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Selected quote 1
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| “ | The National Health Service and the Welfare State have come to be used as interchangeable terms, and in the mouths of some people as terms of reproach. Why this is so it is not difficult to understand, if you view everything from the angle of a strictly individualistic competitive society. A free health service is pure Socialism and as such it is opposed to the hedonism of capitalist society. To call it something for nothing is absurd because everything has to be paid for in some way or another. | ” |
| — Aneurin Bevan, sixteenth U.K. Minister of Health, In Place of Fear, 1952 | ||
Selected quote 2
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| “ | The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor—not by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that the means of production—that is to say, the entire productive capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as additional capital goods—may legally be, and for the most part are, the private property of individuals.
For the sake of simplicity, in the discussion that follows I shall call “workers” all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production—although this does not quite correspond to the customary use of the term. The owner of the means of production is in a position to purchase the labor power of the worker. By using the means of production, the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist. The essential point about this process is the relation between what the worker produces and what he is paid, both measured in terms of real value. Insofar as the labor contract is “free,” what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces, but by his minimum needs and by the capitalists’ requirements for labor power in relation to the number of workers competing for jobs. It is important to understand that even in theory the payment of the worker is not determined by the value of his product. |
” |
| — Albert Einstein, "Why Socialism?", May 1949 | ||
Selected quote 3
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| “ | I believe Socialism is the grandest theory ever presented, and I am sure it will someday rule the world. Then we will have attained the Millennium.… That is the state we are drifting into. Then men will be content to work for the general welfare and share their riches with their neighbors. | ” |
| — Andrew Carnegie, New York Times (2 January 1885) "A Millionaire Socialist" | ||
Selected quote 4
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| “ | Imperialism is the highest stage of development of capitalism. Capital in the advanced countries has outgrown the boundaries of national states. It has established monopoly in place of competition, thus creating all the objective prerequisites for the achievement of socialism. Hence, in Western Europe and in the United States of America, the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat for the overthrow of the capitalist governments, for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie, is on the order of the day. Imperialism is forcing the masses into this struggle by sharpening class antagonisms to an immense degree, by worsening the conditions of the masses both economically—trusts and high cost of living, and politically—growth of militarism, frequent wars, increase of reaction, strengthening and extension of national oppression and colonial plunder. Victorious socialism must achieve complete democracy and, consequently, not only bring about the complete equality of nations, but also give effect to the right of oppressed nations to self-determination, i.e., the right to free political secession. Socialist Parties which fail to prove by all their activities now, as well as during the revolution and after its victory, that they will free the enslaved nations and establish relations with them on the basis of a free union and a free union is a lying phrase without right to secession—such parties would be committing treachery to socialism.
Of course, democracy is also a form of state which must disappear when the state disappears, but this will take place only in the process of transition from completely victorious and consolidated socialism to complete communism. |
” |
| — Vladimir Lenin, The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination, 1916 | ||
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| “ | Marxian morality is likewise of English origin. Marxism reveals in every sentence that the thought processes from which it sprang were theological and not political. Its economic theory is the outgrowth of a fundamental moral attitude, and the materialistic view of history is simply the final chapter of a philosophy with roots in the English Revolution, whose biblical moods have remained dominant in English thought.
That is why Marx’s basic concepts are felt to be moral alternatives. The words "socialism" and "capitalism" are terms for the good and evil of this irreligious religion. The "bourgeois" is the devil, the wage earner is the angel of a new mythology, and one need only sample the vulgar paths of the Communist Manifesto to recognize behind the literary mask the Christianity of the Independents. Social evolution is "the will of God." The "final goal," in an earlier age, was eternal salvation; the "collapse of bourgeois civilization" used to be called the Last Judgment. |
” |
| — Oswald Spengler, "Prussianism And Socialism", 1919 | ||
Selected quote 6
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| “ | In this conflict it is not merely a question of the national secular State in opposition to the universal ecclesiastical State; wherever we meet universalism there anti-nationalism and anti-individualism are its necessary correlatives. Nor does it need to be conscious universalism, it is sufficient that an idea aims at something absolute, something limitless. Thus, for example, all consistently reasoned Socialism leads to the absolute State. To call Socialists point-blank “a party dangerous to the State,“ as is usually done, is only to give rise to one of those confusions of which our age is so fond. Certainly Socialism signifies a danger to the individual national States, as it does, on the whole, to the principle of individualism, but it is no danger to the idea of the State. It honestly admits its internationalism; its character is revealed, however, not in disintegration, but in a wonderfully developed organisation, copied, as it were, from a machine. In both points it betrays its affinity to Rome. In fact, it represents the same Catholic idea as the Church, although it grasps it by the other end. For that reason, too, there is no room in its system for individual freedom and diversity, for personal originality.
