Alexander Zinoviev Quotes

Communism arises in various ways. In Russia, it was the result of the crash following the First World War, the revolution and the civil war. It was brought to Eastern European countries by the Soviet army, victorious over Nazi Germany. But whatever the diversity of historical paths it takes in this or that corner of the planet, communism has this particularity in that it is not born from nothing and is not completely foreign to the country where it is established. (…) p. 14-16

(…) I disagree with the commonly accepted opinion that real communism would be the realization of Marxist ideals and that it would be imposed on the masses, against their will, their desires and their interests, by a handful of people. ideologues resorting to force and lies. Communism is not only a political regime that can be transformed by an order from above, it is a social organization of the population. A Soviet Union was formed, not in accordance with the Marxist project nor at the whim of Marxist ideologues, but by virtue of the objective laws which govern the organization of a large mass of population into a completed social organism. It is the result of a historical creative process in which millions of people took part. (…) p. 13

The world once again finds itself faced with crazy temptations and crazy seductions. […] Be afraid of those who seduce you because seducers always deceive! p. 696

The propaganda apparatus of Stalin and Brezhnev seems, in comparison [to the media lie], a game of amateur forgers. p. 695

… the media lie, having monopolized moral assessments, takes the form of good while attempts to reveal it take the form of evil. Distraught demagogues manipulate the masses by promising them all kinds of earthly good, without taking into consideration the laws of history. p. 696

The truth is now the lot of the loner with, unfortunately, very limited means of disseminating their ideas and influencing the masses. p. 695

Never in the history of humanity has such an enormous amount of truth served as material for such a gigantic lie. Never before has humanity fallen into such great error based on the best information available. Today, education and skill serve to stupefy the masses as much as ignorance did in times past.

A new type of hurricane of disinformation has been unleashed on humanity. It is no longer a question of the intentional creation and dissemination of deliberately false information to mislead. Now, true information is being used for the supposed purpose of mind cleansing. But this information is selected, processed, combined, interpreted and presented in such a way that a false and distorted picture of reality results. p. 695

Nothing takes root so well in people's minds as misconceptions that become prejudices. Ignorance is strength ! p. 673

In reality, Orwell did not predict the future post-capitalist society, but simply expressed as no one had done before the West's fear of communism. p. 672

One of the reasons for the rather low intellectual level of essays which criticize Soviet society and denounce its scourges is precisely poor ideological education. p. 638

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

Thus, the West perceives its own smallness, reflected in the curved mirror of Soviet society, as a grandiose phenomenon p. 598

While considering communalism as a universal phenomenon, I emphasized that only communist society was totally governed according to the laws of communality. p 424

The problem is no longer how to build paradise on Earth, but how to live there. p. 424