“Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded…by the mainstream Marxists… Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.”

—  Noam Chomsky

Speech on “Lenin, Trotsky and Socialism and the Soviet Union”, (March 15, 1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI
Quotes 1960s–1980s, 1980s

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american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

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Noam Chomsky photo

“Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Speech on “Lenin, Trotsky and Socialism and the Soviet Union”, (March 15, 1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI
Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s
Context: Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded…by the mainstream Marxists… Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.

Deng Xiaoping photo

“We mustn't fear to adopt the advanced management methods applied in capitalist countries (…) The very essence of socialism is the liberation and development of the productive systems (…) Socialism and market economy are not incompatible (…) We should be concerned about right-wing deviations, but most of all, we must be concerned about left-wing deviations.”

Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) Chinese politician, Paramount leader of China

Cited by António Caeiro in Pela China Dentro (translated), Dom Quixote, Lisboa, 2004. ISBN 972-20-2696-8

Leonid Brezhnev photo

“In the present epoch, when the international class struggle has grown extremely acute, the danger of Right and ‘Left’ deviations and of nationalism in the communist movement has grown more tangible than ever before. The struggle against Right- and ‘Left’-wing opportunism and nationalism cannot therefore be conducted as a campaign calculated for only some definite span of time. The denunciation of opportunism of all kinds was and remains an immutable law for all Marxist-Leninist Parties.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Cited in The WOrld Communist Movement http://leninist.biz/en/1973/WCM485/10.4-Kinship.Between.Right.and.Left-Wing.Opportunism

A. James Gregor photo

“We are left with a budget of paradoxes. Given the seeming logic of the proposed classification of right-wing polities—with nationalism, hierarchical political structures, and charismatic leadership as defining properties— both fascism and Marxism-Leninism would seem to be political products of right-wing extremism. Should that be the case, the revolutions undertaken by Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Mao Zedong were all right-wing endeavors.”

A. James Gregor (1929–2019) American political scientist

Source: The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century, (2000), p. 5

Timothy Leary photo

“That’s the left wing of the CIA debating the right wing of the CIA.”

Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist

Discussing CNN’s Crossfire as quoted in Rolling Stone (14 December 1989)

Richard Pipes photo

“No prominent European socialist before World War I resembled Lenin more closely than Benito Mussolini. Like Lenin, he headed the antirevisionist wing of the country’s Socialist Party; like him, he believed that the worker was not by nature a revolutionary and had to be prodded to radical action by an intellectual elite.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

Source: Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994), p. 245

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Since the wings are swifter to press the air than the air is to escape from beneath the wings the air becomes condensed and resists the movement of the wings; and the motive power of these wings by subduing the resistance of the air raises itself in a contrary movement to the movement of the wings.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XVII Flight

Richard Summerbell photo

“Right wing (definition): As with the left wing, half the propulsive force of a flightless bird.”

Richard Summerbell (1956) Canadian mycologist

Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary (1985)

Pat Paulsen photo

“Left-wing or right-wing. No, I'm not either. I'm kind of middle-of-the-bird.”

Pat Paulsen (1927–1997) United States Marine

Responding to audience question, "Are you left-wing or right-wing?"
Unidentified press conference, 1968
Featured in Pat Paulsen for President (1968), part 3 of 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdjY3TXYJkw&feature=relmfu, 02:49 ff (20:49 ff in full program)

Hung Hsiu-chu photo

“I am accused of deviating from mainstream public opinion simply because I told the truth. Is this really the case?”

Hung Hsiu-chu (1948) Taiwanese politician

Hung Hsiu-chu (2015) cited in " Chu apologizes over Hung turmoil http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2015/10/14/2003630004" on Taipei Times, 14 October 2015

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