Lenin: Indeed, does the "task" of advancing concrete demands by the masses, demands that promise palpable results, call for special efforts to create a stable, centralised, militant organisation of revolutionaries? Cannot such a "task" be carried out even by masses that do not "struggle against the political police" at all? Could this task, moreover, be fulfilled if, in addition to the few leaders, it were not undertaken by such workers (the overwhelming majority) as are quite incapable of "struggling against the political police"? Such workers, average people of the masses, are capable of displaying enormous energy and selfsacrifice in strikes and in street, battles with the police and the troops, and are capable (in fact, are alone capable) of determining the outcome of our entire movement - but the struggle against the political police requires special qualities; it requires professional revolutionaries. And we must see to it, not only that the masses "advance" concrete demands, but that the masses of the workers "advance" an increasing number of such professional revolutionaries. Thus, we have reached the question of the relation between an organisation of professional revolutionaries and the labour movement pure and simple. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9011
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Lenin: It is impossible for a strike to remain a secret to those participating in it and to those immediately associated with it, but it ...Protestation
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Lenin: It is impossible for a strike to remain a secret to those participating in it and to those immediately associated with it, but it may (and in the majority of cases does) remain a "secret" to the masses of the Russian workers, because the government takes care to cut all communication with the strikers, to prevent all news of strikes from spreading. Here indeed is where a special "struggle against the political police" is required, a struggle that can never be conducted actively by such large masses as take part in strikes. This struggle must be organised, according to "all the rules of the art", by people who are professionally engaged in revolutionary activity. The fact that the masses are spontaneously being drawn into the movement does not make the organisation of this struggle less necessary. On the contrary, it makes it more necessary; for we socialists would be failing in our direct duty to the masses if we did not prevent the police from making a secret of every strike and every demonstration (and if we did not ourselves from time to time secretly prepare strikes and demonstrations). And we will succeed in doing this, because the spontaneously awakening masses will also produce increasing, numbers of "professional revolutionaries" from their own ranks (that is, if we do not take it into our heads to advise the workers to keep on marking time). https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9012
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Lenin: The only serious organisational principle for the active workers of our movement should he the strictest secrecy, the strictest se...Protestation
Lenin: The only serious organisational principle for the active workers of our movement should he the strictest secrecy, the strictest selection of members, and the training of professional revolutionaries. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9013
Quotes
Lenin: Whenever classes displaced each other, they changed property relations. When the bourgeoisie superseded the feudals, it changed pr...Protestation
Lenin: Whenever classes displaced each other, they changed property relations. When the bourgeoisie superseded the feudals, it changed property relations; the Constitution of the bourgeoisie says: “The man of property is the equal of the beggar.” That was bourgeois freedom. This kind of “equality” ensured the domination of the capitalist class in the state. But do you think that when the bourgeoisie superseded the feudals they confused the state with the administration? No, they were no such fools. They declared that the work of administration required people who knew how to administer, and that they would adapt feudal administrators for that purpose. And that is what they did. Was it a mistake? No, comrades, the art of administration does not descend from heaven, it is not inspired by the Holy Ghost. And the fact that a class is the leading class does not make it at once capable of administering. We have an example of this: while the bourgeoisie were establishing their victory they took for the work of administration members of another class, the feudal class; there was nowhere else to get them from. We must be sober and face the facts. The bourgeoisie had recourse to the old class; and we, too, are now confronted with the task of taking the knowledge and training of the old class, subordinating it to our needs, and using it all for the success of our class. We, therefore, say that the victorious class must be mature, and maturity is attested not by a document or certificate, but by experience and practice. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9014
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Lenin: The Constitution spoke of freedom and equality. That was a lie. As long as there are working men, property-owners are in a positio...Protestation
Lenin: The Constitution spoke of freedom and equality. That was a lie. As long as there are working men, property-owners are in a position to profiteer, and indeed, as property-owners, are compelled to profiteer. We declare that there is no equality, that the well-fed man is not the equal of the hungry man, that the profiteer is not the equal of the working man. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9015
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Lenin: How is class domination expressed today? The domination of the proletariat consists in the fact that the landowners and capitalist...Protestation
Lenin: How is class domination expressed today? The domination of the proletariat consists in the fact that the landowners and capitalists have been deprived of their property. The spirit and basic idea of all previous constitutions, even the most republican and democratic, amounted to one thing—property. Our Constitution has the right, has won itself the right, to a place in history by virtue of the fact that the abolition of property is not confined to a paper declaration. The victorious proletariat has abolished property, has completely annulled it—and therein lies its domination as a class. The prime thing is the question of property. As soon as the question of property was settled practically, the domination of the class was assured. When, after that, the Constitution recorded on paper what had been actually effected, namely, the abolition of capitalist and landed property, and added that under the Constitution the working class enjoys more rights than the peasantry, while exploiters have no rights whatever—that was a record of the fact that we had established the domination of our class, thereby binding to ourselves all sections and all small groups of working people. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9016
