Karl Marx: The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure — political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle... political, juristic, philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas — also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (that is, of things and events whose inner interconnection is so remote or so impossible of proof that we can regard it as non-existent, as negligible), the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. In the second place, however, history is made in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each in turn has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Thus there are innumerable intersecting forces, an infinite series of parallelograms of forces which give rise to one resultant — the historical event. This may again itself be viewed as the product of a power which works as a whole unconsciously and without volition. For what each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed... an aggregate mean, a common resultant... each contributes to the resultant and is to this extent included in it. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9262
George Carlin: Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9268
Ferdinand Magellan: The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow of the earth on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9269
Albert Einstein: Since the real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development, economic science in its present state can throw little light on the socialist society of the future. Second, socialism is directed towards a social-ethical end. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9271
John T. Flynn: The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9272
A. Leontiev: Under conditions of the general crisis of capitalism, Social-Democracy completes its course of treachery. The roots of opportunist degeneration had deeply penetrated the parties of the Second International even before the period of the war. The World War clearly exposed the complete treachery of international Social-Democracy to the interests of the working class. The social-patriots and social-chauvinists in each country supported the bourgeoisie of “their own fatherland” in its annexationist policies. After the war, Social-Democracy was the force which played the biggest and leading role in suppressing the workers’ uprisings. In all countries the Social-Democrats saved their “own” capitalism, not stopping at the vilest means of struggle against the revolutionary vanguard of the working class. In this situation the bourgeoisie is continually passing over to fascist methods of dictatorship. To the Social-Democrats, as to the fascists, the most dangerous enemy is the revolutionary proletariat. When in power the Social-Democrats' employ the methods characteristic of fascism more and more in their struggle against the revolutionary forces Cf the proletariat. At the same time, Social- Democracy clears the way for the fascist advent to power. This was most clearly seen in Germany. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9274
A. Leontiev: Anxious to save the bankrupt capitalist system, the bourgeoisie goes from one method of struggle against the revolutionary proletariat to another. Now it roles by means of an open fascist dictatorship, now it prefers to back Social-Democracy which has had such tremendous experience in duping and betraying the working class. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9275
A. Leontiev: An unwonted sharpening of class contradictions takes place under the conditions of the general crisis of capitalism. In the new situation the bourgeoisie, feeling the approach of its downfall, makes use of the severest and cruellest methods of repression against the working class. In a number of countries the bourgeoisie, after repelling the first attacks of the working class in the very first years after the war, established fascist dictatorships (e.g., Italy and Hungary). In Germany the bourgeoisie established a fascist dictatorship only after a number of intermediate steps, in February 1933, when the Hitler government came into power. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9276
A. Leontiev: The bourgeoisie finds it continually more difficult to maintain itself in power by means of the more veiled forms of bourgeois dictatorship. It goes over to open fascist dictatorship. It represses the labour movement by the bloodiest methods. It passes over to open terror against the working class and its organizations. All this is clear evidence of the instability of capitalism, of the uncertainty of the bourgeoisie concerning what the morrow will bring. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9277
A. Leontiev: The fascist form of open dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is extremely characteristic of capitalism in the epoch of its decay and downfall. Fascism tries to create a bulwark for the bourgeoisie against the working class. It appeals to the broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, office em- ployees and clerks, small businessmen, and the intelligentsia. It penetrates into the more backward elements of the working class. It widely mobilizes all the declassed elements. It conducts its frantic defence of capitalism, at least at first, under the mask of anti-capitalist agitation. The hazy demagogy against capitalism serves fascism as a decoy to catch adherents from among the disinherited but politically backward sections of the petty bourgeoisie. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9278
Karl Marx: What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular historical phases in the development of production (historische Entwicklungsphasen der Production), (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat,(1) (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9279
Bill Gates: The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15%. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9284
Fidel Castro: Revolutionaries didn't choose armed struggle as the best path, it's the path the oppressors imposed on the people. And so the people only have two choice: to suffer, or to fight. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9285
John Maclean: I wish no harm to any human being, but I, as one man, am going to exercise my freedom of speech. No human being on the face of the earth, no government is going to take from me my right to speak, my right to protest against wrong, my right to do everything that is for the benefit of mankind. I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9286
Marcus Tullius Cicero: The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9288
Lenin: The question of imperialist wars, of the international policy of finance capital which now dominates the whole world, a policy that must inevitably engender new imperialist wars, that must inevitably cause an extreme intensification of national oppression, pillage, brigandry and the strangulation of weak, backward and small nationalities by a handful of “advanced” powers—that question has been the keystone of all policy in all the countries of the globe since 1914. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9291
Alexandra Kollontai: The followers of historical materialism reject the existence of a special woman question separate from the general social question of our day. Specific economic factors were behind the subordination of women; natural qualities have been a secondary factor in this process. Only the complete disappearance of these factors, only the evolution of those forces which at some point in the past gave rise to the subjection of women, is able in a fundamental way to influence and change their social position. In other words, women can become truly free and equal only in a world organised along new social and productive lines. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9292