Ce qui lie tous les socialistes, c'est la haine de la liberté, ... as Flaubert says. * He who tears down the outward barriers, puts up inner ones. Socialism is imperialism in disguise; it will hardly be realisable without hierarchy and Primacy; in the Catholic Church it finds a pattern of socialistic, anti-individualistic organisation. |
” |
| — Houston Stewart Chamberlain, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century", 1899 | ||
Selected quote 7
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| “ | Now try to substitute for the Junker-capitalist state, for the landowner-capitalist state, a revolutionary-democratic state, i.e., a state which in a revolutionary way abolishes all privileges and does not fear to introduce the fullest democracy in a revolutionary way. You will find that, given a really revolutionary-democratic state, state- monopoly capitalism inevitably and unavoidably implies a step, and more than one step, towards socialism!
For if a huge capitalist undertaking becomes a monopoly, it means that it serves the whole nation. If it has become a state monopoly, it means that the state (i.e., the armed organisation of the population, the workers and peasants above all, provided there is revolutionary democracy) directs the whole undertaking. In whose interest? Either in the interest of the landowners and capitalists, in which case we have not a revolutionary-democratic, but a reactionary-bureaucratic state, an imperialist republic. Or in the interest of revolutionary democracy—and then it is a step towards socialism. For socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly. There is no middle course here. The objective process of development is such that it is impossible to advance from monopolies (and the war has magnified their number, role and importance tenfold) without advancing towards socialism. |
” |
| — Vladimir Lenin, The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It, 1917 | ||
Selected quote 8
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| “ | Public control is indispensably necessary. Otherwise the exchange of experiences remains only with the closed circle of the officials of the new regime. Corruption becomes inevitable. (Lenin’s words, Bulletin No.29) Socialism in life demands a complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois rule. Social instincts in place of egotistical ones, mass initiative in place of inertia, idealism which conquers all suffering, etc., etc. No one knows this better, describes it more penetratingly; repeats it more stubbornly than Lenin. But he is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconian penalties, rule by terror – all these things are but palliatives. The only way to a rebirth is the school of public life itself, the most unlimited, the broadest democracy and public opinion. It is rule by terror which demoralizes. | ” |
| — Rosa Luxemburg, "The Problem with Dictatorship" in The Russian Revolution as translated by Bertram Wolfe, 1918 | ||
Selected quote 9
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| “ | There are many people who call themselves socialists, although they care only about the first, who fervently believe in those ultimate aims of socialism but neither care nor understand how they can be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to whom socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the ends themselves. Many people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the socialists. The dispute about socialism has thus become largely a dispute about means and not about ends-although the question whether the different ends of socialism can be simultaneously achieved is also involved.
This would be enough to create confusion. And the confusion has been further increased by the common practice of denying that those who repudiate the means value the ends. But this is not all. The situation is still more complicated by the fact that the same means, the "economic planning" which is the prime instrument of socialist reform, can be used for many other purposes. We must centrally direct economic activity if we want to make distribution of income conform to current ideas of social justice. "Planning," therefore, is wanted by all those who demand that "production for use" be substituted for production for profit. But such planning is no less indispensable if the distribution of income is to be regulated in a way which to us appears to be the opposite of just. Whether we should wish that more of the good things of this world should go to some racial élite, the Nordic men, or the members of a party or an aristocracy, the methods which we shall have to employ are the same as those which could insure an equalitarian distribution. |
” |
| — Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944 | ||
Selected quote 10
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| “ | What was this recent “Spartacus week” in Berlin? What has it brought? What does it teach us? While we are still in the midst of battle, while the counterrevolution is still howling about their victory, revolutionary proletarians must take stock of what happened and measure the events and their results against the great yardstick of history. The revolution has no time to lose, it continues to rush headlong over still-open graves, past “victories” and “defeats,” toward its great goal. The first duty of fighters for international socialism is to consciously follow the revolution’s principles and its path.
