Proletariat Karl Marx Quotes & Sayings

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other - bourgeoisie and proletariat. — Karl Marx

The unity of the bourgeoisie can be shaken only by the unity of the proletariat. — Karl Marx

What I did that was new was to prove that the existence of classes is only bound up with particular, historical phases in the development of production; that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; and that dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society. — Karl Marx

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. — Karl Marx

As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. ... Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. — Karl Marx

Karl Marx predicted the eventual withering away of the state and the 'dictatorship of the proletariat,' when the people would rule, which was sheer fantasy because it was sheer fantasy because it was based on grossly erroneous assumptions about human nature, as history would repeatedly demonstrate. — David Limbaugh

The first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle for democracy. — Karl Marx

Not in vain does it [the proletariat] go through the stern but steeling school of labour. It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. — Karl Marx

The world is mediocre. About that there is no mistake. Well then, has the world been mediocre since time immemorial? No. In the beginning, the world was chaos, and chaos is not mediocre. The mediocratization began when people separated the means of production from daily life. For when Karl Marx posited the proletariat, he thereby cemented their mediocrity. And precisely because of this, Stalinism forms a direct link with Marxism. I affirm Marx. He was one of those rare geniuses whose memory extended back to primal chaos. And by the same token, I have high regard for Dostoyevsky. Nonetheless, I do not hold with Marxism. It is far too mediocre. — Haruki Murakami

In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interest of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. — Karl Marx

National differences and antagonisms between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world-market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.
The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilized countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat.
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual by another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. — Karl Marx

Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. — Karl Marx

There are no circumstances imaginable, not even victory, under which the proletariat should give up its possession of arms. — Karl Marx

Whereas Buddhists believe that the law of nature was discovered by Siddhartha Gautama, Communists believed that the law of nature was discovered by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The similarity does not end there. Like other religions, Communism too has its holy scripts and prophetic books, such as Marx's Das Kapital, which foretold that history would soon end with the inevitable victory of the proletariat. — Yuval Noah Harari

The head of this emancipation is philosophy; its heart is the proletariat. Philosophy cannot be realized without the abolition of the proletariat, the proletariat cannot abolish itself without realizing philosophy. — Karl Marx

Karl Marx, himself a denizen of one of the most congested of all London districts, was equally impressed by the dismal conditions of the new proletariat. he sent Darwin a copy of 'Das Kapital' (which was found unread after his death). — Steve Jones

When the proletariat declares the dissolution of the hitherto existing world order, it merely declares the secret of its own existence, since it is in fact the dissolution of this order. When it demands the negation of private property, it is only laying down as a principle for society what society has laid down as a principle for the proletariat, what has already been incorporated in itself without its consent as the negative result of society. — Karl Marx

The lower strata of the middle class - the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants - all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by the new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. — Karl Marx