Assata Shakur: People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Assata Shakur: Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: There are reformists in all countries, for everywhere the bourgeoisie seek, in one way or another, to corrupt the workers and turn them into contented slaves who have given up all thought of doing away with slavery. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Malcolm X: The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative. The Democrats who are liberal vote with the Republicans that are liberal. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Felix Dzerzhinsky: One has to have the inner consciousness of the need to go to one’s death for the sake of life, to go to prison for the sake of freedom and to have the strength to go through all the hell of life with open eyes, feeling in one’s heart the great and exalted, paean of beauty, truth and happiness derived from that life. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The feudal organisation of social labour rested on the discipline of the bludgeon, while the working people, robbed and tyrannised by a handful of landowners, were utterly ignorant and downtrodden. The capitalist organisation of social labour rested on the discipline of hunger, and, notwithstanding all the progress of bourgeois culture and bourgeois democracy, the vast mass of the working people in the most advanced, civilised and democratic republics remained an ignorant and downtrodden mass of wage-slaves or oppressed peasants, robbed and tyrannised by a handful of capitalists. The communist organisation of social labour, the first step towards which is socialism, rests, and will do so more and more as time goes on, on the free and conscious discipline of the working people themselves who have thrown off the yoke both of the landowners and capitalists. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: If we translate the Latin, scientific, historico-philosophical term "dictatorship of the proletariat” into simpler language, it means just the following: Only a definite class, namely, the urban workers and the factory, industrial workers in general, is able to lead the whole mass of the working and exploited people in the struggle to throw off the yoke of capital, in actually carrying it out, in the struggle to maintain and consolidate the victory, in the work of creating the new, socialist social system and in the entire struggle for the complete abolition of classes. (Let us observe in parenthesis that the only scientific distinction between socialism-and communism is that the first term implies the first stage of the new society arising out of capitalism, while the second implies the next and higher stage.) wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The proletariat does not cease the class struggle after it has captured political power, but continues it until classes are abolished -- of course, under different circumstances, in different form and by different means. And what does the "abolition of classes” mean? All those who call themselves socialists recognise this as the ultimate goal of socialism, but by no means all give thought to its significance. Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organisation of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy. Clearly, in order to abolish classes completely, it is not enough to overthrow the exploiters, the landowners and capitalists, not enough to abolish their rights of ownership; it is necessary also to abolish all private ownership of the means of production, it is necessary to abolish the distinction between town and country, as well as the distinction between manual workers and brain workers. This requires a very long period of time. In order to achieve this an enormous step forward must be taken in developing the productive forces; it is necessary to overcome the resistance (frequently passive, which is particularly stubborn and particularly difficult to overcome) of the numerous survivals of small-scale production; it is necessary to overcome the enormous force of habit and conservatism which are connected with these survivals. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Communism is the higher productivity of labour—compared with that existing under capitalism—of voluntary, class-conscious and united workers employing advanced techniques. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
James Connolly: But history, in general treats the working class as the manipulator of politics treats the working man - that is to say, with contempt when he remained passive, and with derision, hatred and misrepresentation whenever he dares evince a desire to throw off the yoke of political or social servitude. Ireland is no exception to the rule. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Malcolm X: The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man. Let me explain what I mean by the white liberal. In America there is no such thing as Democrat or Republican anymore. In America you have liberals and conservatives. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Albert Einstein: The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
James Connolly: On the day that the political and economic forces of labor finally break with capitalist society and proclaim the Workers Republic these shops and factories so manned by Industrial Unionists will be taken charge of by the workers there employed, and force and effectiveness thus given to that proclamation. Then and thus the new society will spring into existence ready equipped to perform all the useful functions of its predecessor. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
CJ Hopkins: The ruling classes love identity politics because they keep the working classes focused on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so on, and not on the fact that they (i.e., the working classes) are, essentially, glorified indentured servants, who will spend the majority of their sentient existences laboring to benefit a ruling elite that would gladly butcher their entire families and sell their livers to hepatitic Saudi princes if they could get away with it. Dividing the working classes up into sub-groups according to race, ethnicity, and so on, and then pitting these sub-groups against each other, is extremely important to the ruling classes, who are, let’s remember, a tiny minority of intelligent but physically vulnerable parasites controlling the lives of the vast majority of human beings on the planet Earth, primarily by keeping them ignorant and confused. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
