November 29

The Communist Manifesto gives a general summary of history, which compels us to regard the state as the organ of class rule and leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the proletariat cannot overthrow the bourgeoisie without first winning political power, without attaining political supremacy, without transforming the state into the "proletariat organized as the ruling class"; and that this proletarian state will begin to wither away immediately after its victory because the state is unnecessary and cannot exist in a society in which there are no class antagonisms.

VI Lenin
from The Experience of 1848-51 in The State and Revolution (1917)

November 28

...To build socialism means not only building gigantic factories and flour mills. This is essential but not enough for building socialism. People must grow in mind and heart. And on the basis of this individual growth of each in our conditions a new type of mighty socialist collective will in the long run be formed, where "I" and "we" will merge into one inseparable whole. Such a collective can only develop on the basis of profound ideological solidarity and an equally profound emotional rapprochement, mutual understanding.

Nadezhda K. Krupskaya
from a Letter to A. M. Gorky September 20, 1932

November 27

The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master — free.

To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and this the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.

Frederick Engels
from Historical Materialism in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1880)

November 26

The urban guerrilla is engaged in revolutionary action for the people, and with them seeks the participation of the people in the struggle against the dictatorship and the liberation of the country.

from Popular Support in Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla (1969)

November 25

We must persist in the mass line: From the masses, to the masses; we must have unshakable faith in the vast majority of the masses and firmly rely on them. Both in revolution and in construction, we should boldly arouse the people and unfold vigorous mass movements.

Zhou Enlai
from Report on the Work of the Government (1975)

November 24

All the martyrs of the working class...are victims of the same murderer: international capitalism. And it is always in belief in the liberation of their oppressed brothers, without discrimination as to race or country, that the souls of these martyrs will find supreme consolation.

After experiencing these painful lessons, the oppressed people of all countries ought to know on which side their true brothers are, and on which side their enemy.

Ho Chi Minh
from Oppression Hits All Races (1923)

November 23

If all of us are indeed against Imperialism and against the project of neo-liberalism, then let's turn our gaze on Iraq. Iraq is the inevitable culmination of both.

Arundhati Roy
from Do turkeys enjoy thanksgiving? (2004)

November 22

There are individuals – a mere handful in the history of mankind – who, while themselves being the product of an imminent catastrophic change, leave their mark upon an entire epoch. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is one such giant mind, one such giant will...

Alexandra Kollantai
from A Giant Mind, A Giant Will (1914-1916)

November 21

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.

attributed to Abbie Hoffman

November 20

Historical experience merits attention. A line or a viewpoint must be explained constantly and repeatedly. It won’t do to explain them only to a few people; they must be made known to the broad revolutionary masses.

Mao Zedong
attributed in Lin Biao's Report to the Ninth National Congress (1969)

November 19

(T)he capitalist mode of production and accumulation, and therefore capitalist private property, have for their fundamental condition the annihilation of self-earned private property; in other words, the expropriation of the laborer.

Karl Marx
from Capital: Volume 1, Chapter 33: The Modern Theory of Colonisation (1867)

November 18

The question now arises, for what reason does the capitalist class hire workers? Everyone knows that the reason is by no means because the factory owners wish to feed the hungry workers, but because they wish to extract profit from them. For the sake of profit, the factory owner builds his factory; for the sake of profit, he engages workers; for the sake of profit, he is always nosing out where higher prices are paid. Profit is the motive of all his calculations. Herein, moreover, we discern a very interesting characteristic of capitalist society. For society does not itself produce the things which are necessary and useful to it; instead of this, the capitalist class compels the workers to produce those things for which more will be paid, those things from which the capitalists derive the largest profit. Whisky, for example, is a very harmful substance, and alcoholic liquors in general ought to be produced; only for technical purposes and for their use in medicine. But throughout the world the capitalists produce alcohol with all their might. Why? Because to ply the people with drink is extremely profitable.

N.I. Bukharin and E. Preobrazhensky
from The ABC of Communism (1920)

November 17

We must not be like some Christians who sin for six days and go to church on the seventh, but we must speak for the cause daily, and make the men, and especially the women that we meet, come into the ranks to help us.