Was the ultimate victory of the revolutionary proletariat to be expected in this conflict? Could we have expected the overthrow Ebert-Scheidemann and the establishment of a socialist dictatorship? Certainly not, if we carefully consider all the variables that weigh upon the question. The weak link in the revolutionary cause is the political immaturity of the masses of soldiers, who still allow their officers to misuse them, against the people, for counterrevolutionary ends. This alone shows that no lasting revolutionary victory was possible at this juncture. On the other hand, the immaturity of the military is itself a symptom of the general immaturity of the German revolution. The countryside, from which a large percentage of rank-and-file soldiers come, has hardly been touched by the revolution. So far, Berlin has remained virtually isolated from the rest of the country. The revolutionary centers in the provinces – the Rhineland, the northern coast, Brunswick, Saxony, Württemburg – have been heart and soul behind the Berlin workers, it is true. But for the time being they still do not march forward in lockstep with one another, there is still no unity of action, which would make the forward thrust and fighting will of the Berlin working class incomparably more effective. Furthermore, there is – and this is only the deeper cause of the political immaturity of the revolution – the economic struggle, the actual volcanic font that feeds the revolution, is only in its initial stage. And that is the underlying reason why the revolutionary class struggle, is in its infancy. |
” |
| — Rosa Luxemburg, Order Prevails in Berlin, 1919 | ||
Selected quote 11
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| “ | Because of the contradiction in the early stages of the revolutionary process between the task being sharply posed and the absence of any preconditions to resolve it, individual battles of the revolution end in formal defeat. But revolution is the only form of “war” – and this is another peculiar law of history – in which the ultimate victory can be prepared only by a series of “defeats.”
What does the entire history of socialism and of all modern revolutions show us? The first spark of class struggle in Europe, the revolt of the silk weavers in Lyon in 1831, ended with a heavy defeat; the Chartist movement in Britain ended in defeat; the uprising of the Parisian proletariat in the June days of 1848 ended with a crushing defeat; and the Paris commune ended with a terrible defeat. The whole road of socialism – so far as revolutionary struggles are concerned – is paved with nothing but thunderous defeats. Yet, at the same time, history marches inexorably, step by step, toward final victory! Where would we be today without those “defeats,” from which we draw historical experience, understanding, power and idealism? Today, as we advance into the final battle of the proletarian class war, we stand on the foundation of those very defeats; and we can do without any of them, because each one contributes to our strength and understanding. The revolutionary struggle is the very antithesis of the parliamentary struggle. In Germany, for four decades we had nothing but parliamentary “victories.” We practically walked from victory to victory. And when faced with the great historical test of August 4, 1914, the result was the devastating political and moral defeat, an outrageous debacle and rot without parallel. To date, revolutions have given us nothing but defeats. Yet these unavoidable defeats pile up guarantee upon guarantee of the future final victory. |
” |
| — Rosa Luxemburg, Order Prevails in Berlin, 1919 | ||
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| “ | There is but one condition. The question of why each defeat occurred must be answered. Did it occur because the forward-storming combative energy of the masses collided with the barrier of unripe historical conditions, or was it that indecision, vacillation, and internal frailty crippled the revolutionary impulse itself?
Classic examples of both cases are the February revolution in France on the one hand and the March revolution in Germany on the other. The courage of the Parisian proletariat in the year 1848 has become a fountain of energy for the class struggle of the entire international proletariat. The deplorable events of the German March revolution of the same year have weighed down the whole development of modern Germany like a ball and chain. In the particular history of official German Social Democracy, they have reverberated right up into the most recent developments in the German revolution and on into the dramatic crisis we have just experienced. How does the defeat of “Spartacus week” appear in the light of the above historical question? Was it a case of raging, uncontrollable revolutionary energy colliding with an insufficiently ripe situation, or was it a case of weak and indecisive action? Both! The crisis had a dual nature. The contradiction between the powerful, decisive, aggressive offensive of the Berlin masses on the one hand and the indecisive, half-hearted vacillation of the Berlin leadership on the other is the mark of this latest episode. The leadership failed. But a new leadership can and must be created by the masses and from the masses. The masses are the crucial factor. They are the rock on which the ultimate victory of the revolution will be built. The masses were up to the challenge, and out of this “defeat” they have forged a link in the chain of historic defeats, which is the pride and strength of international socialism. That is why future victories will spring from this “defeat.” “Order prevails in Berlin!” You foolish lackeys! Your “order” is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will “rise up again, clashing its weapons,” and to your horror it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be! |
” |
| — Rosa Luxemburg, Order Prevails in Berlin, 1919 | ||
Selected quote 13
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| “ | On January 2 the Leipziger Volkszeitung published an article by its Belgian correspondent entitled, Unity in Confusion, in which the writer expresses his ideas concerning the tactics of Social-Democrats towards the labouring masses who, without being socialistic, are creating various organisations independent of the bourgeoisie. In his opinion it is most practical, in such situations, where as yet no unified Social-Democratic Party exists, to unite all such organisations into one Labour Party, and he regards it as the duty of the Marxists, not to found an independent Social Democratic Party, but to enter the ranks of the general Labour Party. If thereby clearness of principle has to be sacrificed by the Social-Democrats this will be made up for by the fact of the masses being roused to independent political action; the experience they gain by such action will lead them to Socialism.
