Noam Chomsky Quotes About Revolution

• The Bolshevik revolution was a counter-revolution. Its first moves were to destroy and eliminate every socialist tendency that had developed in the pre-revolutionary period. Their goal was as they said; it wasn't a big secret. They regarded the Soviet Union as sort a backwater. They were orthodox Marxists, expecting a revolution in Germany. They moved toward what they themselves called "state capitalism," then they moved on to Stalinism. They called it democracy and called it socialism. The one claim was as ludicrous as the other.

  Noam Chomsky

  Moving, Goal, Secret

• As far as Bernie Sanders is concerned, he is a decent, honest person, and I supported him. What he means by socialism is New Deal Liberalism. In fact, his actual policies would not have been a great surprise to General Eisenhower. The fact that this is called a "political revolution" is a sign of how far to the right the political spectrum has shifted, mainly in the last 30 years since the neoliberal programs began to be instituted. What he was calling for was a restoration of something like New Deal Liberalism, which is a very good thing.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Political Revolution, Years

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

• Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid-twentieth century.

  Noam Chomsky

  Technology, Practice, Political

  Noam Chomsky (2010). “The Chomsky Reader”, p.153, Pantheon

• There are cases - for example, the American Revolution. George Washington's army lost just about every battle with the British, who had a much better army. The war was basically won by guerrilla forces that managed to undermine the British occupation.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Army, Battle

  Source: thehumanist.com

• If you're in favour of any policy - reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever - if you're at least minimally moral, it's because you think it's somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Thinking, People

  "Noam Chomsky: 'No individual changes anything alone" by Aida Edemariam, www.theguardian.com. March 22, 2013.

• There are very interesting books about these events, for instance one by a very well-known American historian named William R. Polk called Violent Politics. It's a record of what are basically guerrilla wars from the American Revolution right up through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Book, Iraq

  Source: thehumanist.com

• Karl Marx was in favor of socialist and communist-socialist revolutions, but he had a pretty nuanced view about it.

  Noam Chomsky

  Views, Favors, Revolution

  "Chomsky On The Prospect of Kurdish Independence". Interview with Namo Abdulla, chomsky.info. February 15, 2011.

• [Mikhail Bakunin] expectations were generally confirmed, including his prediction that some would seek to gain state power on the backs of popular revolution, then constructing a "Red bureaucracy" that would be one of the worst tyrannies in history, while others would recognize that power lies elsewhere and would serve as its apologists, becoming mystifies, "disablers," and managers while demanding the right to function in "technocratic isolation," in World Bank lingo.

  Noam Chomsky

  Lying, Expectations, World

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

• I think it's just been a core part of the Cuban revolution to have a very high level of internationalism. I mean, these cases you've mentioned are cases in point, but the most extreme case was the liberation of Africa. Take the case of Angola for example, and there are real connections between Cuba and Angola-much of the Cuban population comes from Angola.

  Noam Chomsky

  Real, Mean, Thinking

  "Chomsky on Haiti". Interview with Keane Bhatt, www.counterpunch.org. March 9, 2010.

• Long before the technology revolution there was declassification of documents and I've spent quite a lot of time studying declassified internal documents and written a lot about them. In fact, anybody who's worked through the declassified record can see very clearly that the reason for classification is very rarely to protect the state or the society from enemies. Most of the time it is to protect the state from its citizens, so they don't know what the government is doing.

  Noam Chomsky

  Technology, Government, Long

  Interview with Jegan Vincent de Paul, chomsky.info. August 15, 2012.

• We should recall that during the Second World War and the Great Depression there was an upsurge in popular, radical democracy. In all over the world. It took different forms, but it was there, everywhere. In Greece it was in the Greek revolution, and so on. And it had to be crushed. In countries like Greece, it was crushed by violence. In countries like Italy, where the US forces entered in 1943, it was crushed by attacking and destroying the anti-German partisans and restoring the traditional order.

  Noam Chomsky

  Country, War, Order

  Source: pennpoliticalreview.org

• Western intellectuals, and also Third World intellectuals, were attracted to the Bolshevik counter-revolution because Leninism is, after all, a doctrine which says that the radical intelligentsia have a right to take state power and to run their countries by force, and that is an idea which is rather appealing to intellectuals.

  Noam Chomsky

  Running, Country, Ideas

• There is a noticeable general difference between the sciences and mathematics on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences on the other. It's a first approximation, but one that is real. In the former, the factors of integrity tend to dominate more over the factors of ideology. It's not that scientists are more honest people. It's just that nature is a harsh taskmaster. You can lie or distort the story of the French Revolution as long as you like, and nothing will happen. Propose a false theory in chemistry, and it'll be refuted tomorrow.

  Noam Chomsky

  Integrity, Real, Lying

  "Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent". Book by Robert F. Barsky, 1997.

• Mr. Mijanovi and those associated with him are the hope and the conscience of the Yugoslav revolution.

  Noam Chomsky

  Revolution, Conscience

• The American Revolution was a small part of a major world war going on between France and England, so the French intervened and that was a big factor, but the domestic contribution was basically guerrilla warfare.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, France And England, World

  Source: thehumanist.com

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