‘There won’t be any revolution in America,’ said Isadore. Nikitin agreed. ‘The people are all too clean. They spend all their time changing their shirts and washing themselves. You can’t feel fierce and revolutionary in a bathroom.’ Eric Linklater, Juan in America, 1931
You have to understand that all revolutionaries understand today that there is no way of overthrowing modern society except by violence for the very good reason that this society defends itself by oppression and violence. I’m defending a revolutionary cause because my personal goal which is that of all those here is to overthrow Bourgeois society. Jean-Paul Sartre
For Marx was, before all else, a revolutionary. His real mission in life was to contribute in one way or another to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the forms of government which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the present day proletariat. Friedrich Engels
The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.
WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
This revolution is necessary not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overturning it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew. Karl Marx, The German Ideology, 1845
They [communists] openly declare that their ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Karl Marx
The Men and the Maggots: Revolution is war. Battleship Potemkin 1925 starring Aleksandr Antonov & Vladimir Barsky & Grigori Aleksandrov & Ivan Bobrov & Mikhail Gomorov & Aleksandr Levshin & N Poltavseva & Konstantin Feldman & Beatrice Vitoldi et al, director Sergei Eisenstein
We the sailors of Potemkin must support our brothers the workers. We must stand in front of the ranks of the revolution. ibid. sailor to sailor
Comrades, the time has come for us to speak out! ibid. sailor
Russian POWs in Japan are fed better. ibid. sailor
Give us this day our daily bread. ibid. inscription on plate
Part Two: Drama in the Harbour. ibid. caption
Fire, you swine! ibid. captain
He who was the first to call for an uprising fell at the hands of a butcher. ibid.
Part Three: A Dead Man Calls for Justice. ibid.
There’s an uprising on the Potemkin. ibid. news
Death to the oppressors! We shall take revenge! ibid. on shore
Eternal glory to those who died for the revolution. ibid. caption
Down with Tsarism! ibid. crowd
The Potemkin prepared to meet the squadron. ibid. caption
Join us! ibid. Potemkin’s message
Brothers! Hurrah! ibid.
My idea about Jack Reed ... I knew he was a man of strong views. Reds 1981 starring Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton & Jack Nicholson & Gene Hackman & Edward Herrmann & Jerzy Kosinski & Paul Sorvino & Maureen Stapleton & Nicolas Coster & William Daniels & E Emmet Walsh & Ian Wolfe & Bessie Love et al, director Warren Beatty, witness
Why do you have an economy where the poor have to pay so the rich won’t lose money? ibid. him to her
When you’re a revolutionary we’ll discuss priorities. ibid. Emma to Jack
What does a capitalist do? ... What does he make besides money? ... The workers do all the work, don’t they? Well what if they got organised? ibid. Reed
Voting is the opium of the masses. ibid. Emma
The IWW is Coming! Join the One Big Union. ibid. poster
The Socialist Party will stand firmly behind its resolution to oppose American involvement in this war. ibid. Socialist Party conference
If Lenin represents thought, Trotsky represents action. ibid. her report
If you strike, the American workers will not feel betrayed. They are waiting for your example. They are waiting for your leadership. ibid. Jack in Russia
He was certainly the main inspiration in the development of the Revolution through his history in Ten Days that Shook the World. ibid. witness
He became a revolutionist on the workers’ side. ibid. witness
We have to make them want more; we have to make them want the whole goddamn revolution. ibid.
The revolution in this country is not going to be led by immigrants. ibid. him to her
You can never come back to this moment in history. ibid. Russian to Jack
The dream that we had is dying. If Bolshevism means the peasants taking the land, the workers taking the factories, Russia’s one place where there is no Bolshevism ... The central state has all the power. All the power is in the hands of a few men and they are destroying the revolution. They are destroying any hope of real communism in Russia. They are putting people like me in jail. ibid. Emma
If you separate a man from what he loves the most, what you do is purge what’s unique in him. And when you purge what’s unique in him you purge dissent. And when you purge dissent you kill the revolution. Revolution is dissent. ibid. Jack
A recurrent mythic model for revolutionaries – early Romantics, the young Marx, the Russians of Lenin’s time – was Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods for the use of mankind. The Promethean faith of revolutionaries resembled in many respects the general modern belief that would lead men out of darkness into light. James Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men introduction
The system that impedes the liberation of man in our country can only be negated by actions, not words; a revolutionary disavowal – the only authentic sort – cannot be attained by a pure and simple substitution of persons. Otherwise the tottering thrones will remain thrones from which a new oligarchic bureaucracy will exercise control over us all. K Bartosek, open letter to Czech workers 1968
The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement – but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims. Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
Governments in the First World War feared one thing almost as much as defeat: revolution. The First World War: Revolution, Channel 4 2003
The Tsar ordered the protests crushed ... Over fifty civilians were shot dead. The massacre forced Petrograd soldiers to choose whom to defend – the people or the Tsar. They shot their duty officer dead and poured on to the streets. ibid.
Germany’s greatest help to Lenin’s cause was getting him back to Russia. ibid.
Lenin was soon winning converts. ibid.
What he said was, End the war. ibid.
Lenin’s ideas spread to the front. ibid.
The city [Petrograd] woke to a new world order. ibid.
I suggested that we use the panther as our symbol and call our political vehicle the Black Panther Party. The panther is a fierce animal, but he will not attack until he is backed into a corner; then he will strike out. Huey Newton, Revolutionary Suicide, 1973
At certain revolutions all the damned are brought and feel by turns the bitter change of fierce extremes. John Milton, Paradise Lost
The revolution desired by the leaders of world revolution is a moral and spiritual revolution. An anarchy of ideas by which all standards set up through nineteen centuries shall be reversed. All honoured traditions trampled underfoot, and above all, the Christian ideal finally obliterated. Nesta Webster, Secret Societies
Thinking about profound social change, conservatives always expect disaster, while revolutionaries confidentially expect utopia. Both are wrong. Carolyn Heilbrun
Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance – these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible. Isaiah Berlin
Oh God! That one might read the Book of Fate, and see the revolution of the times make mountains level! William Shakespeare, Henry IV, old king