Marxism Quotes

“The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar!”
― Karl Marx, The Civil War in France

“this is the way of the Communists - using good words to do bad things”
― Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China

“Illusion is the most tenacious weed in the collective consciousness; history teaches, but it has no pupils.”
― Antonio Gramsci

“Politics always lags behind economics, far behind. The state apparatus is far more resistant than is possible to believe; and it succeeds, at moments of crisis, in organizing greater forces loyal to the regime than the depth of the crisis might lead one to suppose. This is especially true of the more important capitalist states.”
― Antonio Gramsci

“In its endeavour, science is communism.

In science men have learned consciously to subordinate themselves to a common purpose without losing the individuality of their achievements. Each one knows that his work depends on that of his predecessors and colleagues and that it can only reach its fruition through the work of his successors. In science men collaborate not because they are forced to by superior authority or because they blindly follow some chosen leader, but because they realize that only in this willing collaboration can each man find his goal. Not orders, but advice, determine action. Each man knows that only by advice, honestly and disinterestedly given, can his work succeed, because such advice expresses as near as may be the inexorable logic of the material world, stubborn fact.”
― J.D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science

“These groups and movements were also inspired by a conviction that democracy is worthless, that elections cannot bring real change, and that only the most extreme and desperate actions can stop the decline of a certain vision of America.

By 2016, some of the arguments of the old Marxist left--their hatred of ordinary, bourgeois politics and their longing for revolutionary change--met and mingled with the Christian right's despair about the future of American democracy. Together, they produced the restorative nostalgic campaign rhetoric of Donald Trump.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“I don't know - I suppose because, on the very face on it, I see two classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“The world is an estranged and untrue world so long as man does not destroy its dead objectivity and recognize himself and his own life 'behind' the fixed form of things and laws. When he finally wins this self-consciousness, he is on his way not only to the truth of himself, but also of his world. And with the recognition goes the doing. He will try to put this truth into action, and make the world what it essentially is, namely, the fulfillment of man's self-consciousness.”
― Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

“Marksist tarihyazımı öldü mü? Sovyetlerin yıkılmasıyla birlikte, Marksist tarihyazımının da öldüğünü söyleyenler var; oysa bu, 2 nedenle doğru değil. Birincisi, Marksist tarihyazımı, Sovyetler ya da daha sonra kapitalistleşen Çin’in tekelinde değildi ve olmadı. Türkiye başta gelmek üzere birçok ülkede, Sovyet yanlısı da Çin yanlısı da olmayan güçlü sol hareketler vardı. Bu sol hareketler de Marksist’ti ve tarihi Marksist açıdan yorumluyorlardı. Bu üçüncü grup, çeşitli eğilimlerden oluşuyordu. Bunların içinde en güçlü akım, Küba başta olmak üzere Latin Amerika’dan esinlenen kurtuluş hareketleriydi. Bu hareketler, sömürgecilik karşıtı mücadelelerinde işçi sınıfını tarihin tek öznesi olarak görmediler. Tek bir sınıf indirgemeciliğinden çok, halk kesimlerine yönelik olarak çalışma yürüttüler. Halkın değişik kesimleri vardı, tarih de kalıptan çıkmış ikiliklerle yorumlanamazdı. Bunlar Sovyetlerin katı sınıfsal çözümlemelerinin tersine, ezen-ezilen ve sömüren-sömürülen gibi karşıtlıklar üzerinden halkın değişik kesimlerine yöneldiler. Bu yöneliş hem onların daha da yaygınlık kazanmasını sağladı hem de ileride gelecek tarihyazımı eklerini benimsemelerini kolaylaştırdı.”
― Ulaş Başar Gezgin, Ötekilerin Tarihi: Marksist Tarih Yazımı ve Vietnam Üzerine

“Marksist psikolojinin temel izlekleri, yabancılaşma, ideoloji, yanlış bilinç ve yöntembilim tartışmaları olacaktır. Özellikle sosyal ve politik psikoloji alanlarında, son yıllarda, ideoloji ve yanlış bilinç kavramsallaştırmalarından esinlenilerek sistemi meşrulaştırma kuramı adında bir kuram geliştirilmiş ve bu kuramdan hareketle birçok bulguya ulaşılmıştır. Kuram, özetin özeti olarak ifade edeceksek, bu kadar adaletsizliğe karşın neden insanların isyan etmediğini ezilenlerin iç dünyalarına atıfla açıklamakta bir hayli başarılı olmuştur. Kurama göre, ezilenlerin ezici bir çoğunluğu adaletsizliği kabullenmişlerdir. Zenginler gibi yaşamak istemektedirler. Kendilerini küçük görürler. Zenginlerin güzel bir yaşamı hak ettiklerine inanırlar.
Medya ve eğitim sistemi başta olmak üzere çeşitli toplumsal kurumlar ezilen çoğunluğa bu yanlış bilinç öğelerini sürekli olarak pompalarlar. Böylece, “böyle gelir böyle gider”. Toplumsal kurumlar, ezilen çoğunluğun adaletsizlikleri içselleştirmesini, onların kaderci olmalarını sağlar. Kuram, bu tür düşüncelere Marksist anlamda ‘yanlış bilinç’ der, çünkü bunlar, açıkça, ezilen çoğunluğun zararınadır ve onların ezilmeye devam etmelerini sağlamaktadır.”
― Ulaş Başar Gezgin, Marksist Psikolojiden Politik Psikolojiye ve Ötesine: Eleştirel Psikolojide Bir Yolculuk

