Communist

“ Yet at the same time I am doubtful whether there is much of a future for the Communist Party. I doubt whether in twenty-five years’ time there will be many Communists, under that name, below middle-age. A few nice, fierce old gentlemen will survive in smoking-rooms and cafés. The Communist movement is a part of the present world, it is a shadow cast by existing economic absurdities, it is a current reaction. ”

“ I saw a real communist alive. He was a man of rather short size and dark complexion, if such could be detected under his greasy cheeks. He wore a small beard twisted at the end in a tin hook. His ears—transparent and pale—were unproportionately big. I stopped near the Elisseiev store to buy score cards for this evening's bridge, when a little group of men—civilians and soldiers—gathered near the communist. The usual crowd of nowadays loafers,—shabby looking, discussing something, casting around looks full of hostility, hatred and superiority. ”

“ The Communist League, therefore, is memorable only because it gave Marx and Engels an opportunity for issuing their epoch-making Manifesto, that even to-day is read and reread by the workers in all lands of the world. Translated into every language, it is the one pamphlet that can be found in every country as a part of the basic literature of socialism. ”

“ Whatever portion of the working class had become convinced of the insufficiency of mere political revolutions, and had proclaimed the necessity of a total social change, that portion then called itself communist. ”

“ Do we have to go through this to realize that we need a powerful labor movement and a large and active Communist Party so that the people can say with assurance—"It will not happen here!"
Who are we—the Communists of America? We are Americans—native born and immigrants; we speak all languages; we are of all religions; of all colors; men and women; young and old. We are miners, steel, railroad, electrical, textile, office workers, trade unionists, farmers, veterans, professionals, housewives, students. We are a cross section of America—folks just like you. ”

“ It is therefore, in their view, the duty of the Communist party in a capitalist country to prepare for armed conflict, and to take all possible measure for disarming the bourgeoisie and arming that part of the proletariat which is willing to support the Communists. ”

“ The Communist, with his antagonism to centralised authority and his belief in the free commune and free association of workpeople, stood upon a road sharply diverging from that upon which the Socialist proper stood, and ought never to have been in the same movement. ”

“ The stronger, the more united, the more elastic and aggressive the revolutionary wing of the labor movement will be, the more objectively we, the Communists, estimate the relation of forces outside and inside the working class—the more correct will be our conduct—the sooner will humanity arrive at the developed form of Communist society. ”

“ Grace to their splendid organization, discipline, and well-thought-out programs, the Communists ordinarily have but little difficulty in winning the general bodies around to their point of view.
In the industries Communist organization is no less thorough than elsewhere. ”

“ The Communist Party, bearing on its shoulders the main burden of the revolution, watches closely over every phase of industry and seeks constantly to inspire the whole thing with its own militant spirit and policies. ”

“ In execution of this duty the Communists must practically subordinate the shop committees and the industrial unions to the Communist Party, and thus create a proletarian mass organ, a basis for a powerfuly centralised party of the proletariat, embracing all the organisations of the proletarian struggle, leading them all to one aim, to the victory of the working class, to the dictatorship of the proletariat. ”

“ The historic world significance of the Communist International consists in this, that it begins to put into effect the things which Marx has proven theoretically to be a necessity, thereby realizing the consequences produced by the socialist and labor movement, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat. ”

“ Coal miners, steel, packing, maritime, rubber, lumber, textile, railroad workers; auto, aircraft, electrical-radio, shoe, farm equipment workers—we invite you, one and all, to join the Communist Party. We are proud of our Party, and we need fighting workers like you to deepen its ties among the people. It is a tough world! But men and women like you are strong to face the storms ahead. ”

“ The fundamental principle of all organisation work of the Communist Party and individual Communists must be the creation of a Communist nucleus everywhere they find proletarians and semi-proletarians—although even in small numbers. ”

“ The period of the open struggle for the dictatorship of the workers has created a new party—the Communists.
5. The Communist International emphatically rejects the opinion that the workers could carry out a revolution without having an independent political party of their own. All class. struggles are political ones. The object of such a struggle, which inevitably turns into a civil war, is the obtaining of political power. ”

“ The materialistic conception of history, as it is called, is due to Marx, and underlies the whole Communist philosophy. I do not mean, of course, that a man could not be a Communist without accepting it, but that in fact it is accepted by the Communist Party, and that it profoundly influences their views as to politics and tactics. ”

“ Will you be at the pains, now, however, to learn rightly, and once for all, what Communism is? First, it means that everybody must work in common, and do common or simple work for his dinner; and that if any man will not do it, he must not have his dinner. That much, perhaps, you thought you knew?—but you did not think we Communists of the old school knew it also? You shall have it, then, in the words of the Chelsea farmer and stout Catholic, I was telling you of, in last number. ”

