Karl Marx: How silent is the press of England upon the outrageous violations of the treaty daily practiced by foreigners living in China under British protection! We hear nothing of the illicit opium trade, which yearly feeds the British treasury at the expense of human life and morality. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2963
Gramsci: The Vatican is, without doubt, the largest and most powerful private organisation that has ever existed. In certain aspects it has the character of a state, and is recognised as such by a number of governments. Although the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy has considerably diminished the Vatican’s influence, it still remains one of the most efficient political forces in modern history. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2964
Gramsci: The organisational base of the Vatican is in Italy. It is here that the headquarters of the various catholic organisations reside. Their complex networks embrace a large part of the globe. The ecclesiastical apparatus of the Vatican consists of around 200,000 people. That is an imposing figure – particularly when one considers that they include many thousands of cultured and intelligent individuals who possess consummate ability in the art of intrigue. Many of these men embody the most ancient (and tested) traditions concerning the control of the masses – and, in consequence, constitute the largest reactionary force in Italy. It is all the more formidable precisely because of its insidious and elusive nature. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2965
Gramsci: Before attempting its coup d'état, fascism had to reach an understanding with this powerful institution. They say that the Vatican, although very interested in the ascension of fascism to power, demanded a very high price for its support. It is rumoured that the rescue of the Bank of Rome, where all ecclesiastical funds were deposited, cost the Italian taxpayers more than a billion lire. People often speak of the Vatican and its influence without understanding in any detail its structure and the real strengths of the organisation. It is worth while taking a proper look. The Vatican is an international enemy of the revolutionary proletariat. It is clear that the Italian working class must resolve the problem of the papacy in large part with its own hands. But it is equally clear that this goal cannot be achieved unless the international proletariat also rises to the occasion. The ecclesiastical organisation of the Vatican reflects its international character. The Vatican constitutes the base of the papacy’s power both in Italy and around the world. In Italy one finds two principle catholic organisations: 1) The mass organisation, the most religious of all, officially based on the ecclesiastical hierarchy: the Popular Union of Italian Catholics (or, as the papers currently call it, Catholic Action). 2) A political party – the Popular Party of Italy, which recently almost entered into open conflict with Catholic Action. The Popular Party is increasingly becoming the organisation of the low clergy and the poor peasants. Meanwhile Catholic Action finds itself in the hands of the aristocracy, the big landowners and the higher ranks of the clergy – reactionaries and fascist sympathisers. The pope is the supreme head of both the ecclesiastic apparatus and of Catholic Action. The latter organisation disregards national congresses and any other form of democratic organisation. It also ignores (at least officially) tendencies, fractions and currents of different ideas. It is constructed on a hierarchical basis, from top to bottom. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2966
S. J. Rutgers: The entire capitalist class is determined to drown society in blood and let civilization, material and intellectual, crash down into the bottomless abyss of universal ruin and chaos, rather than of its free will, concede to the proletariat one single position of power. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2967
Moissaye J. Olgin: As to bankers and brokers, real estate operators and promoters — they do not produce anything essential to human life although they have the lion’s share of control over production. As a matter of fact, they produce nothing. They transfer “paper” from hand to hand. That paper — call it checks or deeds or drafts or shares — is a claim to the fruits of somebody else’s labor. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2968
Che Guevara: The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises... who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races... for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blond, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into blacks and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2969
Saramago: It seems indecent to talk about (democracy) in the abstract, without the stimulus given by the presence, the participation and the involvement of citizens in community life. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2970
Fidel Castro: Today, there are, as we know, theoretical super-revolutionaries, super-Leftists, veritable “supermen” if you will, who can destroy imperialism in a jiffy with their tongues. There are many super-revolutionaries lacking all notions of reality about the problems and difficulties of a revolution. They are prompted by sentiments carefully fostered by imperialism and are full of fierce hatred. It is as if they refused to forgive the Soviet Union its existence, and this from “Left-wing” positions. They would like a Soviet Union according to their strange model, according to their ridiculous ideals. Yet a country is primarily a reality, one made up of numerous other realities. The exponents of these trends forget the incredible initial difficulties of the revolutionary process in the Soviet Union, the incredible initial difficulties of the revolutionary process in the Soviet Union, the incredible problems arising from the blockade, isolation and fascist aggression. They pretend not to know anything about all this and regard the existence of the Soviet Union as almost a crime, and this from “Left-wing” which is an act of absolute dishonesty. They forget the problems of Cuba, of Vietnam, of the Arab world. They forget that wherever imperialism is striking its blows it comes up against a country which sends the people the arms they need to defend themselves. We recall Playa Giron these days. We well remember the anti-aircraft artillery, the tanks and guns and mortars and other weapons that enabled us to smash the mercenaries. This means that the existence of the Soviet state is objectively one of the most extraordinary privileges of the revolutionary movement. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2974
Sarah Kendzior: When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2978
Franklin D. Roosevelt: I find it difficult this Spring and Summer to get away from the simple fact that the Russian armies are killing more Axis personnel and destroying more Axis materiel than all the other 25 United Nations put together. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2979
Thomas Sankara: I said no to food aid because they have not helped us to develop. They have instead created a beggar mentality, we hold out our hands to receive food. That is not a good thing. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2980
Thomas Sankara: Our families have stopped producing, because they can not sell what they produce. The surplus from farmers in other countries is brought in here. We want something else. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizer, insecticide, watering cans, drills, dams. That is how we would define food aid. But those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk are not helping us. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2981
Karl Marx: The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilisation lies unveiled before our eyes turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2984
Che Guevara: Incidentally, here one must introduce a general attitude toward one of the most controversial terms of the modern world: Marxism. When asked whether or not we are Marxists, our position is the same as that of a physicist or a biologist when asked if he is a ‘Newtonian,’ or if he is a ‘Pasteurian’. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2985
Edgar Snow: Only the blind can now deny," he wrote in 1944, "that the triumph of the Red Army is the triumph of Soviet socialism, and above all, Soviet planning. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2987
George L. Jackson: The fascists already have power. The point is that some way must be found to expose them and combat them. An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2988
Ibrahim Traoré: Burkina Faso is not a democracy, it is a revolution and revolutions are not built on comfort, they are built on vigilance, sacrifice and survival. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2989
Fidel Castro: We always know where the soldiers are, but they never know where we are. We can come and go as we like, moving through their lines, but they can never find us unless we wish them to, and then it is only on our terms. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2993
Lenin: In a country ruled by an autocracy, with a completely enslaved press, in a period of desperate political reaction in which even the tiniest outgrowth of political discontent and protest is persecuted, the theory of revolutionary Marxism suddenly forced its way into the censored literature before the government realised what had happened and the unwieldy army of censors and gendarmes discovered the new enemy and flung itself upon him. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2995
