Communism

The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. ~ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. ~ Friedrich Engels

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! ~ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Whether communism is partial or complete, political economy is no more tolerant of it than it is of monopoly, of which it is merely an extension. ~ Gustave de Molinari

Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Communism was a very defective answer to some very good questions. In throwing out the bad answer, we have forgotten the good questions. I want to put the good questions back on the table. ~ Tony Judt

In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal") is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money, and the state. Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism (anarchist communism), and the political ideologies grouped around both. All these share the analysis that the current order of society stems from its economic system, capitalism, that in this system, there are two major social classes: the working class—who must work to survive, and who make up the majority within society—and the capitalist class—a minority who derives profit from employing the working class, through private ownership of the means of production—and that conflict between these two classes will trigger a revolution. The revolution, in turn, will establish social ownership of the means of production, which is, according to this analysis, the primary element in the transformation of society towards communism.

A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z – See also

Quotes

A

• To be a Communist is to be a partisan and artisan of Marxism-Leninist philosophy: of dialectical materialism.'
  • Louis Althusser, "Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon"

• In capitalism, communists are always better (Στον καπιταλισμό οι κουμουνιστές είναι πάντα καλύτεροι)
  • Adonis Georgiadis about the way the Communist Party of Greece handles money (12 May 2018)

• Russian Communism is the illegitimate child of Karl Marx and Catherine the Great.
  • Clement Attlee, as quoted in The Observer (1956)

• If communism ever reestablishes itself successfully upon earth, it must be on a foundation of soul's brotherhood and the death of egoism. A forced association and a mechanical comradeship would end in a world-wide fiasco.
  • Sri Aurobindo, quoted from Sri Aurobindo, Nahar, S., Aurobindo, ., & Institut de recherches évolutives (Paris). India's rebirth: A selection from Sri Aurobindo's writing, talks and speeches. Paris: Institut de Recherches Evolutives. 3rd Edition (2000). Chapter II. [1]

• We are talking here about the future: about the lives of people in the world without wars, without social oppression, without national inequality, without suppression of human’s abilities. In other word, it is about the future that we all call Communism.
  • Andrei Tarkovsky, Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) (20 October 1970).

C

• When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist.
  • Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop, as quoted in Peace Behind Bars : A Peacemaking Priest's Journal from Jail (1995) by John Dear, p. 65; this is a translation of "Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista."
  • Variant translations:
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist.
  • When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.

• While all these untoward events were taking place, amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, a new and more terrible cause of quarrel than the Imperialism of Czars and Kaisers became apparent in Europe. The Civil War in Russia ended in the absolute victory of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet armies which advanced to subjugate Poland were indeed repulsed in the Battle of Warsaw, but Germany and Italy nearly succumbed to Communist propaganda and designs, and Hungary actually fell for a while under the control of the Communist dictator Bela Kun. Although Marshal Foch wisely observed that "Bolshevism has never crossed the frontiers of victory", the foundations of European civilization trembled in the early postwar years. Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of Communism. While Corporal Hitler was making himself useful to the German office-class in Munich by arousing soldiers and workers to fierce hatred of Jews and Communists, on who he laid the blame for Germany's defeat, Benito Mussolini provided Italy with a new theme of government which, while it claimed to save the Italian people from Communism, raised itself to dictatorial power. As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot all these kindred movements which were soon destined to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction.
  • Winston Churchill, The Second World War: Volume 1: The Gathering Storm: Houghton Mifflin, 1948

• Across the world academics still clung to the words and ideas of Marx and Engels and even Lenin. Fools. There were even those who said that Communism had been tried in the wrong country; that Russia had been too far backward to make those wonderful ideas work.
  • Thomas L. Clancy, as quoted in Rainbow Six (1998), p. 515
• It destroys the conditions for the existence of class antagonism, destroys classes in general, and thereby also its domination as a class. Karl Marx, as Quoted in Simply Philosophy [2]

