Slight content warning: mention of the word “naked”
“To say: I ‘appreciate’ your political, approach, ‘but’ it is only a political one and we ‘also need an economic one’, is tantamount to saying: I ‘appreciate’ your point that in taking that particular step you are liable to break your neck, but you must also take into consideration that it is better to be clothed and well-fed than to go naked and hungry.” - Lenin, Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Buhkarin (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/jan/25.htm)
"Our theory is a theory of development, not a dogma to be memorized and repeated mechanically.”
- Engels, Letter to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky
Who is Florence? I have never heard of their name before (were they a detractor of Engels or something?).
Well, she was an US activist that dedicated their life to social reform. While in Europe, Kelley joined the Germany Social Democratic Party and translated many of the party’s important works. Maybe, this is where she got to meet Engels.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/florence-kelley
It really depends, for short but powerful quotes Marx is the king but for longer ones i really like this one by Engels, it makes me hopeful:
“The splitting up of society into a small class, immoderately rich, and a large class of wage-labourers devoid of all property, brings it about that this society smothers in its own superfluidity, while the great majority of its members are scarcely, or not at all, protected from extreme want. This condition becomes every day more absurd and more unnecessary. It must be gotten rid of; it can be gotten rid of. A new social order is possible, in which the class differences of today will have disappeared, and in which – perhaps after a short transition period, which, though somewhat deficient in other respects, will in any case be very useful morally – there will be the means of life, of the enjoyment of life, and of the development and activity of all bodily and mental faculties, through the systematic use and further development of the enormous productive powers of society, which exists with us even now, with equal obligation upon all to work.” – Engels, Introduction to Wage Labour and Capital.
As for Marx quotes, i like this one putting emphasis on the last punch:
“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” - Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
Also not Marxist, reactionary actually, but i wear this one with pride:
“With dialectics, the rabble gets on top.” - Friedich Nietzsche
It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed person, who goes about hungry, and cannot find employment.
Real liberty can exist only where exploitation has been abolished, where there is no oppression of some by others, where there is no unemployment and poverty, where a man is not haunted by the fear of being tomorrow deprived of work, of home and of bread. Only in such a society is real, and not paper, personal and every other liberty possible.
— Joseph Stalin
Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle.
- V. I. Lenin
Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.
~Fred Hampton
“All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.” -Lenin
I really like this one because with just a little expansion you can see, that living in a dictatorship of capitalists, you only “know” what they want you to know unless you are actively trying to learn what they don’t want you to know.
If you can get a liberal to swallow this line and internalize it they will begin to question everything they “know,” especially the stuff they “know” about Communism.
“To investigate a problem is to solve it. […] Only a blockhead cudgels his brains on his own, or together with a group, to “find solution” or “evolve an idea” without making any investigation.” - Mao
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm
“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” - Leon Trotsky
True political power comes from the end of a gun’s barrel. - Mao
You accuse us of wanting to do away with private property. That is precisely what we intend - Marx
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” – Karl Marx & Friederich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.
About the capitalist states, it doesn’t depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don’t like us, don’t accept our invitations, and don’t invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!
Yeah, I know, it’s from Khrushchev. But it’s a banger and he wasn’t wrong tbf.
Atomic war is inevitable. It will destroy half of humanity: it is going to destroy immense human riches. It is very possible. The atomic war is going to provoke a true inferno on Earth. But it will not impede Communism.
Another banger, even if Posadas is kind of a meme (deserved for being a Trotskyist).
Decided to go with quotes I didn’t expect anyone else to post so as not to be monotonous. Plus, even revisionists can have crazy good lines.
“It is typical of a Liberal to speak of ‘Democracy’, but a Marxist never forgets to ask: “For what class?”.”
Oh who is it from?
Lenin in his “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”
Still need to read it, as i do with everything else lol, Im just slow to read. But this quote stood out to me when I first was venturing into Marxism.
Not exactly by a Marxist, since Marxism didn’t exist yet, but I like this poem:
They hang the man and flog the woman
Who steal the goose from off the common
But let the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.
Lots of great quotes here already.
“If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.” – James Connolly, Socialism and Nationalism
" Unless you have investigated a problem, you will be deprived of the right to speak on it. Isn’t that too harsh? Not in the least. When you have not probed into a problem, into the present facts and its past history, and know nothing of its essentials, whatever you say about it will undoubtedly be nonsense. Talking nonsense solves no problems, as everyone knows, so why is it unjust to deprive you of the right to speak? Quite a few comrades always keep their eyes shut and talk nonsense, and for a Communist that is disgraceful. How can a Communist keep his eyes shut and talk nonsense?
It won’t do!
It won’t do!
You must investigate!
You must not talk nonsense!"
Mao Zedong
Much harder to adhere to than it sounds. We’re but humans still depending on cognitive shortcuts and mental crutches from ancient times. It wasn’t too long ago that I cautioned a comrade against defying these words and they did it anyway.
I was scared and thought you were criticizing a post or reply of mine haha (scared laughter). What was the context behind your comrade defying your advice?
It involved a subject matter that was poorly understood and illicits a lot of kneejerk reactions and ignorance similar to the DPRK. I’Il DM it to you. It’s a sensitive matter.