“In this book, Marxist psychology is introduced within a historical and theoretical context. 'Which Marxism ' and 'which psychology ' were the initial questions for discussion which brought responses related to historical personalities, movements, schools of thoughts, countries and subfields. Alienation, ideology and methodology were considered to be major themes for a Marxist psychology. 'Why people don't revolt ' is a central question in this context. The discussions revolve on various terms such as false consciousness, just world belief, ideology, hegemony and system justification. Although these are more or less conducive to explain people's apathy, the book is not pessimistic at all. A related question is how consumer society and consumerism can't be understood properly without elaborating on commodity fetishism and alienation. The book concludes with a discussion of the relevance of Ignacio Martín-Baró's liberation psychology for our times and proposes 4 principles for Marxist psychology and healing: Deideologization, dealienation, defetishization and dehegemonization. This book is a gift for Karl Marx's 200th birthday.”
― Ulaş Başar Gezgin, Marxist Psychology: A Short Introduction

“Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. ... The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half Buddhist.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Beyond Dogma: Dialogues and Discourses

“Have you ever noticed that no one ever says that we had to fight off the Marxists in world war II?”
― @AnonymousVersus

“It is not supposed to be this way.
I want to see the natural togetherness of humanity. Of life.
I look around and I see lions,
but I want to see ants.
I see dominance and I want to see cooperation;
I see extinction and I want to see sustainment.”
― Belle Townsend

“Daniel Bensaïd em sua recente - e notável - obra sobre 'Marx, o intempestivo' [sugere que]: reconhecendo que seria tão abusivo exonerar Marx das ilusões 'progressistas' ou 'prometéicas' de seu tempo como fazer dele uma voz a favor da industrialização desmedida, ele nos propõe um caminho bem mais fecundo: instalar-se nas contradições de Marx e tomá-las a sério. A primeira destas contradições sendo, com certeza, aquela entre o credo produtivista de certos textos e a intuição de que o progresso pode ser a fonte da destruição irreversível do meio ambiente.”
― Michael Löwy, O que é ecossocialismo?

“A questão ecológica é, na minha visão, o grande desafio para uma renovação do pensamento marxista no início do século XXI. Ela exige dos marxistas uma ruptura radical com a ideologia do progresso linear e com o paradigma tecnológico e econômico da civilização industrial moderna. Certamente, não se trata - isto é evidente - de colocar em questão a necessidade do progresso científico e técnico e da elevação da produtividade do trabalho: estas são duas condições incontornáveis para dois objetivos essenciais do socialismo: a satisfação das necessidades sociais e a redução da jornada de trabalho. O desafio é reorientar o progresso de maneira a torná-lo compatível com a preservação do equilíbrio ecológico do planeta.”
― Michael Löwy, O que é ecossocialismo?

“Uma pista fecunda foi aberta pelo ecologista e "marxista-polanyista" norte-americano James O'Connor: é preciso acrescentar à primeira contradição do capitalismo, examinada por Marx, a que há entre as forças e as relações de produção, uma segunda contradição, a que há entre as forças produtivas e as condições de produção: os trabalhadores, o espaço urbano, a natureza. Pela sua dinâmica expansionista, o capital põe em perigo ou destrói as suas próprias condições, a começar pelo meio ambiente natural - uma possibilidade que Marx não tinha levado suficientemente em consideração.”
― Michael Löwy, O que é ecossocialismo?

“The true is no longer beautiful, because to be true in bourgeois civilisation is to be non-human.
The beautiful is no longer real, because to be beautiful in bourgeois civilisation is to be imaginary.”
― Christopher Caudwell, Studies and Further Studies in a Dying Culture

“Already we have in the practice of science the prototype for all human action. The task which the scientists have undertaken — the understanding and control of nature and of man himself — is merely the conscious expression of the task of human society.”
― J.D. Bernal, The Social Function of Science

“Marx's projected emancipating socialist "Kingdom of Freedom" - freedom not only from coercion but from any sort of necessity- turned out to be totalitarian and among the most violently oppressive regimes ever.”
― Azar Gat, Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars

“As the enthusiasm for the Soviet model waned, the idealistic and dissenting energies of intellectuals and the young embraced other cult figures and myths of salvation and purification: Mao, Fidel, Che, and even Pol Pot.”
― Azar Gat, Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars

“In addition to the emotive appeal of its eschatological promise, there was the tremendous attraction of Marxism as a cognitive framework for the interpretation of history and reality. With a largely justified reputation, Marxism functioned as a modern-day theology in the sense that it offered the best of minds a doctrine of very high level of intellectual sophistication with which to grapple, work, and identify.”
― Azar Gat, Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars

“Sign is an arena of class struggle.”
― Valentin Voloshinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language

“The claim that nations and nationalism are modern ideological constructs invented by intellectuals and spread by means of state authority and the state's apparatuses is a misleading half-truth that is itself a modernist (or postmodernist) ideological construct originating with intellectuals and requiring deconstruction.”
― Azar Gat, Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars

“The United States, the West, capitalism, liberalism, and democracy were collapsed into one and castigated in this sweeping discourse as the source of all evil or at least as no better than others. In some minds they still are.”
― Azar Gat, Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars

“Marxism, however, is not primarily a theory of class structure; it is above all a theory of class struggle.”
― Erik Olin Wright, Class, Crisis and the State

“...when he witnessed his first struggle (against another prisoner) - during which the cell chief urged everyone to "help" the man under fire - he thought to himself:

"So this is the way of the Communists - using good words to do bad things”
― Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China

“The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.”
― Karl Marx, Selected Works, Vol 1

“This world, with its partitioned nations and its mercenary class, seems to be a substantial establishment for a few wise men who make the most out of the stupidity of the many.”
― Surya Sree

“He summed up his admiration-tinged condemnation of the Communists in the simple statement: "They lie so truly.”
― Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China