In Vorwaerts comrade M. Beer, in his discussion with our English comrade Askew (December 30, 1908, The British Labour Party and Socialism) expresses the same thought still more forcibly as follows: “The unity of the working class seems to me the most important condition on which the victory of Socialism depends. And if I had to choose between a small and efficient Socialist Party and a large non-Socialist, but politically and economically independent working class, I should decide, without hesitation in favour of the latter.” The Belgian comrade prophesies that any other way than the one he recommends must lead to the formation of an orthodox sect. This opinion is shared by comrade Beer; although he describes the sect euphemistically as a “small but efficient Social Democratic Party,” the efficiency could surely, according to his opinion, only consist in its theoretic principles, it would obviously bring forth many words, but no deeds. |
” |
| — Karl Radek, The Unity of the Working Class, 1909 | ||
Selected quote 14
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| “ | It is clear that in a situation such as that last mentioned, the ground is very favourable to the rapid growth of the Social-Democracy. Life provides material for its agitation which makes its general views comprehensible to the masses. In such a situation every economic struggle, even the smallest, becomes a school for the class struggle, if the party consistently illumines all its incidents from one point of view, if it flies its flag openly in the air. Then greater masses will rally each day round the Social-Democracy, and it becomes a political factor in public life, which the bourgeoisie and the Government have to take into account. But this growth cannot all at once get rid of the effects of previous development. If a Labour movement, on a bourgeois basis, has hitherto existed in the country where the new movement is awakening it will certainly not disappear all at once. Every social organisation which is rooted in life still lasts a long time, even after the conditions from which it drew its strength have changed in a manner unfavourable to it. And (this point we will return to) a bourgeois Labour movement is brought into existence by lasting, not passing, conditions. How is this movement influenced by the presence of a consistent Social-Democratic Party? The political action of the Social-Democracy, its criticism of the bourgeoisie and the Government and their allies in the working class, constitute, on the one hand, an element of disintegration for the bourgeois Labour movement, and, in the second place, urges the latter on the road of the struggle against capital, though, it must be noted, that struggle remains hesitating and full of contradictions. If there is one thing which renders it possible to strengthen the class-war element in the bourgeois Labour movement, and to embody parts of it in the Socialist movement, it is the ceaseless war against that movement. This applies, not only to various organisations founded by the bourgeois parties-for instance, in Germany to the Christian and Hirsch-Duncker trade unions – not only to those which are, like the trade unions in England, independent, but also to all those which appear in Socialist clothing, but are of bourgeois origin. This policy, which momentarily divides the proletariat, prepares for its subsequent unity under the banner of Social-Democracy, as the only lasting organisation. | ” |
| — Karl Radek, The Unity of the Working Class, 1909 | ||
Selected quote 15
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| “ | What the Captain of Kopenick means for militarism in the domain of practical swindling, the inimitable Gustav Tuch was for it in the domain of honest theorizing, towards the end of the eighties. In his bulky volume, "The Expanded German Military State in its Social Significance," he sketched a future society of which the all illuminating, warming, directing central sun is militarism, its heart and soul, the only true "national and civilized socialism"; where the whole state is transformed into the image of the barracks, the barracks being grammar school, high-school and a factory for producing patriotic spirit, the army an all comprising organization of strike-breakers. That ecstatic hallucination about the millennium of militarism was indeed mere methodical madness, but the very fact that it was a methodical madness, which imagined the militaristic aims and methods apart from all checks and carried them to their extreme conclusions, lends to it a symptomatic significance.
At least in one sphere of prime importance militarism, as will be shown more conclusively later on, is to-day already the central sun around which move the solar systems of class legislation, bureaucracy, police rule, class-justice and the clericalism of all denominations. It is the ultimate, sometimes recondite, sometimes patent regulator of all class politics, all tactics of the class-struggle, not only for the capitalist classes, but also for the proletariat, in regard to its economic organization no less than in regard to its political organization. |
” |
| — Karl Liebknecht, Militarism, 1917 | ||
Selected quote 16
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| “ | The world war which has smashed the International must, however, be realized as a powerful sermon making clear the need for a new International, an International of another kind, with a different force from that which the capitalist powers so easily scattered on August 4, 1914.
