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The institutions which are democratic in form are in substance instruments of the dominant class interest. This is most obvious in the fact that so soon as democracy shows a disposition to deny its class character and to become an instrument of the real interest of the people, the democratic forms themselves are sacrificed.

— Rosa Luxemburg

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Democracy

More quotes by Rosa Luxemburg

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

Die russische Revolution. Eine kritische Würdigung (1920)

Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.

The Russian Revolution (1918)

Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to Socialism or regression into Barbarism.

Junius Pamphlet (1916)

Socialism in life demands a complete spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois rule.

All Rosa Luxemburg quotes →

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

Mikhail Gorbachev

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

Attribution

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