Skip to content

Communism was a very defective answer to some very good questions. In throwing out the bad answer, we have forgotten the good questions. I want to put the good questions back on the table.

Another quote →

Topics

Communism

More quotes by Tony Judt

‘Socialism’ is a 19th century idea with a 20th century history.

Ill Fares The Land (2010)

Inequality is corrosive. It rots societies from within.

Ill Fares the Land (2010)

The greatest beneficiaries of the modern welfare state, after all, were the middle classes.

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

The paradox of the welfare state, and indeed of all the social democratic (and Christian Democratic) states of Europe, was quite simply that their success would over time undermine their appeal.

What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy? (2009)

Sixty years after Hitler's death, his war and its consequences are entering history. Postwar in Europe lasted a very long time, but it is finally coming to a close.

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

All Tony Judt quotes →

You may also like

For the state to wither away completely, complete communism is necessary.

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation.

Bertrand Russell Unarmed Victory (1963)

Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.

Friedrich Engels Principles of Communism (1847)

Communism has sometimes succeeded as a scavenger, but never as a leader. It has never come to power in a country that was not disrupted by war or corruption, or both.

John F. Kennedy

Attribution

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