Gramsci: The fundamental innovation introduced by Marxism into the science of politics and history is the proof that there does not exist an abstract, fixed and immutable “human nature” (a concept which certainly derives from religious thought and transcendentalism); but that human nature is the totality of historically determined social relations, that is, an historical fact, ascertainable, within certain limits, by the methods of philology and criticism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Xi Jinping: It is Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought that guided the Chinese people out of the darkness of that long night and established a New China; it is through socialism with Chinese characteristics that China has developed so quickly. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Rosa Luxemburg: Aside from the few who have jobs or professions, the women of the bourgeoisie do not take part in social production. They are nothing but co-consumers of the surplus value their men extort from the proletariat. They are parasites of the parasites of the social body. And consumers are usually even more rabid and cruel in defending their "right" to a parasite's life than the direct agents of class rule and exploitation. The history of all great revolutionary struggles confirms this in a horrible way. Take the great French Revolution. After the fall of the Jacobins, when Robespierre was driven in chains to the place of execution the naked whores of the victory-drunk bourgeoisie danced in the streets, danced a shameless dance of joy around the fallen hero of the Revolution. And in 1871, in Paris, when the heroic workers' Commune was defeated by machine guns, the raving bourgeois females surpassed even their bestial men in their bloody revenge against the suppressed proletariat. The women of the property-owning classes will always fanatically defend the exploitation and enslavement of the working people by which they indirectly receive the means for their socially useless existence. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Huey P. Newton: We must never take a stand just because it is popular. We must analyse the situation objectively and take the logically correct position, even though it may be unpopular. If we are right in the dialectics of the situation, our position will prevail. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Georgi Dimitrov: Now history poses a dilemma for working humanity: either move on to new forms of production and social organization, or perish under the rule of imperialist barbarism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Parenti: The peoples of Eastern Europe believed they were going to keep all the social gains they had enjoyed under communism while adding on all the consumerism of the West. Many of their grievances about existing socialism were justified but their romanticized image of the capitalist West was not. They had to learn the hard way. Expecting to advance from Second World to First World status, they have been rammed down into the Third World, ending up like capitalist Indonesia, Mexico, Zaire, and Turkey. They wanted it all and have been left with almost nothing. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Bhagat Singh: People get accustomed to the established order of things and tremble at the idea of change. It is this lethargic spirit that needs be replaced by the revolutionary spirit. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Che Guevara: The example of a revolution and the lessons it applies for Latin America have destroyed all coffee house theories; we have demonstrated that a small group of men supported by the people without fear of dying can overcome a disciplined regular army and defeat it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Andrei Zhdanov: The dictatorship of the working class must continue mercilessly to crush the resistance of the remnants of the hostile capitalist classes and the agents of the fascist bourgeoisie — the Trotskyites, Zinovievites, the Right and other enemies of the people. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Miguel Enríquez Espinosa: In Chile the left has not failed, socialism has not failed, nor has the revolution failed, nor have workers failed. What came to a tragic end in Chile was the reformist illusion of modifying socio-economic structures. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: The key question of every revolution is undoubtedly the question of state power. Which class holds power decides everything. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Maxim Gorky: And they felt that this word (Comrade) had come to unite the whole world, to lift all men up to the summits of liberty and bind with new ties, the strong ties of mutual respect, respect for the liberties of others in the name of one’s own liberty. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
W. E. B. Du Bois: Western Europe did not and does not want democracy, never believed in it, never practiced it and never without fundamental and basic revolution will accept it. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Michael Parenti: Capital requires protection, as do the institutions through which it operates. As capital expands its operations, the state that is associated with its protection must develop its capacity for autocratic control. Thus, the "Free World" increasingly resembles a dreary string of heartless police states. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya: No, workers cannot expect anything from god or the tsar. It is also a waste of time to expect the capitalists to change their minds and stop exploiting them, just as it would be to wait for wolves to stop eating sheep or for birds to give up catching insects. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Claudia Jones: We must spare no pains to see that the women workers and toilers fight shoulder to shoulder with their working class brothers in the ranks of the united working class front and the anti-fascist people's front. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: Trotskyism possesses three specific features which bring it into irreconcilable contradiction with Leninism. What are these features? Firstly. Trotskyism is the theory of "permanent" (uninterrupted) revolution. But what is permanent revolution in its interpretation? It is revolution that fails to take the poor peasantry into account as a revolutionary force. Trotsky's "permanent" revolution is, as Lenin said, "skipping" the peasant movement, "playing at the seizure of power." Why is it dangerous? Because such a revolution, if an attempt had been made to bring it about, would inevitably have ended in failure, for it would have divorced from the Russian proletariat its ally, the poor peasantry. This explains the struggle that Leninism has been waging against Trotskyism ever since 1905. How does Trotsky appraise Leninism from the standpoint of this struggle? He regards it as a theory that possesses "anti-revolutionary features." What is this indignant opinion about Leninism based on? On the fact that, at the proper time, Leninism advocated and upheld the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. But Trotsky does not confine himself to this indignant opinion. He goes further and asserts: "The entire edifice of Leninism at the present time is built on lies and falsification and bears within itself the poisonous elements of its own decay" (see Trotsky's letter to Chkheidze, 1913). As you see, we have before us two opposite lines. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Friedrich Engels: These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Xi Jinping: Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall from power? An important reason was that the struggle in the field of ideology was extremely intense, completely negating the history of the Soviet Union, negating the history of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, negating Lenin, negating Stalin, creating historical nihilism and confused thinking. Party organs at all levels had lost their functions, the military was no longer under Party leadership. In the end, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, a great party, was scattered, the Soviet Union, a great socialist country, disintegrated. This is a cautionary tale! wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Che Guevara: Revolution, in history, is like the doctor assisting at the birth of a new life, who will not use forceps unless necessary, but who will use them unhesitatingly every time labor requires them. It’s a labor bringing the hope of a better life to the enslaved and exploited masses. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Margaret Thatcher: I'm also very much aware that it is you (Pinochet) who brought democracy to Chile, you set up a constitution suitable for democracy, you put it into effect. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Charles de Gaulle: NATO is an organization that weakens our defense capabilities, instills the idea that defense is inconceivable without it, thus numbing our sense of national independence. NATO is in fact a deception, a camouflage for the US takeover Europe. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Homer: Hateful (ekhthros) to me like the gates of Hades is the man who says one thing while he hides another thing in his mind (phrenes). wordsmith.social/protestation/…
