Quote of the day—Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens’ militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own elected general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the state authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers. Where the workers are employed by the state, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary. The destruction of the bourgeois democrats’ influence over the workers, and the enforcement of conditions which will compromise the rule of bourgeois democracy, which is for the moment inevitable, and make it as difficult as possible – these are the main points which the proletariat and therefore the League must keep in mind during and after the approaching uprising.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
March 1850
Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League
[Interesting reading.—Joe]

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7 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

  1. Marx and Engels preaching for an armed citizenry??? How does that square with Communism, socialism, and Marxism?

    • It’s the same as all other totalitarians preach: we want only our people to be armed. Also, our people is a much larger set before power is gained. Afterwards, it is reduced to just the pretorian guard charged with protecting the current dictatorship.
      Stalin disarmed the “bourgeoisie”. And afterwards he disarmed everyone else apart from the KGB.

  2. Same thing is happening here. Our increasingly Marxist government is fine with armed crime gangs, and even seeks to facilitate them, but they want very much to disarm principled Americans.

    Bottom line; political power flows from the barrel of a gun. That’s been understood for a very long time. Thousands of years before guns existed, the concept was understood.

    The Russian alliance of the Dark Side used any and all means to bring off their communist revolution. Afterward, those armed “workers” that helped them accomplish their goals were slaughtered or starved to death by the millions.

    It should be pointed out that the American Progressives always adored the Soviets, and sought to help them and their cause any way they could.

  3. Marx & Engels wrote in the mid-1800’s, and since they were political agitators, they wrote very much for an audience of their times; they didn’t really try to be very timeless or enduring, no matter what they might have claimed (or thought).

    as such, a lot of what they said is plain outdated now, and even a lot of what isn’t has shifted meaning enough that it’s hard to make out what it’s all about. for example, nobody’s much complained about the “bourgeoisie” since them (well, nobody sensible, anyway) partly because that was a social class in a society which doesn’t really exist anymore. we have kinda-sorta equivalents today, but the word’s gone disused for a reason.

    so when modern leftists go all gun-ban happy, in spite of the fact that socialists technically weren’t, for many a decade after Marx — well, they’re wrong, but it’s not because they’re contradicting Marx. contradicting Marx can easily be a sign that you’re living in your own time, as opposed to 1860’s Britain.

  4. Lyle,
    It was revealed/discovered? a few years ago that the people who created the Soviet insurrection were trained by the Progressives in NYFC, prior to them returning to Russia to overthrow the Czar. Since they were the Progressives’ “progeny”, of course they were adored and supported. The f’ing State Dept continued this right up to the collapse of the USSR.

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