Socialism
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Here are a collection of quotes which defend the Socialist mode of production.

Part 5 of This Series:

“Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing” - Karl Marx

“What we have to deal with here is a Communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society - after the deductions have been made - exactly what he gives to it… But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of Communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society. Right can never be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural development conditioned thereby” - Karl Marx

“The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialised means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this set the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialised character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialised production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible” - Friedrich Engels

“Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property relations… no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society. In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity” - Friedrich Engels

“Sometimes, history needs a push; There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” - V.I. Lenin

“They tell you that socialism would destroy your individuality. That would be miraculous - that would be a miracle! Because you have none. No man has any individuality who has got to beg for permission to live” - Eugene Debs

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born” - Antonio Gramsci; (In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear Žižek uses it a lot, although he modifies it a bit: >The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters)

“Reconversion to the production of consumer goods would be at best a painful process, and could be disastrous, for no one knew whether the American economy could maintain full employment in peacetime. The Soviet Union needed heavy industrial equipment, partly to rebuild its war-devastated economy and partly to satisfy its people’s long denied desire for more consumer goods. Moscow could solve its reconstruction problems, it appeared, by placing massive orders for industrial equipment with American firms. Filling these orders would help the United States deal with its own post war reconversion problems and, in the process would begin to integrate the Soviet Union into the multilateral system of world trade to which Washington attached such great importance. Both countries, it seemed, had a strong interest in promoting this most promising of economic partnerships” - (John Gaddis Smith, The United States and the origins of the Cold War)

“If I were asked about my predilection towards socialism I would answer: with regard to this issue what I aspire to is not to increase the wealth of factories but that of life. My concern is not that people should be equal in distribution of food but that every individual should be allowed to exploit his talents and potential. The labourer crushed by his misery may not find in socialism anything except a promise that he may take what he is deprived of, but I view it as continuous and generous giving, as giving to life many times what it has offered us” - Michel Aflaq

“It is the peasants who made the idols, and when the time comes they will cast the idols aside with their own hands; there is no need for anyone else to do it for them prematurely. The Communist Party’s propaganda policy in such matters should be, ‘Draw the bow without shooting, just indicate the motions.’ It is for the peasants themselves to cast aside the idols, pull down the temples to the martyred virgins and the arches to the chaste and faithful widows; it is wrong for anybody else to do it for them” - Mao Zedong

“Civilise the mind and make savage the body; This is an apt saying. In order to civilise the mind one must first make savage the body. If the body is made savage, then the civilised mind will follow. Knowledge consists in knowing the things in the world, and in discerning their laws” - Mao Zedong

“Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn’t. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger; We have to destroy it piecemeal; If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end” - Mao Zedong

“I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right; I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come into power” - (Mao Zedong, speaking to Richard Nixon)

“At present some people, especially young people, are sceptical about the socialist system, alleging that socialism is not as good as capitalism. Such ideas must be firmly corrected. The socialist system is one thing, and the specific way of building socialism is another. Counting from the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union has been engaging in building socialism for 63 years, but it is still in no position to boast about how we do it. It is true that we don’t have enough experience either, and perhaps it is only now that we have begun in earnest to search for a better road. Nevertheless, the superiority of the socialist system has already been proved, even though it still needs to be displayed in more convincing ways, but first and foremost it must be revealed in the rate of economic growth and in economic efficiency. Otherwise, there will be no point in our trying to blow our own horn. And to achieve a high rate of economic growth and high efficiency, it is essential to carry out our political line consistently and unfalteringly” - Deng Xiaoping

“If China will one day change its color, become a superpower, and dominate the world, bullying, invading, and exploiting people everywhere, then the people of the world should give China the hat of social imperialism to wear, you should expose it, oppose it, and work with the Chinese people to defeat it” - Deng Xiaoping

“We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, because a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory, just as any country’s defeat is a defeat for all of us” - Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara

“A socialist economy is a planned economy, managed by its masters, the popular masses. It is an instrinsic requirement of a socialist economy that it be developed rapidly in a planned and balanced way in the common interests of the masses by increasing the creative enthusiasm of the working people and that equitable distribution be made according to the quantity and quality of work done” - Kim Il-sung

“Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life” - Fidel Castro

“It’s hard to believe. That such a peaceful country wants war. And Brezhnev. I never thought he was such a quiet and calm person. It is difficult to imagine that he can be the person who would start a war. I have not seen a hitchhiker on the road. And I have not seen a single beggar on the streets of Soviet Russia. I had never felt so safe. No risk of being robbed. I was told that there is no freedom of religion in the Soviet Union. But Muslims, Christians and Jews worship freely here. I think the relationship between our people is bad just because of false propaganda” - Muhammad Ali

