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People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

— Friedrich Engels

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Democracy

More quotes by Friedrich Engels

The capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers.

Principles of Communism (1847)

Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the insight into necessity.

Big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter.

Principles of Communism (1847)

Abolish competition and replace it with association.

Principles of Communism (1847)

Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends.

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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

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The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.

Oliver Cox Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948)

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

Gustave Flaubert

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Engels (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.