E

• What is a communist?
  One who hath yearnings
  For equal division of unequal earnings.
  • Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849), Epigram, in Poetical Works, vol. 2, p. 202

• Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.
  • Friedrich Engels, The Principles of Communism (1847)

• The abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.
  • Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism (1847) [3]]

• What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities? The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.
  • Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism (1847) [4]]

• All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance.
  • Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism (1847) [5]]

• Some propose mere welfare measures – while others come forward with grandiose systems of reform which, under the pretense of re-organizing society, are in fact intended to preserve the foundations, and hence the life, of existing society. Communists must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to overthrow.
  • Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism (1847) [6]]

• Since the communists cannot enter upon the decisive struggle between themselves and the bourgeoisie until the bourgeoisie is in power, it follows that it is in the interest of the communists to help the bourgeoisie to power as soon as possible in order the sooner to be able to overthrow it.
  • Friedrich Engels, Principles of Communism (1847) [7]]

G

• There is not so much difference between the ideologies of capitalism and communism, you know. The difference is simple. Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, and communism is the reverse.
  • John Gardner, The Man from Barbarossa

J

• Communism was a very defective answer to some very good questions. In throwing out the bad answer, we have forgotten the good questions. I want to put the good questions back on the table.
  • Tony Judt, quoted in Evan R. Goldstein, "The Trials of Tony Judt", The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 06, 2010)

K

[R]ationalism, contempt for tradition, and hatred for the mythological layer of culture to which the Enlightenment gave birth developed, under communism, into the brutal persecution of religion, but also into the principle (practiced rather than directly expressed) that human beings are expendable: that individual lives count only as instruments of the 'greater whole' or the 'higher cause,' i.e. the state. ~ Leszek Kołakowski

• I’m more and more convinced it’s only through communism that we can become human.
  • Quote of Frida Kahlo, in her letter from US, during the 1930s, from [8]

• Communism is like an autoimmune disorder; it doesn't do the killing itself, but it weakens the system so much that the victim is left helpless and unable to fight off anything else.
  • Garry Kasparov, Winter is Coming (2015), p. 33

• The Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States.
  • John F. Kennedy, Speech by Senator John F. Kennedy, Democratic Rally, George Washington High School Stadium, Alexandria, VA, August 24, 1960. - The American Presidency Project.

• There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin. And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin.
  • John F. Kennedy, Speech in Berlin; see also the Ich bin ein Berliner Speech at Wikisource.

• Communism has sometimes succeeded as a scavenger, but never as a leader. It has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.
  • John F. Kennedy, Speech at NATO Headquarters, Naples Italy (2 July 1963)

• Communism is based on an ethical relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can accept.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul's Letter to American Christians (4 November 1956).

• Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" (1967)

• In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.
  • Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing.

• In Russia, all you have to do to get a house is to be born in the Soviet Union. You are entitled to housing. In America, if you don't have a dollar you have a right to choose between sleeping in a house or on the pavement. Yet you say we are the slave to communism.
  • Nikita Khrushchev, The Kitchen Debate (1959).

• Communism was a gigantic façade, and the reality concealed behind it was the sheer drive for power, for total power as an end in itself. The rest was merely instrumental -- a matter of tactics and some necessary self-restrictions to achieve the desired end. But the façade was more than mere decoration: it was communism's only means of survival; its respiratory system. It was also the ineradicable residue of the tradition of the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century socialism, of which communism was indeed a deformed descendant. As with all descendants, however deformed, some inherited traits are always visible, and in communism, too, these were evident. The rationalism, contempt for tradition, and hatred for the mythological layer of culture to which the Enlightenment gave birth developed, under communism, into the brutal persecution of religion, but also into the principle (practiced rather than directly expressed) that human beings are expendable: that individual lives count only as instruments of the 'greater whole' or the 'higher cause,' i.e. the state, for no rational grounds exist for attributing to them any special, non-instrumental status. Thus rationalism was transformed under communism into the idea of slavery. And romantic and early socialist strains -- the search for lost community and human solidarity, the protest against social disintegration caused by the industrial revolution and urbanization -- developed, under communism, into caricature: solidarity imposed by force, in an attempt to create a fake, merely ostensible unity -- the unity of despotism.
  • Leszek Kołakowski, "Communism as a Cultural Force", as quoted in Is God Happy? Selected Essays (2013), Basic Books, pp. 36-37

