#communism

Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#communism #dflp #dogmatism #edward-said #humanism

Unionization, as opposed to communism, presupposes the relation of employment; it is based upon the wage system and it recognizes fully and unreservedly the institution of private property and the right to investment profit. ↗

— John L. Lewis

#communism #employment #fully #institution #investment

We need do no more than repeat: only under communism does the individual become himself and lead his own life. ↗

— Johann Most

#communism #does #himself #his #individual

Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades. ↗

— Gary North

#man #people #simply #socialism #testosterone

I can understand Communism, but not Socialism. ↗

— Lajos Kossuth

#i #i can #socialism #understand

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak. ↗

— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

#exploitation #inequality #property #strong #weak

For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#dead #dog #lion #living #many

The clock of communism has stopped striking. But its concrete building has not yet come crashing down. For that reason, instead of freeing ourselves, we must try to save ourselves from being crushed by its rubble. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#building #clock #come #communism #concrete

When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me. ↗

— Wislawa Szymborska

#communism #communist #doctrine #had #happen

They are like the handful of belongings saved from a burnt-down house. There should be a continuous challenge to authority for change and reform, and groups of ordinary people should form an alliance to reclaim what was taken by the state inch by inch, like a children's game, and enlarge the territory to the level of practical equality. ↗

— Hwang Sŏk-yŏng

#socialism-communism-marxism #the-old-garden #change