Marxist Philosophy Quotes

There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.

I regard Marxism as the most sinister and the most subtle form of totalitarianism.

In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. And yet Western intellectuals still look at it with considerable interest and empathy.

All I know is that I am not a Marxist.

I never read Karl Marx.

Philosophy is, in the last instance, class struggle in the field of theory.

It is impossible to become a real communist without studying-really studying - all that Plekhanov has written on philosophy, as this is the best of the whole international literature of Marxism

I am not sure just what Marx had in mind when he wrote that "philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Did he mean that philosophy could change the world, or that philosophers should turn to the higher priority of changing the world? If the former, then he presumably meant philosophy in a broad sense of the term, including analysis of the social order and ideas about why it should be changed, and how. In that broad sense, philosophy can play a role, indeed an essential role, in changing the world.

The first time I read Marx, all I knew was he had given rise to this [Soviet] system that was supposed to be more or less the devil's work. It's disconcerting to read what he had to say and see that a lot of it was very human and very decent and didn't seem to be the work of the devil at all.

Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution.

Dialectical materialism works like cocaine, let's say. If you sniff it once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it day after day, though, it will make you into an addict, a different man.

Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist.

All economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one.

This socialism will develop in all its phases until it reaches its own extremes and absurdities. Then once again a cry of denial will break from the titanic chest of the revolutionary minority and again a mortal struggle will begin, in which socialism will play the role of contemporary conservatism and will be overwhelmed in the subsequent revolution, as yet unknown to us.

The natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, i.e., he must be a dialectical materialist.

If science were communism, was it also not possible that communism could itself become a science?

The devotion of such titans of spirit as Lenin to an Ideal must bear fruit. The nobility of his selflessness will be an example through centuries to come, and his Ideal will reach perfection.

There is always room for Gramsci's "optimism of the will."

In their day, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin represented the aspirations and demands of the exploited working masses, and the cause of socialism was inseparably linked with their names.

One of the questions on which clarity of thinking is now most necessary is that of the relation between the methods of science and of Marxist philosophy. Although much has already been written on the subject, yet there is still an enormous amount of confusion and contradictory statement.

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

We need to send Barack Obama back to Chicago. I'd like to send him back to Kenya, back to Indonesia. We have to unmask this man. This is a man that seeks to destroy all concept of God. And I will tell you what, this is classical Marxist philosophy.