“ We think that this movement should bring about a fundamental change in all existing labor organizations, co-operative, political, trade union, etc.
What does a political party represent? What causes a political party? It is an organ of class struggle. It exists as long as the class struggle. But when classes will disappear, when a developed form of Communism will spread all over the world—will the Communist Party exist then? ”

“ As to the way communist ideas, divested of their monastic form, have penetrated in Europe and America, the extent of that penetration has been immense during the twenty-seven years that I have taken an active part in the socialist movement and could observe their growth. ”

“ Written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in a year of many popular uprisings all over Europe against conservative monarchies, the Communist Manifesto of 1848 expresses the political program of a revolutionary movement: workers of the world united, leading the way to a classless society. ”

“ The Communist program of immediate action, that the big landed estates, the banks, and all the resources and industries of the country be nationalized meets with the heartiest approval of the people in country after country. ”

“ The statute defines 'Communist-front organization' as one which is substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by a Communist-action organization and which is primarily operated for the purpose of giving aid and support to a Communist-action organization, a Communist foreign government, or the world Communist movement. ”

“ No one but the city industrial proletariat, led by the Communist Party. can save the labouring masses in the country from the pressure of capital and landlordism, from dissolution and from imperialistic wars, ever inevitable as long as the capitalist régime endures. There is no salvation for the peasants except to join the Communist proletariat, to support with heart and soul its revolutionary struggle to throw off the yoke of the landlords and the bourgeoisie. ”

“ The direction of movement expected by the country's leadership is evidenced by the assertion that "the socialist state shall promote the evolution of the socialist society into a communist society." This chapter also affirms the Marxist-Leninist principles that underlie the functioning of the state and the society. ”

“ As the struggles sharpen, here as elsewhere, greater numbers of militant workers are becoming Communists. Every struggle today brings them more boldly to grips with the economic and political power of the trusts and closer to the Communist program. The American working class is traditionally militant. ”

“ Philosophically, Communism and Anarchism are poles apart. Practically — i.e. in the form of society aimed at — the difference is mainly one of emphasis, but it is quite irreconcilable. The Communist's emphasis is always on centralism and efficiency, the Anarchist's on liberty and equality. ”

“ That service is the common end and object towards which men of all parties in English history have striven through the growth of conscious and collective action. A communist has maintained that we are all communists because we have developed a common army, a common navy, and a common national government, in place of the individualistic forces and jurisdictions of feudal barons. We have, indeed, nationalized these things and many others as well, including the crown, the church, the administration of justice, education, highways and byways, posts and telegraphs, woods and forests. ”

“ The duty of the Communists consists in inspiring the industrial unions and the shop committees with a spirit of determined struggle, and the consciousness and knowledge of the best methods of such struggle—the spirit of Communism. ”

“ The Communists, who represent the class-conscious wage-earners, wait for some propitious moment when events have caused a mood of revolutionary discontent with the existing Government. They then put themselves at the head of the discontent, carry through a successful revolution, and in so doing acquire the arms, the railways, the State treasure, and all the other resources upon which the power of modern Governments is built. They then confine political power to Communists, however small a minority they may be of the whole nation. ”

“ This position, the fundamental principles of which were laid down in the Communist Manifesto, is today accepted by the Socialist movements of all countries. Upon it rests the whole great international Socialist movement of our time. ”

“ Worse yet, in its mad passion for power, the Communist State even sought to strengthen and deepen the very ideas and conceptions which the Revolution had come to destroy. It supported and encouraged all the worst anti-social qualities and systematically destroyed the already awakened conception of the new revolutionary values. The sense of justice and equality, the love of liberty and of human brotherhood—these fundamentals of the real regeneration of society—the Communist State suppressed to the point of extermination. Man's instinctive sense of equity was branded as weak sentimentality; ”

“ In a thousand ways, the Communists have a life which is happier than that of the rest of the community. Above all, they are less exposed to the unwelcome attentions of the police and the extraordinary commission.
The Communist theory of international affairs is exceedingly simple. ”

“ All observers who have become acquainted with communist societies, whether they were situated in India, France or America, have been struck with the appearance of calmness, confidence and equanimity peculiar to their members. ”

“ The dominant, almost general, idea of revolution—particularly the Socialist idea—is that revolution is a violent change of social conditions through which one social class, the working class, becomes dominant over another class, the capitalist class. It is the conception of a purely physical change, and as such it involves only political scene shifting and institutional rearrangements. Bourgeois dictatorship is replaced by the "dictatorship of the proletariat"—or by that of its "advance guard," the Communist Party; ”

“ In the beginning of the revolutionary movement Communism denoted what we now call Socialism; for example, the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels became the platform of the Social-democratic parties. But because most of these parties supported their governments during the war, the more radical elements have now rejected the word Socialism, and taken up the old word Communism. In the Russian revolution the Communists went so far as to seize all the property of the rich, and so the word Communism has come to bear something of its early Christian significance. ”

“ In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality. ”