History Quotes / KarlMarx

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-> ''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.''

-> ''Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.''

-> ''It is the paradox of the U.S.S.R. that, [[{{Irony}} in its death, it provided one of the strongest arguments]] for the analysis of Karl Marx, [[HeroicWannabe which it had claimed to exemplify]]...Rarely has there been a clearer example of Marx's forces of production coming into conflict with the social, institutional and ideological superstructure which had transformed backward agrarian economies into advanced industrial ones -- up to the point where they turn from forces into fetters of production...[[SoWhatDoWeDoNow But what would replace it]]? Here we can no longer follow [[SocietyMarchesOn the nineteenth-century optimism of]] Marx, who argued that the overthrow of the old system must lead to a better one, because "[[HumansAreSpecial mankind always sets itself only such problems as it can solve]]." The problems which "mankind," or rather the Bolsheviks, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober set themselves in 1917]] were not soluble in the circumstances of their time and place, or only very incompletely soluble. And today it would take a high degree of confidence to argue that in the foreseeable future [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell a solution is visible for the problems arising out of the collapse of Soviet communism]]...With the collapse of the U.S.S.R the experiment of "really existing socialism" came to an end...[[HopeSpot Will this experiment ever be renewed?]] Clearly not in the form developed in the U.S.S.R., or probably in any form...The failure of revolution elsewhere left the U.S.S.R. committed to build socialism alone, in a country in which, [[CassandraTruth by the universal consensus of Marxists in 1917]], including the Russian ones, the conditions for doing so were simply not present. The attempt to do so produced remarkable achievements -- not least the ability to defeat Germany in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]] -- but [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin at quite enormous and intolerable human cost]], and at the cost of what proved eventually to be [[CommieLand a dead-end economy]] and [[ShootTheShaggyDog a political system for which there was nothing to be said]].''

->'''A''': ''[[DisobeyThisMessage De omnibus dubitandum]]'' [doubt everything]

->'''A''': ''[[RedIsHeroic Red]]''

-> ''It’s possible that [[SophisticatedAsHell I shall make an ass of myself]]. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.''

->'''A''': ''[[AltumVidetur Nihil humani a me alienum puto]]'' [Nothing human is alien to me]

-> ''Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification...The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly [[HoldingOutForAHero the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion]]. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, [[GoldenMeanFallacy the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering]]. Religion is [[GlurgeAddict the sigh of the oppressed creature]], [[HappyEnding the heart of a heartless world]], and [[CrapsaccharineWorld the soul of soulless conditions]]. '''[[LotusEaterMachine It is the opium of the people]]'''. The abolition of religion as [[OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness]]. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them [[BeliefMakesYouStupid to give up a condition that requires illusions]].''

-> ''It is the paradox of the U.S.S.R. that, [[{{Irony}} in its death, it provided one of the strongest arguments]] for the analysis of Karl Marx, [[HeroicWannabe which it had claimed to exemplify]]...Rarely has there been a clearer example of Marx's forces of production coming into conflict with the social, institutional and ideological superstructure which had transformed backward agrarian economies into advanced industrial ones -- up to the point where they turn from forces into fetters of production...[[SoWhatDoWeDoNow But what would replace it]]? Here we can no longer follow [[SocietyMarchesOn the nineteenth-century optimism of]] Marx, who argued that the overthrow of the old system must lead to a better one, because "[[HumansAreSpecial mankind always sets itself only such problems as it can solve]]." The problems which "mankind," or rather the Bolsheviks, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober set themselves in 1917]] were not soluble in the circumstances of their time and place, or only very incompletely soluble. And today it would take a high degree of confidence to argue that in the foreseeable future [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell a solution is visible for the problems arising out of the collapse of Soviet communism]]...With the collapse of the U.S.S.R the experiment of "really existing socialism" came to an end...[[HopeSpot Will this experiment ever be renewed?]] Clearly not in the form developed in the U.S.S.R., or probably in any form...The failure of revolution elsewhere left the U.S.S.R. committed to build socialism alone, in a country in which, [[CassandraTruth by he universal consensus of Marxists in 1917]], including the Russian ones, the conditions for doing so were simply not present. The attempt to do so produced remarkable achievements -- not least the ability to defeat Germany in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]] -- but [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin at quite enormous and intolerable human cost]], and at the cost of what proved eventually to be [[CommieLand a dead-end economy]] and [[ShootTheShaggyDog a political system for which there was nothing to be said]].''