Only in the cooperation of the working masses of all countries, in times of war as in times of peace, does the salvation of humanity lie. Nowhere have the masses desired this war. Nowhere do they desire it. Why should they, then, with a loathing for war in their hearts, murder each other to the finish? It would be a sign of weakness, it is said, for any one people to suggest peace; well, let all the people suggest it together. The nation which speaks first will not show weakness but strength. It will win the glory and gratitude of posterity. It is the duty of every Socialist at the present time to be a prophet of international brotherhood, realizing that every word he speaks in favor of socialism and peace, every action he performs for these ideals enflame similar words and actions in other countries, until the flames of the desire for peace shall flare high over all Europe. The example which you and our Russian and Servian comrades have given to the world will have an emulating effect wherever Socialists have been ensnared by the designs of the ruling classes, and I am sure the mass of the British workers will soon rally to the International Labor Party. Already among the German workers there is far greater opposition to the war than is generally supposed, and the louder the echo of the cry for peace in other countries the more vehemently and energetically will they work for peace here. Thus shall the working classes of all the belligerent countries become conscious of the necessity to fight for a peace consistent with the principles of Socialism, a peace without conquest and without humiliation, a peace based not on hatred but on fraternity, not on force but on freedom, a peace which, because of its justice, may be everlasting. In this way, even during the war, the International can be revived and can atone for its previous mistakes. Thus it must revive, a different International, increased not only in numerical strength but in revolutionary fervor, in clearness of vision and in preparedness to overcome the danger of absolutism, of secret diplomacy, and of capitalist conspiracies against peace. Workers of the World, unite! Unite in a war against war! |
” |
| — Karl Liebknecht, A New Year's Greeting to England, 1914 | ||
Selected quote 17
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| “ | It would be foolish to believe that this criticism and the recognition that a post-utopian attitude to history has become objectively possible means that utopianism can be dismissed as a factor in the proletariat’s struggle for freedom. This is true only for those stages of class consciousness that have really achieved the unity of theory and practice described by Marx, the real and practical intervention of class consciousness in the course of history and hence the practical understanding of reification[disambiguation needed]. And this did not all happen at a single stroke and in a coherent manner. For there are not merely national and ‘social’ stages involved but there are also gradations within the class consciousness of workers in the same strata. The separation of economics from politics is the most revealing and also the most important instance of this. It appears that some sections of the proletariat have quite the right instincts as far as the economic struggle goes and can even raise them to the level of class consciousness. At the same time, ‘however, when it comes to political questions they manage to persist in a completely utopian point of view. It does not need to be emphasised that there is no question here of a mechanical duality. The utopian view of the function of politics must impinge dialectically on their views about economics and, in particular, on their notions about the economy as a totality (as, for example, in the Syndicalist theory of revolution). In the absence of a real understanding of the interaction between politics and economics a war against the whole economic system, to say nothing of its reorganisation, is quite out of the question.
The influence enjoyed even today by such completely utopian theories as those of Ballod or of guild-socialism shows the extent to which utopian thought is still prevalent, even at a level where the direct life-interests of the proletariat are most nearly concerned and where the present crisis makes it possible to read off from history the correct course of action to be followed. |
” |
| — György Lukács, Class Consciousness, 1920 | ||
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| “ | While in the foregoing exposition we have characterized the practical meaning of the scientific form of modern or Marxian socialism we have at the same time also described the meaning of the dialectical method which Karl Marx applied. For as certainly as the content of scientific Socialism was in existence as an unformed viewpoint (proletarian class viewpoint) before its scientific formulation, just as certainly is the scientific form in which this content lies before us in the works of Marx and Engels. Thus "scientific socialism" properly so-called is quite essentially the product of the application of that mode of thought which Marx and Engels designated as their "dialectical method." And it is not the case, as some contemporary "Marxists" might like to imagine, that by virtue of historical accident those scientific propositions which Karl Marx produced by the application of his "dialectical method" could today be separated at will from that method and simply reproduced. Nor is it the case that this method is out of date because of the progress of the sciences. Nor is its replacement by another method today not only possible but rather even necessary! Whoever speaks in these terms has not comprehended the most important aspects of the Marxist dialectic. How could one otherwise come to the thought that today-as at a time of increased class struggle in all spheres of social, thus also so-called intellectual, life -that method could be abandoned "which is intrinsically critical and revolutionary." Karl Marx and Frederick Engels simultaneously opposed the new method of proletarian science to the "metaphysical mode of thought" ("that specific weakness of thought of the last century") and to all earlier forms of "dialectic" (in particular the idealistic dialectic of Fichte-Schelling-Hegel).
