Though the web of history cannot be unravelled into separate threads without destroying it, a certain amount of subdivision of the subject is, for pr… - Eric Hobsbawm

Human beings are not efficiently designed for a capitalist system of production.

Nothing like nationalism is discoverable elsewhere, for the social conditions for it did not exist. In fact, if anything the forces which were later to produce nationalism were at this stage opposed to the alliance of tradition, religion and mass poverty which produced the most powerful resistance to the encroachment of western conquerors and exploiters.

As I think back, I ask myself, again and again: was there an alternative to the indiscriminate , brutal, basically unplanned rush forward of the Five-Year Plan? I wish I could say there was, but I cannot. I cannot find a answer.