Ilyich. It won't be like that.

  Vladimir Lenin : Three hundred years of Romanovs? Why not three hundred more?

• English journalist : Excuse me, Mr. Lenin. I'm from the Socialist Worker. Could you tell me what you think of the socialist movement in England?

  Mme. Krupskaya : The English cut their meat wrong, their tea is terrible, and the weather was better in Siberia. At least you keep your policemen under control.

• Trotsky : Russia will explode. A massacre in Petersburg! And now the Japanese have forced Nicholas to accept peace on their terms. He's lost the war. Thousands of soldiers killed, and all for nothing. This time, Nicholas has destroyed himself. I'm going to Petersburg.

  Martov : But you'll need bombs and explosives and ammunition.

  Mme. Krupskaya : They can be smuggled in, Leon.

  Vladimir Lenin : Oh, for God's sake, don't discuss that with her. She probably thinks you can wheel machine guns across the frontier in a baby carriage.