Collective Ownership Quotes
See Thomas Paine for a contemporary similar view and Auguste Comte for an earlier statement of the consequences of the contrary.
Vladimir Lenin. This is a classic Lenninism where he argues that the basic principles of Communism solve all problems. He never explains how the abolition of private property would lead to female freedom and independence. Nor is this point argued by other Marxist advocates. It was an almost knee-jerk opportunistic reaction not unlike modern conservatives for whom lower taxes are the cure for all ills. The fact that married women were considered the private property of their husbands was amenable to much less drastic solutions than the elimination of private property. Indeed, we have simply abolished wives from the property class and left other property private.
Ataturk was not receptive toward Communism as some other world leaders were at the time. He saw its weakness far earlier than many others.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Ironically, during the McCarthy period and the Red Scare of the 1950s, some of the right wingers charged that Mark Twain’s writing was “Communist Propaganda”. Most of the accusers had never read most of Train’s work. At the time, the Communists had condemned the racial segregation that was then legal in America and most of the staunch Southern segregationists accused anyone who attacked segregation as a communist. Twain was one of the leading voices against American racism. As for communism, the accusers of Train had probably never read this particular quotation. Twain was an early severe critic of communism and used his favorite weapon—humor—to attack it.
He was a strong foe of both Communism and Capitalism. He was one of the first critics to describe the de facto inequality of Communism.
