Stalin: When, in the period of the feudal system, the young bourgeoisie of Europe began to erect, alongside of the small guild workshops, large manufactories, and thus advanced the productive forces of society, it, of course, did not know and did not stop to reflect what social consequences this innovation would lead to; it did not realize or understand that this "small" innovation would lead to a regrouping of social forces which was to end in a revolution both against the power of kings, whose favors it so highly valued, and against the nobility, to whose ranks its foremost representatives not infrequently aspired. It simply wanted to lower the cost of producing goods, to throw larger quantities of goods on the markets of Asia and of recently discovered America, and to make bigger profits. Its conscious activity was confined within the narrow bounds of this commonplace practical aim. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5845
Stalin: When the Russian capitalists, in conjunction with foreign capitalists, energetically implanted modern large-scale machine industry in Russia, while leaving tsardom intact and turning the peasants over to the tender mercies of the landlords, they, of course, did not know and did not stop to reflect what social consequences this extensive growth of productive forces would lead to; they did not realize or understand that this big leap in the realm of the productive forces of society would lead to a regrouping of social forces that would enable the proletariat to effect a union with the peasantry and to bring about a victorious socialist revolution. They simply wanted to expand industrial production to the limit, to gain control of the huge home market, to become monopolists, and to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the national economy. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5846
Nelson Mandela: If the only alternative is violence, we will use violence. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5847
You can follow us in other languages. Visit our website for more information https://wordsmith.social/protestation/social
Social
English– @protestation@telleverybody.netFrançais– @protestation@soc.redeyes.site
Deutsch– @protestation@foggyminds.com
Quotes– @protestation@friendica.xid.ch
Vladimir Putin: Our future generations will be born without Rothschild's chains around their wrists and ankles. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5848
Stalin: In the Ukraine, only very recently, the deviation towards Ukrainian nationalism did not represent the chief danger; but when the fight against it ceased and it was allowed to grow to such an extent that it linked up with the interventionists, this deviation became the chief danger. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5849
Nikola Tesla: You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5850
Grover Furr: Khrushchev was not trying to 'right the ship of communism.' A total trashing of the truth like the 'Secret Speech' is incompatible with Marxism, or with idealistic motives of any kind. Nothing positive, democratic, or liberating can be built on a foundation of falsehood. Instead of reviving a communist movement, and Bolshevik Party, that had strayed from its true course through grievous errors, Khrushchev was killing it off. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5851
Will Podmore: Later, Mikhail Gorbachev’s market reforms further strengthened the private sector. His 1987 Law on Individual Labor Activity legalized co-operatives that were really private enterprises. Another law allowed co-operatives to lease industrial property – a way of privatizing state assets while keeping the fiction of public ownership. In 1988, these crime-infested fake co-operatives employed a million workers, a year later, five million. By 1991, former or active criminals ran 60 percent of the co-operatives. Even before the counter-revolution, crime levels soared, encouraged by Gorbachev’s reforms. As FBI director Jim Moody noted, 'the transition to capitalism provided new opportunities quickly exploited by criminal organizations. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5852
Stalin: The political acrobats from the newspaper ‘Borba’ must be clear in their minds that Marxism and nationalism are incompatible, that nationalism as a bourgeois ideology is antagonistic to Marxism. It must be clear to them that Marxism cannot reconcile with nationalism or nationalist leanings in the Communist Parties and that they must eliminate nationalism in whatever form it covers itself in the name and interests of the workers, in the name of peoples’ freedom and friendship and in the name of the triumphant construction of socialism. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5853
Lenin: Marxism teaches—and this tenet has not only been formally endorsed by the whole of the Communist International in the decisions of the Second (1920) Congress of the Comintern on the role of the political party of the proletariat, but has also been confirmed in practice by our revolution—that only the political party of the working class, i.e., the Communist Party, is capable of uniting, training and organising a vanguard of the proletariat and of the whole mass of the working people that alone will be capable of withstanding the inevitable petty-bourgeois vacillations of this mass and the inevitable traditions and relapses of narrow craft unionism or craft prejudices among the proletariat, and of guiding all the united activities of the whole of the proletariat, i.e., of leading it politically, and through it, the whole mass of the working peop)e. Without this the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5854
Rollo May: The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5855
Lenin: The principal factor in this transformation was the mass strike. The peculiarity of the Russian revolution is that it was a bourgeois-democratic revolution in its social content, but a proletarian revolution in its methods of struggle. It was a bourgeois democratic revolution since its immediate aim, which it could achieve directly and with its own forces, was a democratic republic, the eight-hour day and confiscation of the immense estates of the nobility - all the measures the French bourgeois revolution in 1792-93 had almost completely achieved. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5856
Will Podmore: Unsurprisingly, Trotskyism backed Gorbachev and Yeltsin. When Temps Nouveaux asked Ernest Mandel, the leader of Trotsky’s ‘Fourth International’, 'Mikhail Gorbachev, does he proclaim that perestroika is truly a new revolution?' Mandel replied, 'Yes, he actually proclaims this, and it is again very positive. Our movement has defended the same idea for 55 years, for which reason we have been taxed with being counter-revolutionary.' Mandel also praised Yeltsin, writing, 'The reformer Yeltsin represents the tendency which wants to reduce the gigantic state apparatus. Consequently he follows in Trotsky’s footsteps. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5857
Tom Waits: We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5858
Lenin: (T)he essence of proletarian dictatorship is not in force alone, or even mainly in force. Its chief feature is the organisation and discipline of the advanced contingent of the working people, of their vanguard; of their sole leader, the proletariat, whose object is to build socialism, abolish the division of society into classes, make all members of society working people, and remove the basis for all exploitation of man by man. This object cannot be achieved at one stroke. It requires a fairly long period of transition from capitalism to socialism, because the reorganisation of production is a difficult matter, because radical changes in all spheres of life need time, and because the enormous force of habit of running things in a petty-bourgeois and bourgeois way can only be overcome by a long and stubborn struggle. That is why Marx spoke of an entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the period of transition from capitalism to socialism. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5859