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Fidel Castro: Never take a step back, not even to gain momentum.Lenin: Further, a revolution differs from a “normal” situation in the sta...Protestation
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Fidel Castro: Never take a step back, not even to gain momentum. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9017
Quotes
Lenin: Further, a revolution differs from a “normal” situation in the state precisely because controversial issues of state life are deci...Protestation
Lenin: Further, a revolution differs from a “normal” situation in the state precisely because controversial issues of state life are decided by the direct class and popular struggle to the point of armed struggle. It cannot be otherwise when the masses are free and armed. This fundamental fact implies that in time of revolution it is not enough to ascertain the “will of the majority”—you must prove to be stronger at the decisive moment and in the decisive place; you must win. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9018
Quotes
Lenin: Frederick Engels particularly stressed the lesson to be drawn from experience, a lesson which to some degree is common to the peas...Protestation
Lenin: Frederick Engels particularly stressed the lesson to be drawn from experience, a lesson which to some degree is common to the peasant revolt of the sixteenth century and to the Revolution of 1848 in Germany, namely, disunity of action and lack of centralisation on the part of the oppressed owing to their petty-bourgeois status in life. Examining the matter from this point of view, we come to the same conclusion, namely, that a simple majority of the petty-bourgeois masses does not and cannot decide anything, for the disunited millions of rural petty proprietors can only acquire organisation, political consciousness in action and centralisation of action (which is indispensable for victory) when they are led either by the bourgeoisie or by the proletariat. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9019
Quotes
Lenin: In the long run we know that the problems of social life are resolved by the class struggle in its bitterest and fiercest form—civ...Protestation
Lenin: In the long run we know that the problems of social life are resolved by the class struggle in its bitterest and fiercest form—civil war. In this war, as in any other war—a fact also well known and in principle not disputed by anyone—it is economics that decide. It is quite typical and significant that the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, while not denying this “in principle” and while realising perfectly the capitalist character of Russia today, dare not face the truth soberly. They are afraid to admit the truth that every capitalist country, including Russia, is basically divided into three main forces: the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The first and third are spoken of and recognised by all. Yet the second—which really is the numerical majority!—nobody cares to appraise soberly, neither from the economic, political nor military point of view. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9020
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Lenin: Truth does not flatter. That is why the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks shrink from recognising themselves.Lenin: There i...Protestation
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Lenin: Truth does not flatter. That is why the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks shrink from recognising themselves. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9021
Quotes
Lenin: There is talk of liberty, of popular representation; some hold forth on a constituent assembly, but what is being constantly, hour...Protestation
Lenin: There is talk of liberty, of popular representation; some hold forth on a constituent assembly, but what is being constantly, hourly and minutely lost sight of is that, without serious guarantees, all these fine things are but hollow phrases. A serious guarantee can be provided only by a victorious rising of the people, only by the complete domination of the armed proletariat and the peasantry over all representatives of tsarist power, who, under pressure by the people, have retreated a pace but are far from having yielded to the people, and far from having been overthrown by the people. Until that aim is achieved there can be no real liberty, no genuine popular representation, or a really constituent assembly with the power to set up a new order in Russia. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9022
Quotes
Lenin: What is a constitution? A sheet of paper with the people’s rights recorded on it. What is the guarantee of these rights being real...Protestation
Lenin: What is a constitution? A sheet of paper with the people’s rights recorded on it. What is the guarantee of these rights being really recognised? It lies in the strength of those classes of the people that have become aware of those rights, and have been able to win them. Let us then not allow words to delude us—that befits only babblers for bourgeois democracy—let us not for a moment forget that strength is proved only by victory in the struggle, and that we are as yet far from having achieved complete victory. Let us not believe handsome phrases, for we are living through times when an open struggle is going on, when all phrases and promises at once are tested in action, when words? manifestoes, and promises of a constitution are being used to fool the people, weaken its forces, scatter its ranks, and induce it to disarm. Nothing can be more false than such promises and phrases, and it is with pride that we can say that the proletariat of Russia has matured for the struggle both against brute force and against liberal-constitutional cant. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9023
Quotes
Lenin: What is a constitution? A sheet of paper with the people’s rights recorded on it. What is the guarantee of these rights being real...Protestation
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Fred Hampton: What we're saying is that there are white people, in the mother country, that are for the same types of things that we are for - stimulating revolution in the mother country. And we said that we would work with anybody, form coalitions with anybody, that has revolution on their mind. We're not a racist organization because we understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is a by-product of capitalism. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9024
Quotes
Lenin: Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, f...Protestation
Lenin: Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9025
Quotes
Karl Marx: The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It h...Protestation
Karl Marx: The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other - Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9026
Quotes
