Quotes About Power

A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing that is possible. Revolution is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannons, i.e. extremely authoritarian means

To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament - such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarianism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics.

Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.

Our party, like any other political party, strives for political supremacy for itself .

This is so true [...]

It is not surprising that the author is driven to the conclusion that "the French Republic is a financial monarchy"; "it is the complete domination of the financial oligarchy; the latter dominates over the press and the government."[9]

I can't listen to music because it makes me want to say sweet, silly things, and pat people on the head… but you have to beat people's heads, beat them mercilessly! … What a devilishly difficult job I have.

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich: this is the democratism of capitalist society.

Capitalism has triumphed all over the world, but this triumph is only the prelude to the triumph of labour over capital.

Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon, all of which are highly authoritarian means.

O Estado é "uma força especial de repressão". Esta notável e profunda definição de Engels é de uma absoluta clareza. Dela resulta que essa força especial de repressão do proletariado pela burguesia, de milhões de trabalhadores por um punhado de ricos, deve ser substituída por uma "força especial de repressão" da burguesia pelo proletariado (a ditadura do proletariado)

During the last fifteen to twenty years, especially since the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the economic and also the political literature of the two hemispheres has more and more often adopted the term "imperialism" in order to describe the present era. In 1902, a book by the English economist J. A. Hobson, Imperialism, was published in London and New York. This

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich -- that is the democracy of capitalist society.

All and sundry manifestations of police tyranny and autocratic outrage, in addition to the evils connected with the economic struggle, are equally "widely applicable" as a means of "drawing in" the masses.

According to Marx, the state could neither have arisen or maintained itself had it been possible to reconcile classes.

Engels elucidates the concept of the "power" which is called the state, a power which arose from society but places itself above it and alienates itself more and more from it. What does this power mainly consist of? It consists of special bodies of armed men having prisons, etc., at their command.

A state arises, a special power is created, special bodies of armed men, and every revolution, by destroying the state apparatus, shows us the naked class struggle, clearly shows us how the ruling class strives to restore the special bodies of armed men which serve it, and how the oppressed class strives to create a new organization of this kind, capable of serving the exploited instead of the exploiters.

The ancient and feudal states were organs for the exploitation of the slaves and serfs; likewise, "the modern representative state is an instrument of exploitation of wage-labor by capital. By way of exception, however, periods occur in which the warring classes balance each other so nearly that the state power as ostensible mediator acquires, for the moment, a certain degree of independence of both....

In reality the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

Crises of every kind — economic crises more frequently, but not only these — in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and monopoly.

The distortion and shelving of the question of the relation of the proletarian revolution to the state could not help but play an immense role at a time when states, each with its military apparatus reinforced as a result of imperialist competition, have been turned into military monsters which are exterminating millions of people in order to decide the dispute as to whether England or Germany – this or that centre of finance capital – is to rule the world.

The replacement of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution. The eradication of the proletarian state, i.e. the eradication of the state as such, is impossible except through the process of 'withering away'.

Take any parliamentary country, from America to Switzerland, from France to England, Norway and so forth - in these countries the real business of the 'state' is preformed behind the scenes and is carried on by the departments, chancelleries and General Staffs. Parliament itself is given up to talk for the special purpose of fooling the 'common people.

No gray hairs streak my soul, no grandfatherly fondness there I shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk-handsome, twentytwoyearold.