Only those who completely overlook that Marx's "proletarian dialectic" differs essentially from every other (metaphysical and dialectical) mode of thought, and represents that specific mode of thought in which alone the new content of the proletarian class views formed in the proletarian class struggle can find a theoretical-scientific expression corresponding to its true being; only those could get the idea that this dialectical mode of thought, as it represents "only the form" of scientific socialism, consequently would also be "something peripheral and indifferent to the matter," so much so that the same material content of thought could be as well or even better expressed in another form. It is something quite similar when certain contemporary "Marxists" put forward the notion that the proletariat could wage its practical struggle against the bourgeois economic, social and political order in other "forms" than the barbaric uncivilized form of revolutionary class struggle. Or when the same people fool themselves and others by saying that the proletariat could achieve its positive task, the realization of Communist society, by means other than the dictatorship of the proletariat, for example, by means of the bourgeois state and bourgeois democracy. Karl Marx, who already in an early work had written the proposition, "Form has no value if it is not the form of its content," himself thought about these things quite differently. Later Marx always emphasized anew that the real understanding of historico-social development (i.e., consciously revolutionary understanding that is at the same time positive and negative) -this understanding, which constituted the specific essence of "scientific" socialism, can only be brought about by the conscious application of the dialectical method. Of course, this new, or "proletarian," dialectic on which the scientific form of Marxism is founded differs in the extreme, not only from the ordinary, narrow-minded metaphysical way of thinking. For, it is also "quite different" in its fundamental position from the bourgeois dialectic which found its most comprehensive form in the German philosopher Hegel, and in a definite sense it is even its "direct opposite." It is impracticable and superfluous at this point to enter more deeply into the manifold consequences of these differences and contrasts. |
” |
| — Karl Korsch, The Marxist Dialectic, 1923 | ||
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| “ | Not every submission of the individual to the command of a collective is socialism, any more than every socialization signifies state control or nationalizing. One could regard monopoly as a kind of socialism which is what Marxism does in practice. Through its antilife doctrine, Marxism helps socialism to increase so that it concentrates power in a few hands. Such a concentration of power places the so called dictatorship of the proletariat in control in the place of rule by the great world exploiters. Fundamentally, this signifies no alteration of circumstances. It is only world capitalism under other symbols. For this reason Marxism everywhere marches with democratic plutocracy. In the short run capitalism is the stronger.
If a measure is socialistic, it can be designed to be a preventive or revolutionary—disruptive—kind. What is determinative is collective, in whose name it establishes socially economic instruction. The bourgeois parliamentary state legislates thousands of socialistic encroachments. It inflicts tragedy by favouring reparations on all enterprises through compulsory mortgages. It regulates tolls, loan interest and division of labour. In spite of this it is a class state, whose ruling parties do not pass socialistic measures. Rather, it lays its burden upon the entire people. Just as little can Marxism, which carries on its class struggle from below, lay claim to power for itself. The millions of people standing under Marxism’s triumph are not treated as a totality. To a great degree they are mere objects, exploited by the Marxist oriented members of the community. The work state was erroneously used under heretofore existing political conditions. The state stands neither in service of the bourgeoisie nor of the Marxist class struggle. Thus, it does not exist at all, however much its substitute demands worship. However much confessionalism and this double sided class struggle may strive, neither of them can pass and carry out a truly socialistic measure. This can only be done by the representative of a system which is able to grasp the people as an organism, which regards the state as a means to their external security and inner peace, to whom the totality nation is thus the measuring rod for the individual and smaller collective restricting actions. Out of this thought process, for which the world has finally become ripe, we are witnessing the great struggle between nationalism and socialism. The old nationalism was manifoldly not sincere. It was a mere cover for large agrarian and industrial, and later, finance capitalist, private interests. For this reason, the words, Patriotism is the last refuge of great scoundrels (Doctor Samuel Johnson) could frequently be justified. Moreover, Marxism in the guise of social democracy was openly the adherent of plutocracy. The communistic folkish destructive ravings against the property values of all nations are making real socialism possible. The result was not a struggle, but an equation of real nationalism with real socialism, a synopsis with foundations. Germany has to thank Hitler for fabricating this synthesis. |
” |
| — Alfred Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, 1930 | ||
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| “ | It was Adolf Hitler who declared war against all this. In Austria, with her various peoples, he had realised that nationalism was something that had to be defended ever anew; now he saw that it also would have to be defended in the Reich even though here it was a birthright. In the Sudetenland a small National Socialist party was already in existence -- yet another reason why he should found his own. Hitler had come the conclusion that a just socialism had, PER SE, nothing to do with class war and internationalism. To perpetuate class war was wrong. It would have to be eliminated. Thus he became an opponent of Marxism in all of its manifestations, and characterised it as a philosophy of government inimical to both the state and the working class. As far as the workers were concerned it was, therefore, a question of renouncing this doctrine as well as their opposition to both the farmer and the property owner. The middle classes, too, had every reason to revise their attitude. They had failed to provide the working classes in their hour of dire need with leaders conversant with their requirements and had left them to the tender mercy of international propagandists. German nationalism, Hitler believed, was hemmed in by the nobility, while an entirely false conceit separated the middle classes from the broad mass of the productive population. The bourgeoisie would have to shed its prejudices before it would once again be entitled to leadership. To end Germany's fratricidal strife he proposed to gather together all active nationalists of every party, and fighters for social justice from every camp, to form a new movement. | ” |
| — Alfred Rosenberg, Memoirs, 1945 | ||
Selected quote 21
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| “ | If, therefore, considered from the angle of political effect the conquest of political power by the working class cannot materialise itself “too early” then from the angle of conservation of power, the premature revolution, the thought of which keeps Bernstein awake, menaces us like a sword of Damocles. Against that neither prayers nor supplication, neither scares nor any amount of anguish, are of any avail. And this for two very simple reasons.