Karl Marx: But, the transformation — either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership — does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine — the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution. This solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonizing with the socialized character of the means of production. And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control, except that of society as a whole. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5860
Cesare Beccaria: The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5861
Karl Marx: We see then, that, apart from extremely elastic bounds, the nature of the exchange of commodities itself imposes no limit to the working-day, no limit to surplus-labour. The capitalist maintains his rights as a purchaser when he tries to make the working-day as long as possible, and to make, whenever possible, two working-days out of one. On the other hand, the peculiar nature of the commodity sold implies a limit to its consumption by the purchaser, and the labourer maintains his right as seller when he wishes to reduce the working-day to one of definite normal duration. There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right, both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between equal rights force decides. Hence is it that in the history of capitalist production, the determination of what is a working-day, presents itself as the result of a struggle, a struggle between collective capital, i.e., the class of capitalists, and collective labour, i.e., the working-class. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5862
Friedrich Engels: It is to the capitalist's interest to make the working day as long as possible. The longer it is, the more surplus value it produces. The worker correctly feels that every hour of labour which he performs over and above the replacement of the wage is unjustly taken from him; he learns from bitter personal experience what it means to work excessive hours. The capitalist fights for his profit, the worker for his health, for a few hours of daily rest, to be able to engage in other human activities as well, besides working, sleeping and eating. It may be remarked in passing that it does not depend at all upon the good will of the individual capitalists whether they desire to embark on this struggle or not, since competition compels even the most philanthropic among us to join his colleagues and to make a working time as long as theirs the rule. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5863
Che Guevara: Democracy cannot consist solely of elections that are nearly always fictitious and managed by rich landowners and professional politicians, but rather it lies in the right of the citizens to determine their own destiny. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5864
Stalin: Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development as a simple process of growth, where quantitative changes do not lead to qualitative changes, but as a development which passes from insignificant and imperceptible quantitative changes to open' fundamental changes' to qualitative changes; a development in which the qualitative changes occur not gradually, but rapidly and abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another; they occur not accidentally but as the natural result of an accumulation of imperceptible and gradual quantitative changes. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5865
Stalin: Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes. The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5866
Stalin: It is easy to understand how immensely important is the extension of the principles of the dialectical method to the study of social life and the history of society, and how immensely important is the application of these principles to the history of society and to the practical activities of the party of the proletariat. If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of "eternal justice" or some other preconceived idea, as is not infrequently done by historians, but from the standpoint of the conditions which gave rise to that system or that social movement and with which they are connected. The slave system would be senseless, stupid and unnatural under modern conditions. But under the conditions of a disintegrating primitive communal system, the slave system is a quite understandable and natural phenomenon, since it represents an advance on the primitive communal system. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5867
Stalin: Everything depends on the conditions, time and place. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5868
Karl Marx: Our task is that of ruthless criticism, and much more against ostensible friends than against open enemies; and in maintaining this our position we gladly forego cheap democratic popularity. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5869
Gerhart Eisler: Since the moment for butchery had arrived, the Nazis seized the opportunity to do away with other adversaries of Hitler from the most diverse circles. Thus General von Schleicher and his wife, General von Bredow, and several leading Catholics were assassinated. Von Papen himself barely escaped a similar fate. Hitler had checked the danger of the 'second revolution.' Big business, the generals, and Hindenburg personally congratulated him. By moving swiftly and relentlessly against the Storm Troop leaders he had removed the possibility of a conflict between the Reichswehr and the Nazi private army, a conflict which might have been exploited by various other adversaries of the government. He had shown the stupid petty bourgeoisie, who had taken his demagogic promises seriously, who was master of Germany. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5870
Jonathan Swift: When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5871
James Baldwin: I’m not anti-Semitic at all, but I am anti-Zionist. I don’t believe they have the right, after 3,000 years, to reclaim the land with western bombs and guns on biblical injunction. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5872
John F. Kennedy: Palestine was hardly Britain’s to give away. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5873
Mao Zedong: Military action is a method used to attain a political goal. While military affairs and political affairs are not identical, it is impossible to isolate one from the other. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5874
Che Guevara: There are no borders in this fight to the death. We cannot remain indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world. A victory of any country over imperialism is a victory for us, just as the defeat of any nation is a defeat for all. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5875
Enver Hoxha: By denigrating Stalin and the social system for which he fought and worked throughout his life, reaction and all the anti-communist scum wanted to destroy not only the greatest and most powerful base of socialism, the revolution was not conquered, Marxism-Leninism was not eliminated, and socialism was not snuffed out. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5876
George Habash: The enemy can destroy our cities and refugee camps, kill our women and children, leave no brick on top of another—but he can't kill our desire to fight back. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5877
You can follow us in other languages. Visit our website for more information https://wordsmith.social/protestation/social
Social
English– @protestation@telleverybody.netFrançais– @protestation@soc.redeyes.site
Deutsch– @protestation@foggyminds.com
Quotes– @protestation@friendica.xid.ch
Vincent van Gogh: Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5878
Otto von Bismarck: One day the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5879
Otto von Bismarck: The social insecurity of the worker is the real cause of their being a peril to the state. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5880
Otto von Bismarck: Not by speeches and votes of the majority are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5881
Otto von Bismarck: Politics is not an exact science. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote5882