IIRC, Pericles did say “you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you” which IMO means someone is always trying to exert power over others for its own sake and not for any perceived benefit to society as a whole.
The quote from Pericles as I’ve seen it is virtually identical to the one you attribute to Trotsky. Substitute ‘politics’ for ‘communism’. But who can really say? Neither statement was made in English so a fair amount of translator latitude is to be expected.