In the first place, it is impossible to imagine that a transformation as formidable as the passage from capitalist society to socialist society can be realised in one happy act. To consider that as possible is, again, to lend colour to conceptions that are clearly Blanquist. The socialist transformation supposes a long and stubborn struggle, in the course of which, it is quite probable the proletariat will be repulsed more than once so that for the first time, from the viewpoint of the final outcome of the struggle, it will have necessarily come to power “too early.” In the second place, it will be impossible to avoid the “premature” conquest of State power by the proletariat precisely because these “premature” attacks of the proletariat constitute a factor and indeed a very important factor, creating the political conditions of the final victory. In the course of the political crisis accompanying its seizure of power, in the course of the long and stubborn struggles, the proletariat will acquire the degree of political maturity permitting it to obtain in time a definitive victory of the revolution. Thus these “premature” attacks of the proletariat against the State power are in themselves important historic factors helping to provoke and determine the point of the definite victory. Considered from this viewpoint, the idea of a “premature” conquest of political power by the labouring class appears to be a polemic absurdity derived from a mechanical conception of the development of society, and positing for the victory of the class struggle a point fixed outside and independent of the class struggle. Since the proletariat is not in the position to seize power in any other way than “prematurely,” since the proletariat is absolutely obliged to seize power once or several times “too early” before it can maintain itself in power for good, the objection to the “premature” conquest of power is at bottom nothing more than a general opposition to the aspiration of the proletariat to possess itself of State power. Just as all roads lead to Rome so too do we logically arrive at the conclusion that the revisionist proposal to slight the final aim of the socialist movement is really a recommendation to renounce the socialist movement itself. |
” |
| — Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution, 1900 | ||
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| “ | Socialists have always condemned war between nations as barbarous and brutal. But our attitude towards war is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists (supporters and advocates of peace) and of the Anarchists. We differ froth the former in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within the country; we understand that war cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and Socialism is created; and we also differ in that we fully regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by the oppressed class against the oppressing class, slaves against slave-owners, serfs against land-owners, and wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as legitimate, progressive and necessary. We Marxists differ from both the pacifists and the Anarchists in that we deem it necessary historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) to study each war separately. In history there have been numerous wars which, in spite of all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany alt wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind by helping to destroy the exceptionally harmful and reactionary institutions (for example, autocracy or serfdom), the most barbarous despotisms in Europe (Turkish and Russian). Therefore, it is necessary to examine the historically specific features of precisely the present war. | ” |
| — Vladimir Lenin, Socialism and War, 1915 | ||
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| “ | Of course we shall be told in refutation that we are transferring the laws of capitalism to the socialist economy, that a planned economy does not require regulation by means of crises or even by means of predetermined lowering of tempos. The repertory of proofs at the disposal of the Stalinist bureaucracy and its theoreticians is so restricted that it is always possible to forecast beforehand the particular generalization they will resort to. In this case, a pure tautology: we have entered socialism and therefore we must always act “socialistically,” that is, we must regulate the economy so as to obtain ever-increasing planned expansion. But the gist of the matter is that we have not entered into socialism. We have far from attained mastery of the methods of planned regulation. We are fulfilling only the first rough hypothesis, fulfilling it poorly, and with our headlights not yet on. Crises are not only possible, they are inevitable. And an impending crisis has already been prepared by the bureaucracy.
