It scarcely needs proof that there is not the slightest possibility of carrying out these tasks in a short period, of accomplishing all this in a few years. Therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transition from capitalism to communism, must not be regarded as a fleeting period of “super-revolutionary” acts and decrees, but as an entire historical era, replete with civil wars and external conflicts, with persistent organisational work and economic construction, with advances and retreats, victories and defeats. The historical era is needed not only to create the economic and cultural prerequisites for the complete victory of socialism, but also to enable the proletariat, firstly, to educate itself and become steeled as a force capable of governing the country, and, secondly, to re-educate and remould the petty-bourgeois strata along such lines as will assure the organisation of socialist production.
‘We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute.’ — Buenaventura Durruti
There is one quote that is really good. Its from a Brazilian Marxist João Carvalho during a live podcast right after the election of Bolsonaro, and he is explaining why the he believes the only path forward is a revolutionary one and not reformist.
He goes fucking nuclear and his whole speech goes hard as fuck but specialy these parts:
Capitalism has failed, fails and will fail in every society where it put its tentacles, that are based on the expropiation and the exploitation of men by men
And also:
The worst real socialism is better than the best capitalism.
I might subtitle this video in english one day so you guys can see it, it’s amazing
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis. During the Cold War, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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Great quote by Irish socialist James Connolly, essentially the difference between socialist republicanism and plain nationalism
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will 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.
Might honestly reference this quote for a good outline when trying to do work on my dad, he’s warm to Pan-Arabism but it’s always been harder to push him any further left than “America bad”
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
Full quote:
spoiler
In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or – what is but a legal expression for the same thing – with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed. In considering such transformations a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so can we not judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between the social productive forces and the relations of production. No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” - lenin
favorite usable quote:
“it is said that cameras don’t lie, but we must remember that liars use cameras” - michael parenti (could use it with statistics too since many people like to parrot that stats don’t lie)
bonus quote:
“With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.” - Richard Stallman ( not a socialist at all )
on pragmatism i like this one by deng, thought it could be confused with machiavellism:
“It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” - Deng Xiaoping
Talk about whatever, respecting the rules established by Lemmygrad. Failing to comply with the rules will grant you a few warnings, insisting on breaking them will grant you a beautiful shiny banwall.
A community for comrades to chat and talk about whatever doesn’t fit other communities
‘We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a while. For you must not forget that we can also build. It is we who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones. We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing in this minute.’ — Buenaventura Durruti
There is one quote that is really good. Its from a Brazilian Marxist João Carvalho during a live podcast right after the election of Bolsonaro, and he is explaining why the he believes the only path forward is a revolutionary one and not reformist.
He goes fucking nuclear and his whole speech goes hard as fuck but specialy these parts:
And also:
I might subtitle this video in english one day so you guys can see it, it’s amazing
Based
If you ever do, definitely share it here!!!
Documents can wait, hunger cannot - Stalin on a famine in India
Any enemy of uncle Sam is a friend of mine (something along these lines) - Malcolm X when meeting Fidel Castro in Harlem
There’s always the Parenti quote.
The quote
– Michael Parenti, Blackshirts And Reds
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Great quote by Irish socialist James Connolly, essentially the difference between socialist republicanism and plain nationalism
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will 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.
Fr explaining this simple concept to a global south lib is an impossible task.
Might honestly reference this quote for a good outline when trying to do work on my dad, he’s warm to Pan-Arabism but it’s always been harder to push him any further left than “America bad”
Leon Trotsky is certainly not my favourite figure, but this quote goes hard…
“If you cannot convince a fascist, acquaint his face with the pavement”
Full quote:
spoiler
(Marx, Selected Works, Vol. I, pp. 269-70.)
Most epic quote ever:
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” - lenin
favorite usable quote:
“it is said that cameras don’t lie, but we must remember that liars use cameras” - michael parenti (could use it with statistics too since many people like to parrot that stats don’t lie)
bonus quote:
“With software there are only two possibilites: either the users control the programme or the programme controls the users. If the programme controls the users, and the developer controls the programme, then the programme is an instrument of unjust power.” - Richard Stallman ( not a socialist at all )
on pragmatism i like this one by deng, thought it could be confused with machiavellism:
“It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” - Deng Xiaoping
A1 quotes
Came here to say the Lenin one. The Parenti one made me lol, great quote as well
Its from Inventing Reality
-Stalin
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Reminder that there is a quotes community for any quotes! https://lemmygrad.ml/c/quotes
Not favourite but fun and new for me, i read it today in Lenin letters:
“A small fish is better than a big cockroach”
what is the context of this lmao
He wrote that few times, usually to Gorky, about bolshevik press and party. Mostly in two meanings:
Better small newspaper being printed and distributed now than huge plans that can easily fail.
Better to have less people but trusted comrades (small fish) than unify the party with liquidators who want to destroy it (big cockroach).