-> ''It is the paradox of the U.S.S.R. that, [[{{Irony}} in its death, it provided one of the strongest arguments]] for the analysis of Karl Marx, [[HeroicWannabe which it had claimed to exemplify]]...Rarely has there been a clearer example of Marx's forces of production coming into conflict with the social, institutional and ideological superstructure which had transformed backward agrarian economies into advanced industrial ones -- up to the point where they turn from forces into fetters of production...[[SoWhatDoWeDoNow But what would replace it]]? Here we can no longer follow [[SocietyMarchesOn the nineteenth-century optimism of]] Marx, who argued that the overthrow of the old system must lead to a better one, because "[[HumansAreSpecial mankind always sets itself only such problems as it can solve]]." The problems which "mankind," or rather the Bolsheviks, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober set themselves in 1917]] were not soluble in the circumstances of their time and place, or only very incompletely soluble. And today it would take a high degree of confidence to argue that in the foreseeable future [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell a solution is visible for the problems arising out of the collapse of Soviet communism]]...With the collapse of the U.S.S.R the experiment of "really existing socialism" came to an end...[[HopeSpot Will this experiment ever be renewed?]] Clearly not in the form developed in the U.S.S.R., or probably in any form...The failure of revolution elsewhere left the U.S.S.R. committed to build socialism alone, in a country in which, [[CassandraTruth by he universal consensus of Marxists in 1917]], including the Russian ones, the conditions for doing so were simply not present. The attempt to do so produced remarkable achievements -- not least the ability to defeat Germany in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]] -- but [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin at quite enormous and intolerable human cost]], and at the cost of what proved eventually to be [[CommieLand a dead-end economy]] and a political system for which there was nothing to be said.''

-> ''It is the paradox of the U.S.S.R. that, [[{{Irony}] in its death, it provided one of the strongest arguments]] for the analysis of Karl Marx, [[HeroicWannabe which it had claimed to exemplify]]...Rarely has there been a clearer example of Marx's forces of production coming into conflict with the social, institutional and ideological superstructure which had transformed backward agrarian economies into advanced industrial ones -- up to the point where they turn from forces into fetters of production...[[SoWhatDoWeDoNow But what would replace it]]? Here we can no longer follow [[SocietyMarchesOn the nineteenth-century optimism of]] Marx, who argued that the overthrow of the old system must lead to a better one, because "[[HumansAreSpecial mankind always sets itself only such problems as it can solve]]." The problems which "mankind," or rather the Bolsheviks, [[UsefulNotes/RedOctober set themselves in 1917]] were not soluble in the circumstances of their time and place, or only very incompletely soluble. And today it would take a high degree of confidence to argue that in the foreseeable future [[WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell a solution is visible for the problems arising out of the collapse of Soviet communism]]...With the collapse of the U.S.S.R the experiment of "really existing socialism" came to an end...[[HopeSpot Will this experiment ever be renewed?]] Clearly not in the form developed in the U.S.S.R., or probably in any form...The failure of revolution elsewhere left the U.S.S.R. committed to build socialism alone, in a country in which, [[CassandraTruth by he universal consensus of Marxists in 1917]], including the Russian ones, the conditions for doing so were simply not present. The attempt to do so produced remarkable achievements -- not least the ability to defeat Germany in [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]] -- but [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin at quite enormous and intolerable human cost]], and at the cost of what proved eventually to be [[CommieLand a dead-end economy]] and a political system for which there was nothing to be said.''

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-> ''Try to imagine Rousseau, Voltaire, Holbach, Lessing, Heine and Hegel all rolled into one — truly united so as to make a unified whole and you will get an idea of Marx's makeup.''
-->-- ''Moses Hess''

!! From His Works

!! From his Speeches

-> ''It’s possible that [[SophisticatedAsHell I shall make an ass of myself]]. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.''
-->-- Letter to Friedrich Engels, dated 15 August 1857.

-->-- ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon''

--> ''Karl Marx, lovely geezer, very humane, a bit middle class but we’ll gloss over that, but his big flaw was that when he said “The reins of society will inevitably rest in the hands of those who control the means of production” didn’t take into account middle management. All the people who get between those with the means of production and the society.''

-->- '''Creator/AlanMoore'''

-> ''Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification...The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly [[HoldingOutForAHero the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion]]. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, [[GoldenMeanFallacy the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering]]. Religion is [[TastesLikeDiabetes the sigh of the oppressed creature]], [[HappyEnding the heart of a heartless world]], and [[CrapsaccharineWorld the soul of soulless conditions]]. '''[[LotusEaterMachine It is the opium of the people]]'''. The abolition of religion as [[OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness]]. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them [[BeliefMakesYouStupid to give up a condition that requires illusions]].''

-->-- "Timothy Carey" (the actor) in Creator/JohnCassavetes' ''The Killing of the Chinese Bookie''