“The lost man, who has no belongings, no outside interests, no personal ties of any sort - not even a name. Possessed of but one thought, interest and passion - the revolution. A man who has broken with Society, broken with its laws and conventions. He must despise the opinions of others, and be prepared for death and torture at any time. Hard towards himself, he must be hard to others, and in his heart there must be no place for love, friendship, gratitude or even honor.”
“Now on, the revolution and all the future revolutions must continue without resorting to violence. I am not talking about simply nonviolence, I am talking about having an actual and utter repulsiveness towards violence. This is the fundamental requirement of a civilized revolution.”
“Revolutionären är revolutionen.”
“Orättvisa kommer inte att förstöra vår värld, likgiltighet gentemot orättvisa kommer att förstöra vår värld.”
“He who tells the people false revolutionary myths, he who amuses them with sensational stories, is as criminal as the geographer who would draw up false charts for navigators.”
“Human Helpline (The Sonnet) Neither Christ, nor Krishna, nor Superman, No imagination can rescue humanity. Each of us is the only helpline, Human salvation is human responsibility. Enough with these prayer and rituals, Now awake from the sleep of subjugation. As heroes fraught with reason and conscience, We must rise to break all submission. Progress demands a life of revolution, Self-induced slavery won t do. The more you seek a savior outside, The more you turn into boneless goo. Of all life on earth the human being is peerless. Only those called sapiens roar for the helpless.”
“The first frictions and difficulties with the northern giant began immediately. These frictions were logical if you consider that a country accustomed to special treatment suddenly saw that this little colony in the Caribbean irreverently sought to speak the only language a revolution can speak: the language of equal treatment.”
“[The young communist] should have a great sense of duty, a sense of duty toward the society we are building, toward our fellow human beings, and toward all humanity around the world. That is something that must characterize the Young Communist. And along with that there must be deep sensitivity to all problems, sensitivity to injustice; a spirit that rebels against every wrong, whoever commits it; [applause] questioning anything not understood, discussing and asking for clarification on whatever is not clear; declaring war on formalism of all types; always being open to new experiences in order to take the many years of experience of humanity s advance along the road to socialism and apply them to our country s concrete conditions, to the realities that exist in Cuba. Each and every one of you must think about how to change reality, how to make it better.”
“[The young communist] must always pay attention to the mass of human beings he lives among. Every Young Communist must fundamentally be human, so human that he draws closer to humanity s best qualities. Through work, through study, and through ongoing solidarity with the people and all the peoples of the world, he distills the best of what man is. Developing to the utmost the sensitivity to feel anguish when a human being is murdered in any corner of the world and to feel enthusiasm when a new banner of freedom is raised in any corner of the world. [Applause] The Young Communist cannot be limited by national borders. The Young Communist must practice proletarian internationalism and feel it as his own.”
“In the transition to socialism, man starts to see himself reflected in his work and to understand his full stature as a human being through the object created, through the work accomplished. Work no longer entails surrendering a part of his being in the form of labor power sold, which no longer belongs to him, but represents an expression and extension of himself, a contribution to the common social existence in which he is reflected.”
“What distinguishes fascism from ordinary right-wing patriarchal autocracies is the way it attempts to cultivate a revolutionary aura. Fascism offers a beguiling mix of revolutionary-sounding mass appeals and reactionary class politics. The Nazi party s full name was the National Socialist German Workers Party, a left-sounding name. As already noted, the SA storm troopers had a militant share-the-wealth strain in their ranks that was suppressed by Hitler after he took state power.”
“The more that injustice, exploitation, inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and misery prevail in human society, the more Che s stature will grow. The more that the power of imperialism, hegemonism, domination, and interventionism grow, to the detriment of the most sacred rights of the peoples-especially the weak, backward, and poor peoples who for centuries were colonies of the West and sources of slave labor-the more the values Che defended will be upheld. The more that abuses, selfishness, and alienation exist; the more that Indians, ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants suffer dis crimination; the more that children are bought and sold for sex or forced into the workforce in their hundreds of millions; the more that ignorance, unsanitary conditions, insecurity, and homelessness prevail-the more Che s deeply humanistic message will stand out. The more that corrupt, demagogic, and hypocritical politicians exist anywhere, the more Che s example of a pure, revolutionary, and consistent human being will come through. The more cowards, opportunists, and traitors there are on the face of the earth, the more Che s personal courage and revolutionary integrity will be admired. The more that others lack the ability to fulfill their duty, the more Che s iron willpower will be admired. The more that some individuals lack the most basic self-respect, the more Che s sense of honor and dignity will be admired. The more that skeptics abound, the more Che s faith in man will be admired. The more pessimists there are, the more Che s optimism will be admired. The more vacillators there are, the more Che s audacity will be admired. The more that loafers squander the product of the labor of others, the more Che s austerity, his spirit of study and work, will be admired.”
“Stand unbending against inhumanity, without weapons, without violence, only then will your revolution produce a better society.”
“They talked about the way society is in fact controlled through the imposition of false needs, and how criticism of society is effectively and systematically suppressed by being infiltrated into institutions. They spoke of a closed technological society which creates a new totalitarianism, and in it there is no place for those outside the process of production. About the fact that the only way out of the comfortable, rationalized, undemocratic freedom offered by developed industrial civilization is through rebellion. About the fact that revolution is possible only through awareness but that awareness in itself demands revolution.”
“Between reaction and revolution there is nothing to choose. Neither leave the track, they just allow different people to drive while the same people are run over.”
“Bakunin perceived the authoritarianism inherent in a so-called dictatorship of the proletariat. The state, he insisted, however popular in form, would always serve as a weapon of exploitation and enslavement. He predicted the inevitable formation of a new privileged minority of savants and experts, whose superior knowledge would enable them to use the state as an instrument to rule over the uneducated manual laborers in the fields and factories. The citizens of the new people s state would be rudely awakened from their self-delusion to discover that they had become the slaves, the playthings, and the victims of a new group of ambitious men. The only way the common people could escape this lamentable fate was to make the revolution themselves, total and universal, ruthless and chaotic, elemental and unrestrained. It is necessary to abolish completely, in principle and in practice, everything that might be called political power, Bakunin concluded, for so long as political power exists, there will always be rulers and ruled, masters and slaves, exploiter and exploited .”
“My struggle is to end all struggles.”