“Everyone may be called "comrade," but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.”

Source: Knowledge And Decisions

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Thomas Sowell 101
American economist, social theorist, political philosopher … 1930

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“A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades.”

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Source: Calculated Risk (1950), p. 1
Context: A soldier's life in combat is an endless series of decisions that mean success or failure, and perhaps life or death for himself or his comrades. The rifleman crawling through the rubble of a bombed-out street must decide on the best moment to escape enemy fire as he dodges from one doorway to the next. He must take a chance. The general seeking to break an enemy defense line and destroy his forces must decide just when and how to strike and precisely to what extent he dare weaken one sector of his front in order to mass overpowering strength at the main point of attack. He, too, must take a chance, although, in the stilted phraseology of military communiqués, he calls it a "calculated risk".

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“Life has improved, comrades. Life has become more joyous.”

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In Russian: Жить стало лучше, товарищи. Жить стало веселее.
Speech at the Conference of Stakhanovites http://marx2mao.com/Stalin/SCS35.html (17 November 1935)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews

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“These unfortunate patients must die but rather because, in the opinion of some department, on the testimony of some commission, they have become 'worthless life' because according to this testimony they are 'unproductive national comrades.'”

Clemens August Graf von Galen (1878–1946) German count, Bishop of Münster, and cardinal, important figure in Catholic resistance to Nazism

The argument goes: they can no longer produce commodities, they are like an old machine that no longer works, they are like an old horse which has become incurably lame, they are like a cow which no longer gives milk.
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“Comrades, I took the red tram of socialism to the stop called Independence, and that's where I got off. You may keep on to the final stop if you wish, but from now on let's address each other 'Mister'”

Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) Polish politician and Prime Minister

rather than continue using the socialist term of address, 'Comrade'

[Józef Piłsudski (1867 - 1935), Poland.gov, http://poland.gov.pl/Jozef, pilsudski,(1867-1935),1972.html, April 23, 2006, Translation of quote from the Government of Poland's website.]

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“To risk death willingly, to venture forth knowing that in so doing you may cease to exist is an unnatural act. To take the life of a fellow human being or to watch your closet comrades die exacts a profound emotional toll.”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Source: Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead (2019), p. 31

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