The laws that govern the transitional society are quite different from those that govern capitalism. But no less do they differ from the future laws of socialism, that is, of a harmonious economy growing on the basis of tried, proven, and guaranteed dynamic equilibrium. The productive advantages of socialism, centralization, concentration, the unified spirit of management are incalculable. But under faulty application, particularly under bureaucratic misuse, they may turn into their opposites. And in part they have already become transformed, for the crisis now impends. Any attempt to force the economy by further lashing and spurring ahead is an attempt to redouble the misfortunes in the future. It is impossible to foretell the extent that the crisis will assume. The advantages of planned economy remain during crises as well, and one may say they show themselves with special clarity precisely in a crisis. Capitalist governments are compelled to wait passively until the crisis spends itself on the backs of the people, or to resort to financial hocus-pocus in the manner of von Papen. The workers’ state meets the crisis with all its resources. All the dominant levers – the budget credit, industry, trade – are concentrated in a single hand. The crisis may be mitigated and afterwards overcome not by strident command but by measures of economic regulation. After the adventuristic offensive, it is necessary to execute a planned retreat, thought-out as fully as possible. This is the task of the coming year, the sixteenth year of the proletarian dictatorship. Il faut reculer pour mieux sauter: Let us retreat in order the better to. |
” |
| — Leon Trotsky, The Soviet Economy in Danger, 1932 | ||
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| “ | If it were possible to speak in any manner seriously with Radek on serious subjects, we would have made an attempt to explain to him that it is impossible, in 1932, in answer to the question whither does the development of U.S.S.R. lead to refer to the political “fundament” of the socialist construction. The insufficiency of this reference alone was exposed for the first time on a major scale in 1921 when the question of the reciprocal relations with the peasantry was posed point blank. The creation of the economic jointure between the city and the village was then proclaimed to be the creation of the genuine foundation of socialist construction. Of such nature was the basic task of the N.E.P. The theoretical formula of the jointure is very simple: the nationalized industry must provide the peasantry with products indispensable to it, in such quantity, of such quality and at such prices as would entirely eliminate or reduce to a minimum, in the reciprocal relations between the state and the basic mass of the peasantry, the factor of extra-economic force, that is, the administrative seizure of peasant labor. The discussion concerns of course not the kulaks, in relation to whom a special task is posed; to limit their exploiting activities and not to allow them to turn into the dominant power in the village. The establishment of a reciprocal relationship of voluntary “barter” between industry and rural economy, between the city and village would impart an immutable firmness to the political interrelation between the proletariat and the peasantry. To socialism, of course, in such a case, there would still remain a long and a difficult road. But on this fundament – on the fundament of a jointure between the city and the village acceptable to the moujik, the economic work could be confidently pushed ahead, without rushing apace or dropping back, by maneuvering on the world market and in accordance with the tempo of the development of the revolution in the Occident and the Orient. Not only would the road not have led to national socialism, but it would have been of use to nobody. It would suffice, if the still isolated economy of the Soviet Union became one of the preparatory elements of the future international socialist society. He who talks about “the fundament of socialism” in 1932 has no right to retreat to the line of 1918, without even making an attempt to hold to the line of 1921; i.e., without giving an answer to the question: Did we succeed, during the 12 years that elapsed since the introduction of the N.E.P. to realize the jointure, in the Leninist sense of the word? Did the 100 percent collectivization assure such reciprocal relations between the city and the village as would reduce the extra-economic force, if not to zero, then clearly approximately to it? In this is the whole question. And to this fundamental question one is still compelled to give a negative answer. The 100 per cent collectivization has come about not as the crowning and the fruition of an achieved jointure, but as an administrative screening of its absence. To keep mum on this question, to circumvent it, to beat around the bush with words, is to call the greatest danger’s upon the dictatorship of the proletariat ... But of course, it is not from Radek that one should except an analysis of the problem of the jointure. | ” |
| — Leon Trotsky, The Foundations of Socialism, 1932 | ||
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| “ | The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from its being imbedded in the fabric of tradition. This tradition itself is thoroughly alive and extremely changeable. An ancient statue of Venus, for example, stood in a different traditional context with the Greeks, who made it an object of veneration, than with the clerics of the Middle Ages, who viewed it as an ominous idol. Both of them, however, were equally confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura. Originally the contextual integration of art in tradition found its expression in the cult. We know that the earliest art works originated in the service of a ritual – first the magical, then the religious kind. It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function. In other words, the unique value of the “authentic” work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value. This ritualistic basis, however remote, is still recognizable as secularized ritual even in the most profane forms of the cult of beauty. The secular cult of beauty, developed during the Renaissance and prevailing for three centuries, clearly showed that ritualistic basis in its decline and the first deep crisis which befell it. With the advent of the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction, photography, simultaneously with the rise of socialism, art sensed the approaching crisis which has become evident a century later. At the time, art reacted with the doctrine of l’art pour l’art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of “pure” art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter. (In poetry, Mallarme was the first to take this position.)
An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics. |
” |
| — Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936 | ||