François Furet: Politics

François Furet was French historian. Explore interesting quotes on politics.

François Furet: 24 quotes 0 likes

“The American people were possessed by the capitalist spirit without ever having had a bourgeoisie; French political society, in contrast, created a bourgeoisie devoid of the capitalist spirit.”

François Furet

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 7

People

“To understand this relationship we may start with what has become an accepted observation: Stalinized Bolshevism and National Socialism constitute the two examples of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. Not only were they comparable, but they form a political category of their own, which has become established since Hannah Arendt.”

François Furet

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p. 180

Understanding

“Born of war, both Bolshevism and Fascism drew their basic education from war. They transferred to politics the lessons of the trenches: familiarity with violence, the simplicity of extreme passions, the submission of the individual to the collectivity, and finally the bitterness of futile or betrayed sacrifices.”

François Furet

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), p.163

War , Education , Passion

“It was in Nazi Germany that Bolshevism was perfected; there, political power truly absorbed all spheres of existence, from the economy to religion, from technology to the soul. The irony, the tragedy, of history was that both totalitarian regimes, identical in their aim for absolute power over dehumanized beings, presented themselves as protection from the danger presented by the other.”

François Furet

Source: The Passing of an Illusion, The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (1999), pp. 205-06

Religion , Soul , History , Perfection