CJ Hopkins: The fake Left loves identity politics because they allow them to pretend to be “revolutionary” and spout all manner of “militant” gibberish while posing absolutely zero threat to the ruling classes they claim to be fighting. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
CJ Hopkins: The corporate media, academia, Hollywood, and the other components of the culture industry are similarly invested in keeping the vast majority of people ignorant and confused. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Charles Chaplin: USSR is a Brave New World that gave hope and aspiration to the common man. I hope that the USSR would grow more glorious year by year. Now that the agony of birth is at an end, may the beauty of its growth endure forever. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lord Acton: The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Parenti: Conspiracy theory is a term that's used whenever anybody ascribes conscious intent to people with power. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
James Connolly: How can a person, or a class, be free when its means of life are in the grasp of another? How can the working class be free when the sole chance of existence of its individual members depends upon their ability to make a profit for others? wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Firstly, we had to build under fire. Imagine a mason who has to lay bricks with one hand and defend what he is building with the other. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Andrei Zhdanov: The principal outcome of World War II was the military defeat of Germany and Japan-the two most militaristic and aggressive of the capitalist countries. The reactionary imperialist elements all over the world, notably in Britain, America and France, had reposed great hopes in Germany and Japan, and chiefly in Hitler Germany: firstly as in a force most capable of inflicting a blow on the Soviet Union in order to, if not having it destroyed altogether, weaken it at least and undermine its influence; secondly, as in a force capable of smashing the revolutionary labor and democratic movement in Germany herself and in all countries singled out for Nazi aggression, and thereby strengthening capitalism generally. This was the chief reason for the prewar policy of "appeasement" and encouragement of fascist aggression, the so-called Munich policy consistently pursued by the imperialist ruling circles of Britain, France, and the United States. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Andrei Zhdanov: Alarmed by the achievements of Socialism in the USSR, by the achievements of the new democracies, and by the postwar growth of the labor and democratic movement in all countries, the American reactionaries are disposed to take upon themselves the mission of "saviors" of the capital system from Communism. The frank expansionist program of the United States is therefore highly reminiscent of the reckless program, which failed so ignominiously, of the fascist aggressors, who, as we know, also made a bid for world supremacy. Just as the Hitlerites, when they were making their preparations for piratical aggression, adopted the camouflage of anti-Communism in order to make it possible to oppress and enslave all peoples and primarily and chiefly their own people, America's present-day ruling circles mask their expansionist policy, and even their offensive against the vital interests of their weaker imperialist rival, Great Britain, by fictitious considerations of defense against Communism. The feverish piling up of armaments, the construction of new military bases and the creation of bridgeheads for the American armed forces in all parts of the world is justified on the false and pharisaical grounds of "defense" against an imaginary threat of war on the part of the USSR. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: When industry prospers, the factory owners make big profits but do not think of sharing them with the workers; but when a crisis breaks out, the factory owners try to push the losses on to the workers. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Lenin said that without an apparatus we should have perished long ago, and that without a systematic, stubborn struggle to improve the apparatus we should certainly perish. This means that resolute and systematic struggle against conservatism, bureaucracy and red tape in our apparatus is an essential task of the Party, the working class and all the working people of our country. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lepa Radić: I am not a traitor of my people. Those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping out all you evildoers, to the last man. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Georgi Dimitrov: In the war of 1914-1918, already the bourgeoisie was aware that, without the assistance of Social Democracy it would be unable to set alight the flames of chauvinism, to deceive the masses with the slogan of " the defence of the Fatherland," and to drive them to the field of death for the sake of its imperialist interests. Now it is again placing great hopes on Social Democracy. The behaviour of the leading circles of the Second International and their social-chauvinistic position in the war also throws a vivid light on the whole of their previous policy, the policy of stubbornly sabotaging unity in the ranks of the working class and its struggle to avert the imperialist war. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Georgi Dimitrov: The Social Democratic ministers of a number of countries refused to sell arms to the Spanish people for their heroic struggle, and now, behind the mask of neutrality, are assisting the war contractors in every way in their trade in the weapons of death, and are inflaming the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet campaign. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
