“The bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a state socialism which, in fact, is only state capitalism, but which is dazzling and misleading for those who are easily deceived by external similarities and catch words. The German, or more accurately the Prussian, state socialism whose ideal is a military, landlord and police state, hates democracy above everything else. … It is to them something inherently political. But all politics is diametrically opposed to what is socialist. So by this trick logic we arrive at the conclusion which has gained footing here and there, even in social democratic circles, that democracy as savoring of politics has nothing in common with socialism, but on the contrary is opposed to it. … But the truth is that democracy is not a thing that is specifically political, and we must never forget that we are not merely a socialist party, but a social democratic party because we have perceived that socialism and democracy are inseparable.”

— Wilhelm Liebknecht

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The bureaucratic, though capitalistic, spirit of our governments tends towards a state socialism which, in fact, is onl…" by Wilhelm Liebknecht?

Wilhelm Liebknecht photo

Wilhelm Liebknecht 53

German socialist politician 1826–1900

Related quotes

“State capitalism is about more than emergency government spending, implementation of more intelligent regulation, or a stronger social safety net. It’s about state dominance of economic activity for political gain.”

Ian Bremmer (1969) American political scientist

"The End of the Free Market: Six Questions for Ian Bremmer," http://harpers.org/archive/2010/05/hbc-90006994 Harper's (May 7, 2010).

“The political principles and the political will of the State are above all else.”

Jiang Shigong (1967) Chinese legal and political theorist

法制与治理：国家转型中的法律 [Legal System and Governance: Law in a Transforming State] (2003), translated by Samuel Seppänen in Ideological Conflict and the Rule of Law in Contemporary China https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=soyJDAAAQBAJ, p. 162

“Like its progenitor, capitalism, fascism is totally opposed to socialism. Fascist Germany and Italy attacked both the other capitalist states and the Soviet Union, which was still the only socialist state in the world by 1939. The defeat of fascism was therefore a victory for socialism, and at the same time it preserved the other capitalist nations from having to take the historically retrograde step of fascism.”

Walter Rodney book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 310.

“In case of actual danger, the social democracy banks not on the "Iron Front" but on the Prussian police. It is reckoning without its host! The fact that the police was originally recruited in large numbers from among social-democratic workers is absolutely meaningless. Consciousness is determined by environment even in this instance. The worker who becomes a policeman in the service of the capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a worker. Of late years, these policemen have had to do much more fighting with revolutionary workers than with Nazi students. Such training does not fail to leave its effects. And above all: every policeman knows that though governments may change, the police remains.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Source: Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It (1944), Ch. 4

“This idea of the state as a force (which as a result of the current general state of ignorance is seen as a German Prussian idea) is plainly a Latin and Italian one. It is directly linked with the intellectual tradition of Rome and was refurbished by Machiavelli’s political philosophy.”

Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) Italian politician and jurist

As quoted in Modern Political Ideologies, Third Edition, Andrew Vincent, West Sussex, UK, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 156

“Among the masses, what revisionism does is serve the cause of capitulation to internal reaction, concretely to the big bourgeoisie and the landlords, to the landlord-bureaucrat capitalist dictatorship which is the Peruvian State of today.”

Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) Peruvian communist

Interview with Chairman Gonzalo

“Modern militarism is the result of capitalism. In both its forms it is the “vital expression” of capitalism — as a military force used by the capitalist states in their external conflicts and as a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes for suppressing every kind of movement, economic and political, of the proletariat.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Collected Works, Vol. 15, pp. 191–201.
Collected Works

“And more: by rushing into politics, what principles are the conservatives abandoning, and which are they accepting? Voting and political action itself implies a sanctioning of the state, and hence of its basis — the rule of man by man. The conservatives would fight the principle by adopting it. They oppose the state — by sanctioning the entire governing process. What will be the result? The growth of the state.”

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (1949–1992) American libertarian essayist and critic

“Autarchy and the Statist Abyss,” 1968

“Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Les Temps modernes (1961), p. 184

“The democracy which shows up in the United States and in England is not an ideal democracy, because the will of the people is under the pressure of property, which is in the hands of the wealthy capitalists.”

Hans Fritzsche (1900–1953) German Nazi official

To Leon Goldensohn, May 8, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

Related topics