Alexander Zinoviev Quotes

They new the old folk wisdom: what has been built might be really crap and therefore it doesn’t make any sense to dig it, for the smell could make the life really impossible. They regarded Gorbachev exactly that kind of a fool, who had broken the rule.

I therefore affirm that, to understand our society, our dialectical method is necessary, while that of the West, non-dialectical, is of no use. But be careful: I am not talking about “dialectics” in the sense given to it by Soviet philosophies – starting with Stalin in his Dialectical and Historical Materialism; I am talking about this ability to take into account all the complexity and changing nature of formations such as our gigantic society. Ah! I'm itching to describe this method! But by giving it the efficiency, the practical sense of the Western style of thinking. Is it possible ? Who knows, perhaps the most suitable forms are born from these unthinkable compromise. p. 353

Ideological brainwashing constitutes the essence and foundation of the formation of the Soviet man. […]. As part of ideological training, people learn to “correctly” interpret the phenomena that they are comforted with in their lives. […] This is not a question of stupidity. The ideological man thus trained does not become stupid. rather, it is the opposite effect that takes place. p. 638

The S-F is a very powerful, very modern tool, [...]. p. 143

Understanding scientific texts requires a long period of specialized preparation and the use of a particular, professional language. Science is aimed at a restricted circle of specialists. Ideological texts are addressed to an entire population, regardless of profession and differences in educational level. To “understand” them (or more precisely to assimilate them), there is no need to undergo special preparation. It is enough to refer to examples from daily life to clarify this or that obscure passage. p. 286

According to a well-established opinion, kolkhozes were invented by Stalinist villains out of purely ideological considerations. Pure nonsense! The idea is not Marxist, it even has nothing to do with classical Marxism. Far from being a fruit of theory, it emerged in practical life as the product of a very real, nothing less than imaginary, communism. Ideology was only a means of justifying a historical evolution. p. 68

Financial totalitarianism has subjugated the political powers. Financial totalitarianism is cold. It knows neither pity nor feelings. Political dictatorships are pitiful compared to this totalitarianism. A certain resistance was possible within the hardest dictatorships, no revolt is possible against a bank.

This debate forced me to develop my own conception of these aspects of philosophy. I decided to design a discipline which would encompass as an object of study the problems of logic, gnoseology, ontology, methodology, and dialectics as well as other subjects which touch on the general problems of language and knowledge. I considered the name of the said discipline to be secondary. “Philosophy” didn’t fit. […]. Over time, I began to use the term "complex logic" to distinguish what I was doing from what others were doing. p. 317

Poverty, which is seen as a kind of horrible and incurable disease, is not the fruit of the machinations of dark forces operating in the depths of Western society. It is the inevitable consequence of the objective laws of Westernism. p.117

The petty bourgeois is inclined to pass off what he feels as the truth. p. 36

La Maison jaune, Alexandre Zinoviev (trad. Anne Coldefy-Faucard et Wladimir Berelowitch), éd. Julliard/L'Age d'Homme, 1982, en 2 tomes

Others question the real facts and make mistakes. For my part, I am ignorant of this side of reality and I am hardly wrong. There are several ways to find the truth of things: for me, it's always in my head and in my heart.

But the Party had declared merciless war on drinking and that’s why those two remarkable party leaders had to confine themselves to the most trivial non-alcoholic drink. Had their fathers and grandfathers lived up to that moment and had they got to know it, they would have regarded it as a betrayal of Russian traditions and a trick by masons and Zionists.

Western society is undemocratic, totalitarian in its very essence - at the level of production cells. And that is why it is democratic in its superstructure, in its ideology. There is a sort of law of constancy of the sum of democracy and totalitarianism.

When Andropov became First Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, he ordered the town renamed Partgrad. It’s hard to guess, how long will that name endure.