“[S]ocialism was to reap the cultural, scientific, creative, and communal rewards of abolishing private property and free markets, and to end human tyranny. Using the command of the state, Communism sought to create this socialist society. What in fact occurred was the achievement of power by a group of inhumane despots: Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Castro, Mengistu, Ceausescu, Hoxha, and so on, and so on.”

—  Alan Charles Kors

2000s, Can There Be an "After Socialism"? (2003)

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 "[S]ocialism was to reap the cultural, scientific, creative, and communal rewards of abolishing private property and fre…" by Alan Charles Kors?
Alan Charles Kors photo
Alan Charles Kors 46
American academic 1943

Related quotes

Noam Chomsky photo

“The conclusion in the State Department was, "OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of"—pick it, Mao or Stalin—"that he doesn't even need orders."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999
Context: ... the incompetence of intelligence agencies is legendary.… Just take Vietnam.… In the late 1940s, the United States was kind of unclear about which side to support.… In the case of Indochina, for whatever reason, they decided at one point to support France in its reconquest of Indochina. Well, at that point, essentially orders went to the U. S. intelligence communities, CIA and others, to demonstrate … that Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh were agents of either the Russians or the Chinese.… They couldn't do it. They couldn't find anything.… The conclusion in the State Department was, "OK, this proves that they're agents of the international communist conspiracy. Ho Chi Minh is such a loyal slave of"—pick it, Mao or Stalin—"that he doesn't even need orders.".

Ken Livingstone photo

“One thing that Chairman Mao did was to end the appalling foot binding of women. That alone justifies the Mao Tse-tung era.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

As quoted in "Now Livingstone is standing up for Mao's mass murder" by Jane Merrick in Daily Mail (19 May 2006), p. 48.

John Stossel photo

“What private property does is connect effort to reward,
creating an incentive for people to produce more.
Then, if there's a free market,
people will trade their surpluses to each other for the things they lack.
Mutual exchange for mutual benefit makes the community richer.”

John Stossel (1947) American consumer reporter, investigative journalist, author and libertarian columnist

Source: The Tragedy of the Commons https://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3893247&page=1, ABC News (21 November 2007)

Dorothy Day photo

“Marx… Lenin… Mao Tse-Tung… These men were animated by the love of brother and this we must believe though their ends meant the seizure of power, and the building of mighty armies, the compulsion of concentration camps, the forced labor and torture and killing of tens of thousands, even millions.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

"The Incompatibility of Love and Violence," Catholic Worker (May 1951)

Kent Hovind photo

“Could what's coming be worse than the Roman persecution, Spanish inquisition, and the purges under Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Castro, Saddam Hussein and all others who have killed Christians throughout history COMBINED? Will THAT make many fall away? Jesus warned us it would come. He wants us to endure.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 131

Friedrich Engels photo

“Community of women is a condition which belongs entirely to bourgeois society and which today finds its complete expression in prostitution. But prostitution is based on private property and falls with it. Thus, communist society, instead of introducing community of women, in fact abolishes it.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

(1847)

Alan Charles Kors photo

“[S]ocialism with authentic, political power must lead to tyranny and cruelty.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011)

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto photo

“Tin-pot dictators have ravaged Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the aftermath, they have done more to promote communism than the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Source: Letter to his daughter (1978), p. 63.
Context: Tin-pot dictators have ravaged Asia, Latin America and Africa. In the aftermath, they have done more to promote communism than the works of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Mao. They are the worst tyrants of the post-colonial period. They have destroyed time-honoured institutions and treated their people like animals. They have caused internal divisions and external confusion. The dictator is the one animal who needs to be caged. He betrays his profession and his constitution. He betrays the people and destroys human values. He destroys culture. He binds the youth. He makes the structure collapse. He rules by fluke and freak. He is the scourge and the ogre. He is a leper. Anyone who touches him also becomes a leper. He is the upstart who is devoid of ideals and ideology. Not a single one of them has made a moment's contribution to history.

Andrei Lankov photo

“The great famine of 1994-98 was to a large extent the inviolable result of the policies that Kim Il Sung had pursued for decades. The famine was brought about by Kim Il Sung’s fanatical belief in a hyper-centralized, state-managed agriculture, as well as an excessive reliance on (unacknowledged) foreign aid, not to mention militarization run amok. However, if the mine was planted (unintentionally, of course) by Kim Il Sung, it went off under the rule of his son. Hence, most North Koreans blame Kim Jong Il, rather than his father, for the economic disasters of the 1990s.”

Andrei Lankov (1963) Russian academic

Kim Jong Un's Popularity, Explained (September 2015)

“After Mao, not even Pol Pot came as a surprise. Sadly, he was a cliché.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Essays and reviews, Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time (2007)
Context: The full facts about Nazi Germany came out quite quickly, and were more than enough to induce despair. The full facts about the Soviet Union were slower to become generally appreciated, but when they at last were, the despair was compounded. The full facts about Mao's China left that compounded despair looking like an inadequate response. After Mao, not even Pol Pot came as a surprise. Sadly, he was a cliché.

Related topics