L

• As a result of this failure of communist ideology to comprehend the nature of man, Stalin decided to alter the Russian constitution. No longer would economic rewards be distributed on the basis of ‘need’; rather, the new concept was to be ‘to each according to his work.’
  • Quote from The Fundamentals of Liberty by Robert LeFevre, Santa Ana: CA, Rampart Institute, 1988, p. 402

• For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.
  • Vladimir Lenin, State and Revolution

• There are certain types of people who are political out of a kind of religious reason [...] I think it's fairly common among socialists: They are, in fact, God-seekers, looking for the kingdom of God on earth. A lot of religious reformers have been like that, too. It's the same psychological set, trying to abolish the present in favor of some better future — always taking it for granted that there is a better future. If you don't believe in heaven, then you believe in socialism. When I was in my real Communist phase, I and the people around me really believed — but, of course, this makes us certifiable — that something like 10 years after World War II, the world would be Communist and perfect.
  • Doris Lessing, as quoted in "Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and Space Fiction" (25 July 1982), Lesley Hazelton, New York Times Book Review

• The reason that communism is the greatest evil is simple: Communism is the greatest enemy of personal responsibility ever invented.
  Communism waters down and diminishes personal accomplishments. Once one sees this clearly, seemingly inexplicable communist-driven policies make sense. Every communist policy—from the minimum wage to single-payer health care to rent control—is designed to minimize and thwart personal responsibility.
  Conversely, individuals who take personal responsibility become leaders, inspiring others to take control of their own lives. Individuals who take personal responsibility for their actions are accountable for their behavior, which results in better relationships with others.
  • Trevor Loudon, "Why Is Communism Evil?"

M

Nonetheless, one final and inescapable conflict remains before us, the war between democracy and communism. Although each side has equipped itself with fearsome weapons and is pitted against the other in readiness for battle, the core of their conflict is internal and ideological. Which side will triumph in this final ideological conflict? Anyone who believes in the reality of God will surely answer that democracy will win. ~ Sun Myung Moon

• The tragedy of Korea is further heightened by the fact that its military action is confined to its territorial limits. It condemns that nation, which it is our purpose to save, to suffer the devastating impact of full naval and air bombardment while the enemy's sanctuaries are fully protected from such attack and devastation. Of the nations of the world, Korea alone, up to now, is the sole one which has risked its all against communism. The magnificence of the courage and fortitude of the Korean people defies description. They have chosen to risk death rather than slavery. Their last words to me were: 'Don't scuttle the Pacific!'
  • Douglas MacArthur, as quoted in farewell address to a Joint Session of Congress (19 April 1951).

• Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (1845/46) Vol. I, Part 1. [9]

• Communism differs from all previous movements in that it overturns the basis of all earlier relations of production and intercourse, and for the first time consciously treats all natural premises as the creatures of hitherto existing men, strips them of their natural character and subjugates them to the power of the united individuals. Its organisation is, therefore, essentially economic, the material production of the conditions of this unity; it turns existing conditions into conditions of unity. The reality, which communism is creating, is precisely the true basis for rendering it impossible that anything should exist independently of individuals, insofar as reality is only a product of the preceding intercourse of individuals themselves.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (1845/46) Vol. I, Part 4. [10]

• A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Communism.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848), Preamble, paragraph 1, line 1. [11]

• The theory of Communism may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848), Section 2, paragraph 13. [12]

• Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society; all that it does is to deprive him of the power to subjugate the labour of others by means of such appropriation.
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848), Section 2, paragraph 30. [13]

• The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
  WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
  • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto (1848), Section 4, paragraph 11 (last paragraph) [14]
  • Variant translation: Workers of the world, unite!

