Passive fatalism can never be the role of a revolutionary party, like the Social Democracy.
Like a cyclone, imperialism spins across the globe; militarism crushes peoples and sucks their blood like a vampire.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote illustrates the destructive nature of imperialism and militarism, comparing them to a cyclone and a vampire respectively.
In this quote, Karl Liebknecht uses powerful imagery to convey the violent and exploitative essence of imperialism and militarism. He likens imperialism to a cyclone, suggesting its chaotic and destructive spread across nations, while he compares militarism to a vampire, emphasizing its parasitic nature that drains the life and resources from oppressed peoples. This stark comparison serves to highlight the pervasive and brutal impact of these forces on humanity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on social justice, one might quote Liebknecht to emphasize the ongoing struggles against imperialism.
More from Karl Liebknecht
All quotes βThe failure of the Russian Socialist Republic will be the defeat of the proletariat of the whole world.
To the socialist no nation is free whose national existence is based upon the enslavement of another people, for to him colonial peoples, too, are peoples, and, as such, parts of the national state.
In the present imperialistic milieu there can be no wars of national self-defense.
Just as invasion is the true and tried weapon in the hands of capital against the class struggle, so on the other hand the fearless pursuit of the class struggle has always proven the most effective preventative of foreign invasions.
For capitalism, war and peace are business and nothing but business.
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The military destabilised my government on politically motivated charges.
In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.
I would never want Ukraine to be a piece on the map, on the chessboard of big global players, so that someone could toss us around, use us as cover, as part of some bargain.
There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.
The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens.
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of common man.