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.
Similar quotes
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Look at the coded language the Right is using against President Barack Obama. Openly calling him a liar in Congress, saying he is 'not a Christian, he was not born here, he is not one of us.' That makes addressing such issues trickier for the first African-American in the White House.
He [Washington] has often declared to me that he considered our new constitution as an experiment on the practicability of republican government, and with what dose of liberty man could be trusted for his own good; that he was determined the experiment should have a fair trial, and would lose the last drop of his blood in support of it. And these declarations he repeated to me the oftener and the more pointedly.
Let there be an end to the arrogance of the big powers who miss no opportunity to put the rights of the people in question. Africa's absence from the club of those who have the right to veto is unjust and should be ended.
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