• But to make the comparison applicable, we must compare Communism at its best, with the regime of individual property, not as it is, but as it might be made... The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of private property rests.
  • J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy p. 14

• If the roused and insurgent consumers secure the means of production of the salt industry, in all probability they will confiscate this industry for their own profit, and their first thought will be, not to relegate it to free competition, but rather to exploit it, in common, for their own account.  They will then name a director or a directive committee to operate the saltworks, to whom they will allocate the funds necessary to defray the costs of salt production.  Then, since the experience of the past will have made them suspicious and distrustful, since they will be afraid that the director named by them will seize production for his own benefit, and simply reconstitute by open or hidden means the old monopoly for his own profit, they will elect delegates, representatives entrusted with appropriating the funds necessary for production, with watching over their use, and with making sure that the salt produced is equally distributed to those entitled to it.  The production of salt will be organized in this manner.

  This form of the organization of production has been named communism.

  When this organization is applied to a single commodity, the communism is said to be partial.

  When it is applied to all commodities, the communism is said to be complete.

  But whether communism is partial or complete, political economy is no more tolerant of it than it is of monopoly, of which it is merely an extension.

  • Gustave de Molinari, tr. J. Huston McCulloch, §V of The Production of Security (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009; orig. 1849), pp. 31–32.

• When ecclesiastic love waned, when waves of capitalistic greed surged across Christian Europe, when starving masses cried out bitterly in the slums, the promise of their salvation came not from heaven but from the earth. Its name was communism. Christianity, though it professed the love of God, had degenerated into a dead body of clergy trailing empty slogans. It was then only natural that a banner of rebellion would be raised, arguing that a merciless God who would allow such suffering could not exist. Hence, modern materialism was born. Western society became a hotbed of materialism; it was the fertile soil in which communism flourished.
  • Sun Myung Moon, Divine Principle, Introduction

• Nonetheless, one final and inescapable conflict remains before us, the war between democracy and communism. Although each side has equipped itself with fearsome weapons and is pitted against the other in readiness for battle, the core of their conflict is internal and ideological. Which side will triumph in this final ideological conflict? Anyone who believes in the reality of God will surely answer that democracy will win.
  • Sun Myung Moon, Divine Principle, Introduction

• After 7,000 biblical years — 6,000 years of restoration history plus the millennium, the time of completion — communism will fall in its 70th year. Here is the meaning of the year 1978. Communism, begun in 1917, could maintain itself approximately 60 years and reach its peak. So 1978 is the border line and afterward communism will decline; in the 70th year it will be altogether ruined. This is true. Therefore, now is the time for people who are studying communism to abandon it.
  • Sun Myung Moon, The Way of Restoration, (April, 1972)

• Governments and Parties which have relied on the normal instruments of government ... have fallen easy and ignoble victims to the forces of anarchy. If, therefore, such a situation arises in Britain, we shall prepare to meet the anarchy of Communism with the organised force of Fascism.
  • Oswald Mosley, The Greater Britain, 1932. Quoted in John Stevenson and Chris Cook, The Slump : Britain in the Great Depression New York : Pearson Longman, 2010.

• What is Communism? It is that when you have eaten enough food for your hunger and still food is left — it belongs to another man.
  • AR Murugadoss, in Kaththi (2014)

N

Don't listen to what communists say, instead look closely at what the communists do! ~ Nguyễn Văn Thiệu

• America continues to aid us; then we continue to fight the communists.
  • Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, as quoted in Vietnam, the Ten Thousand Day War (1984), by Michael MacLear.
  • Original Vietnamese quote: Mỹ còn viện trợ, thì chúng tôi còn chống cộng!

