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Stalinism Quotes

“I fear that even my authority as an army commander won’t help. The fear of the High Command is too great.”

Historical FictionWorld War IiMilitary HistoryStalinism1941Red ArmyPower And FearMilitary FictionUssr HistoryAuthoritarian Systems
Book:Камень. Биографический роман. Книга вторая. Непростые дороги в ад: Выживание в условиях насилия
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“Nor did Khrushchev make any attempt at a historical or sociological analysis of the Stalinist system. Stalin had simply been a criminal and a maniac, personally to blame for all the nation's defeats and misfortunes. As to how, and in what social conditions, a blood-thirsty paranoiac could for twenty-five years exercise unlimited despotic power over a country of two hundred million inhabitants, which throughout that period had been blessed with the most progressive and democratic system of government in human history—to this enigma the speech offered no clue whatsoever.”

StalinismKhrushchev
Book:Main Currents Of Marxism: The Founders, The Golden Age, The Breakdown
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“It's not the possibility of Stalinism in the U.S. that's worrying me, it's the fact that the Stalinist C.P. seems doomed to fail and to bring down with it all the humanitarian tendencies I personally believe in--all the while acting as a mould on which its obverse the fascist mentality is made--and this recent massacre is certainly a sign of Stalinism's weakness not of its strength. None of that has anything to do with Marx's work--but it certainly does influence one's attitude towards a given political party.”

BelieveDoeMadeFactsSeemsPoliticalPoliticsGivenPartyActingAttitudeWorryFailingInfluencePossibilityWeaknessHumanitarianTendenciesCommunismMentalityDoomedPolitical PartiesFascistsMassacresMouldStalinism
Author:John Dos Passos
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“For me, Stalinism was even a greater philosophical problem than Nazism. Under Nazism, if you were a Jew, you were simply killed, no questions asked, you had nothing to prove. Under Stalinism, of course, most [victims] were on trial for false accusations; most of them were not traitors. There is one interesting feature: that they were tortured or through some kind of blackmail forced to confess to being traitors.”

IfsKindProblemCoursesInterestingGreaterProvePhilosophicalVictimJewTrialsFeaturesTraitorNazismAccusationBlackmailStalinismQuestions AskedFalse Accusation
Author:Slavoj Žižek
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“All important architecture of the last century was strongly influenced by political systems. Look at the Soviet system, with its constructivism and Stalinism, Weimer with its Modern style, Mussolini and, of course, the Nazis and Albert Speer's colossal structures. Today's architecture is subservient to the market and its terms. The market has supplanted ideology. Architecture has turned into a spectacle. It has to package itself and no longer has significance as anything but a landmark.”

LooksImportantTodayLastsPoliticalTermModernCenturyStyleStructureArchitectureIdeologySignificanceSovietNaziPackagesPolitical SystemsColossalLandmarksSubservientStalinismConstructivism
Author:Rem Koolhaas
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“Only the defeat of the proletariat in Germany in 1923 gave the decisive push to the creation of Stalin's theory of national socialism: the downward curve of the revolution gave rise to Stalinism, not to the theory of the permanent revolution, which was first formulated by me in 1905. This theory is not bound to a definite calendar of revolutionary events; it only reveals the world-wide interdependence of the revolutionary process.”

WorldFirstsProcessEventsCreationTheoryRevolutionBoundsDefeatWideSocialismPermanentRevolutionaryGermanyDefiniteCurvesCalendarsInterdependenceProletariatStalinism
Author:Leon Trotsky
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“The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.”

FirstsSaidStatesBigsMovingGoalSecretDemocracyRevolutionPeriodsCapitalismClaimsMovedUnionsSocialismTendenciesRevolutionaryGermanyOrthodoxSovietExpectingSocialistThey SaidSoviet UnionMarxistMoved OnStalinismBolsheviks
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“French intellectual life has, in my opinion, been turned into something cheap and meretricious by the 'star' system. It is like Hollywood. Thus we go from one absurdity to another - Stalinism, existentialism. Lacan, Derrida - some of them obscene ( Stalinism), some simply infantile and ridiculous ( Lacan, Derrida). What is striking, however, is the pomposity and self-importance, at each stage.”

SelfStarsOpinionStageIntellectualHollywoodImportanceRidiculousExistentialismAbsurdityObsceneSelf-importanceInfantileStalinismIntellectual LifeLacanDerridaPomposity
Book:Chomsky Notebook
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“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.”

PeopleGivingKindGovernmentOrderFreedomPowerSocietyHugeInstitutionsRidiculousCorporationsTotalitarianismLinguisticsStalinismPolitical Ideology
Book:How the World Works
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“Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington's huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity.”

WorldLifeNeedsCountryStatesAmericaHumanityLostEnemyPlanetsHugeWeaponsMassEconomicsDestructionPoliceThreatUsaArroganceWeapons Of Mass DestructionMass DestructionMenacePolice StateHubrisStalinismAnti-americanAmerican Empire
Author:Paul Craig Roberts
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“It is often said that ‘the germ of all Stalinism was in Bolshevism at its beginning’. Well, I have no objection. Only, Bolshevism also contained many other germs – a mass of other germs – and those who lived through the enthusiasm of the first years of the first victorious socialist revolution ought not to forget it. To judge the living man by the death germs which the autopsy reveals in the corpse – and which he may have carried in him since his birth – is that very sensible?”

MenYearsFirstsWellsMaySaidForgetJudgingRevolutionOughtBirthMassEnthusiasmSensibleSocialistForget ItCorpsesObjectionsGermsStalinismBolshevismAutopsy
Author:Victor Serge
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