Enver Hoxha: State monopoly property, as the most characteristic basic element of state monopoly capitalism, does not represent the prope...Protestation
Enver Hoxha: State monopoly property, as the most characteristic basic element of state monopoly capitalism, does not represent the property of one individual capitalist or group of capitalists, but the property of the capitalist state, the property of the bourgeois class in power. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9027
Quotes
Friedrich Engels: Revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary c...Protestation
Friedrich Engels: Revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9028
Quotes
Lenin: Our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, on the contrary, have fully demonstrated and proved that their true role is to be an...Protestation
Lenin: Our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, on the contrary, have fully demonstrated and proved that their true role is to be an instrument of the bourgeoisie for deceiving the people (the “majority”), to be the vehicle of that deception and contribute to it. However sincere individual Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks may be, their fundamental political ideas—that it is possible to break free of the imperialist war and gain “peace without annexations and indemnities” without the dictatorship of the proletariat and the triumph of socialism, and that it is possible to secure the transfer of land to the people without compensation and establish “control” over production in the people’s interests without the same condition—these fundamental political (and, of course, economic) ideas of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks are, in practice, nothing but petty-bourgeois self-deception, or deception of the masses (the “majority”) by the bourgeoisie, which is the same thing. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9029
Quotes
Lenin: Our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, on the contrary, have fully demonstrated and proved that their true role is to be an...Protestation
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Karl Marx: In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9030
Quotes
Karl Marx: In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past.Lenin: I...Protestation
Karl Marx: In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9031
Quotes
Lenin: If political power in the state is in the hands of a class whose interests coincide with those of the majority, that state can be ...Protestation
Lenin: If political power in the state is in the hands of a class whose interests coincide with those of the majority, that state can be governed truly in line with the will of the majority. But if political power is in the hands of a class whose interests diverge from those of the majority, any form of majority rule is bound to become deception or suppression of the majority. Every bourgeois republic provides hundreds and thousands of examples of this kind. In Russia, the bourgeoisie rule both the economic and political life. Their interests, particularly during the imperialist war, violently conflict with the interests of the majority. Hence, from a materialist and Marxist, and not from a formally juridical point of view, we must expose this conflict, and combat bourgeois deception of the people. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9032
Quotes
Lenin: Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is b...Protestation
Lenin: Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9033
Quotes
Karl Marx: Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness (Diesseitigkeit) of his thinking, in practice. The d...Protestation
Karl Marx: Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness (Diesseitigkeit) of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9034
Quotes
Ludwig Feuerbach: We are what we eat.Lenin: For the majority in the state to really decide, definite conditions are required, one of whic...Protestation
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Ludwig Feuerbach: We are what we eat. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9035
Quotes
Lenin: For the majority in the state to really decide, definite conditions are required, one of which is the firm establishment of a poli...Protestation
Lenin: For the majority in the state to really decide, definite conditions are required, one of which is the firm establishment of a political system, a form of state power, making it possible to decide matters by a majority and guaranteeing the translation of this possibility into reality. That is one thing. Another is that the class composition of this majority and the interrelation of classes inside (and outside) it should enable it to draw the chariot of state concertedly and effectively. Every Marxist knows that these two concrete conditions play a decisive part in the question of a popular majority and of the direction of state affairs in line with the will of the majority. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9036
Quotes
Winston Churchill: Germany's most unforgivable crime before the Second World War was her attempt to extricate her economic power from...Protestation
Winston Churchill: Germany's most unforgivable crime before the Second World War was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world's trading system and to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny world finance its opportunity to profit. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9037
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Friedrich Engels: The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from ...Protestation
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Friedrich Engels: The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor - hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9038
Quotes
Mao Zedong: Marx and Engels were but two individuals, and yet in those early days they already declared that capitalism would be overthro...Protestation
Mao Zedong: Marx and Engels were but two individuals, and yet in those early days they already declared that capitalism would be overthrown throughout the world. But with regard to specific problems and specific enemies, if we do not take them seriously, we shall commit adventurist errors. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9039
Quotes
Lenin: The big bourgeoisie differ from the petty bourgeoisie in that they have learned, from their economic and political experience, the...Protestation
Lenin: The big bourgeoisie differ from the petty bourgeoisie in that they have learned, from their economic and political experience, the conditions under which “order” (i. e., keeping down the people) can be preserved under capitalism. The bourgeoisie are businessmen, people who make big commercial transactions and are accustomed to getting down even to political matters in a strictly business-like manner. They take the bull by the horns rather than putting their trust in words. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote9040
Quotes
Lenin: When lashing the petty-bourgeois “Social-Democrats” of 1848, Marx was particularly severe in his condemnation of their unrestraine...Protestation