“If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy” - Xi Jinping

“First, we will take Eastern Europe, then the masses of Asia, then we will encircle the United States, which will be the last bastion of capitalism. We will not have to attack. It will fall like an overripe fruit into our hands” - Xi Jinping

“To study and research Marxism, one should not adopt a simple and superficial attitude. Some people have not read classics of Marxism, and they express their opinions when they know little about them. This is an irresponsible attitude and goes against the spirit of science” - Xi Jinping

“Both history and reality tell us that only socialism can save China. Only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China. This is a conclusion of the history and the choice of the people” - Xi Jinping

Part 6:

  • enigmaOP
    1•2 years ago

    “Thus, the products now produced socially were not appropriated by those who had actually set in motion the means of production and actually produced the commodities, but by the capitalists. The means of production, and production itself had become in essence socialised. But they were subjected to a form of appropriation which presupposes the private production of individuals, under which, therefore, everyone owns his own product and brings it to market. The mode of production is subjected to this form of appropriation, although it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests. This contradiction, which gives to the new mode of production its capitalistic character, contains the germ of the whole of the social antagonisms of today. The greater the mastery obtained by the new mode of production over all decisive fields of production and in all economically decisive countries, the more it reduced individual production to an insignificant residium, the more clearly was brought out the incompatibility of socialised production with capitalistic appropriation; The first capitalists found, as we have said, wage-labour ready-made for them. But it was exceptional, complementary, accessory, transitory wage-labour. The agricultural labourer, though, upon occasion, he hired himself out by the day, had a few acres of his own land on which he could at all events live at a pinch. The guilds were so organised that the journeyman of today became the master of tomorrow. But all this changed, as soon as the means of production became socialised and concentrated in the hands of capitalists. The means of production, as well as the product, of the individual producer became more and more worthless; there was nothing left for him but to turn wage-worker under the capitalist. Wage-labour, aforetime the exception and accessory, now became the rule and basis of all production; aforetime complementary, it now became the sole remaining function of the worker. The wage-worker for a time became a wage-worker for life. The number of these permanent wageworkers was further enormously increased by the breaking-up of the feudal system that occurred at the same time, by the disbanding of the retainers of the feudal lords, the eviction of the peasants from their homesteads, etc. The separation was made complete between the means of production concentrated in the hands of the capitalists, on the one side, and the producers, possessing nothing but their labour-power, on the other. The contradiction between socialised production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie; With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual. Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production: upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production - on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment” - Friedrich Engels

    “With the seizing of the means of production by society production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organisation. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face to face with man as laws of nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man’s own social organisation, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have hitherto governed history pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, with full consciousness, make his own history - only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the humanity’s leap from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom” - Friedrich Engels

    “Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension. It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organisation and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organisations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency. Liberalism stems from petty-bourgeois selfishness, it places personal interests first and the interests of the revolution second, and this gives rise to ideological, political and organisational liberalism. People who are liberals look upon the principles of Marxism as abstract dogma. They approve of Marxism, but are not prepared to practice it or to practice it in full; they are not prepared to replace their liberalism by Marxism. These people have their Marxism, but they have their liberalism as well - they talk Marxism but practice liberalism; they apply Marxism to others but liberalism to themselves. They keep both kinds of goods in stock and find a use for each. This is how the minds of certain people work. Liberalism is a manifestation of opportunism and conflicts fundamentally with Marxism. It is negative and objectively has the effect of helping the enemy; that is why the enemy welcomes its preservation in our midst. Such being its nature, there should be no place for it in the ranks of the revolution” - Mao Zedong

    “‘Materialism’ as a term and as a concept is booby-trapped by its functional association with the eighteenth-century bourgeois Enlightenment and with nineteenth-century positivism. Whatever precautions are taken, it always fatally ends up projecting a determinism by matter (that is to say, the individual body or organism in isolation) rather than - as in historical materialism - a determination by the mode of production. It would be better to grasp Marxism and the dialectic as an attempt to overcome not idealism by itself, but that every ideological opposition between idealism and materialism in the first place. The work of both Sartre and Gramsci is there to argue for some position ‘beyond idealism and materialism,’ and if one does not like the projected new solution - called ‘praxis’ - then at least it would be desirable to search for something more adequate” - F. Jameson