2000s, The Speech That Changed the World (2009)
“It seems never to have occurred to Lenin that the root of these troubles lay in the fact that the whole system was based, as he constantly emphasized, on force and not on law. He demanded that people be imprisoned right and left for inefficiency, and then wondered why they were afraid to take decisions and referred them higher up whenever they could. He demanded vigilant supervision and exhaustive records, and yet was astonished at the amount of "pen-pushing". His statement that "socialism equals Soviet power plus electrification" is often quoted; less often his statement, just after the Revolution, that "what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything" (Meeting of the Central Executive Committee, 17 November 1917; Works, vol. 26, p. 288). He created a system in which, depending on the whim of a local party or police authority, any criticism might be regarded as counter-revolutionary and expose its author to imprisonment or death, and at the same time he urged the working people to be fearless in their criticism of the state apparatus.”
Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume II, The Golden Age, pp. 489-90
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Leszek Kolakowski 45
Philosopher, historian of ideas 1927–2009Related quotes
The American Credo: A Contribution toward the Interpretation of the National Mind (1920)
1920s
Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 8, “Bachelor’s Quarters”
Source: Marxism, Fascism & Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism, (2008), p. 56
Comments regarding Gordon Brown, On BBC Radio 4's Today programme http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6469293.stm, 20 March, 2007.
Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift (1731), l. 459
Context: Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.
His satire points at no defect
But what all mortals may correct;
For he abhorred that senseless tribe
Who call it humor when they gibe.
Speech to the United Nations General Assembly (26 September 2007)
2000s, 2005 - 2009