• Don't listen to what communists say, instead look closely at what the communists do!
  • Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, as quoted in "ĐÚNG! Đừng Nghe Những Gì CS Nói, Mà Hãy Nhìn Những Gì CS Làm!" (26 July 2013), by Tuổi Trẻ Yêu Nước, Viet Bao (2013). Also quoted in "Cứu trợ nạn nhân là nghĩa vụ pháp lý và đạo đức", by Hà Minh Thảo, TTX Công Giáo Việt Nam.
  • Original Vietnamese quote: Đừng nghe những gì Cộng sản nói, mà hãy nhìn kỷ những gì Cộng sản làm!

P

• I think that communism was a major force for violence for more than 100 years, because it was built into its ideology—that progress comes through class struggle, often violent. It led to the widespread belief that the only way to achieve justice was to hurry this dialectical process along, and allow the oppressed working classes to carry out their struggle against their bourgeois oppressors.
  • Steven Pinker, "The violent dangers of ideology", The Economist (2011)

R

• I have one question for those rulers: If communism is the wave of the future, why do you still need walls to keep people in and armies of secret police to keep them quiet?
  • Ronald Reagan speech (1983)

• [Cold war demonology] is a color word, and I probably should not have used it. It means just sort of interpreting everything in terms of a great communist conspiracy and in terms of communists being supermen who somehow can overcome the great problems of differences between national units, and so on. They are not supermen at all. They are men with feet of clay which extend almost all the way up to their brains.
  • Edwin O. Reischauer, former U.S. ambassador to Japan, testimony at hearing, January 31, 1967. Asia, the Pacific, and the United States, hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 90th Congress, 1st session, p. 19 (1967).

• Communism is like prohibition, it's a good idea but it won't work.
  • Will Rogers, The Autobiography of Will Rogers (1949)

• The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.
  • Bertrand Russell, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920), Part I, The Present Condition of Russia, Ch. 1: What Is Hoped From Bolshevism.

• The way to combat Communism is not war. What is needed in addition to such armaments as will deter Communists from attacking the West, is a diminution of the grounds for discontent in the less prosperous parts of the non-communist world. ...Communism is a doctrine bred of poverty, hatred and strife. Its spread can only be arrested by diminishing the area of poverty and hatred.
  • Bertrand Russell, Portraits From Memory And Other Essays (1956), p. 232

• I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism – both untrue and harmful.
  • Bertrand Russell, My Religious Reminiscences (1957) reprinted in The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell

• I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation.
  • Bertrand Russell, Unarmed Victory (1963), p. 14

• Better red than dead.
  • Bertrand Russel, attributes this phrase to 'West German friends of peace' but adopted this slogan for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament he helped found, quoted in William Safire (2008). Safire's Political Dictionary. Oxford University Press. pp. 49–50. .

W

• It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the Communists. It was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. It was in being tortured by them that we learned to love them.
  • Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured For Christ, p. 58 (1967).

• Some tell me "Preach the pure gospel!" This reminds me that the Communist secret police also told me to preach Christ, but not to mention communism. Is it really so, that those who are for what is called "a pure gospel" are inspired by the same spirit as those of the Communist secret police?
  • Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured For Christ, p. 75 (1967).

Z

We communists are like seeds and the people are the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them. ~ Mao Zedong

• The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe … I really think that. … When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very, very right wing, almost toward Attila the Hun...
  • Frank Zappa, Crossfire debate on censorship (1986).

• We communists are like seeds and the people are the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them.
  • Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong (The Little Red Book) (1964).

• To white Americans of the thirties, however, blacks North and South were invisible. Only th radicals made an attempt to break the racial barriers: Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists most of all.
  • Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of The United States

• The perversion of Stalinist Communism consists in the fact that the view by means of which the Party looks at history coincides immediately with history's gaze upon itself. To use good old Stalinist jargon, today already half-forgotten, Communists act immediately in the name of "objective laws of historical progress"; it is history itself, its necessity, that speaks through their mouths.
  • Slavoj Žižek, Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture, p. 22. ISBN 026274015X

See also

• Democratic socialism
• Dictatorship of the proletariat
• Marxism
• Socialism
• State capitalism