Eleanor Marx
from Speech on the First May Day (May 4 1890)

November 16

For us, anti-imperialism does not and cannot constitute, by itself a political program for a mass movement capable of conquering state power. Anti-imperialism, even if it could mobilize the nationalist bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie on the side of the worker and peasant masses (and we have already definitively denied this possibility), does not annul class antagonisms nor suppress different class interests.

José Carlos Mariátegui
Anti-Imperialist Viewpoint (June 1929)

November 15

Whatever is done we must do ourselves, and if we stand up like men from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada to the Gulf, we will strike terror to their cowardly hearts and they will be but too eager to relax their grip upon our throats and beat a swift retreat.

Eugene V. Debs
from Arouse, ye slaves! (1906)

November 14

(F)rom the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat...

Rosa Luxemburg
from Socialism and the Churches (1905)

November 13

The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution.

Mao Zedong
from Problems of War and Strategy (November 6, 1938)

November 12

Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.

VI Lenin
from Socialsm and Religion (1905)

November 11

(Capitalism) is the wrong system and has got to be smashed. I would give my life to smash it.

Sylvia Pankhurst (1919)

November 10

We all know, and if we don’t, then experience will teach us, that the great purpose for which we fight will be achieved if our Unions take in their organised lines the great mass of the disbanded and the victims. The more united and more concrete we are, the more our power will be greater and more terrible to the exploiters and militarists, the more our imposition upon the State will be more powerful. Our today’s Unions must organise to awaken and move the indifferent and sleeping masses, to analyse our program to them, to give them consciousness of their interests and the dangers that threaten their lives.

Pantelis Pouliopoulos
from What the Veterans and Army Victims Demand (1924)

November 9

The popular masses who want peace, freedom and bread must, in this period of dark onrush of events, always hold themselves ready to spring up as one man against every danger of new carnage and suffering threatened by the so heroic exploits of fascism.

Antonio Gramsci
The development of fascism (1921)

November 8

Criticism — the most keen, ruthless and uncompromising criticism — should be directed, not against parliamentarianism or parliamentary activities, but against those leaders who are unable — and still more against those who are unwilling — to utilise parliamentary elections and the parliamentary rostrum in a revolutionary and communist manner. Only such criticism — combined, of course, with the dismissal of incapable leaders and their replacement by capable ones — will constitute useful and fruitful revolutionary work that will simultaneously train the "leaders" to be worthy of the working class and of all working people, and train the masses to be able properly to understand the political situation and the often very complicated and intricate tasks that spring from that situation.

VI Lenin
from Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments? in Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder (1920)

November 7

This is revolutionary suicide: I, we, all of us are the one and the multitude.

Huey P. Newton
from Revolutionary Suicide (1973)

November 6

We are for the defence of bourgeois democracy – more precisely the defence of democratic rights – against attacks from the right.

We are, in principle, in favour of electoral activity but only as a subordinate form of activity, only as an auxiliary to direct working class action, never as an end in itself

We are for workers’ power on the basis of the direct rule of working class organisations, whatever specific form this may take. This involves far, far more elections but on a new basis.

“The abolition of state power is the goal of all socialists, including and above all Marx”... “Unless this goal is reached, true democracy, that is equality and freedom is not attainable.” And the road to the abolition of state power is the road of revolution and the commune-state, not the road of reformist electoralism.

Duncan Hallas
from Marx, Engels and the vote (June 1983)

November 5

To remain at home and not vote is behind the political situation. It is insufficient.

Mansoor Hekmat
from ‘Election Day:’ A Day of Protest (2001)

November 4

Revolution! The air is filled with flames and fumes. The shapes of men, seen through the smoke, become distorted and unreal. Promethean supermen, they seem, giants in sin or virtue, Satans or saviours. But, in truth, behind the screen of smoke and flame they are like other men: no larger and no smaller, no better and no worse: all creatures of the same incessant passions, hungers, vanities and fears.

Louise Bryant
from the Foreword to Mirrors Of Moscow (1923)

November 3

When, in the course of human development, existing institutions prove inadequate to the needs of man, when they serve merely to enslave, rob, and oppress mankind, the people have the eternal right to rebel against, and overthrow, these institutions.

Emma Goldman
from A New Declaration of Independence (1909)

November 2

Discover the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice, knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.

Mao Zedong
from On Practice (July 1937)