Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Volume 1 Quotes

“Marx makes it not aphoristically but by implication. The censorship is not only a police measure, “but it is even a bad police measure, for it does not achieve what it wants and does not want what it achieves.” It succeeds only in adding the allure of martyrdom and mystery to the victims of censorship.”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

“But the censorship itself admits that it is not an end in itself, that it is not a good in and of itself, that it is therefore based on the principle that “the end sanctifies the means.” But an end that needs unholy means is not a holy end.81 Besides, Marx argues, the maxim always works both ways as a justification: if the censorship can plead the goodness of its ends as justification for what it does, then so can the (antigovernmental) press.”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

“Censorship places us all in subjection, just as under despotism we are all equal … that kind of freedom of the press acts to introduce oligarchy into questions of the spirit. … That [kind of] freedom of the press pushes presumptuousness to the point of forestalling world history, substituting itself for the voice of the people. …”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

“But English history has demonstrated well enough how the assertion of divine inspiration from above evokes the counterassertion of divine inspiration from below, and Charles I mounted the scaffold by virtue of divine inspiration from below.”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

“The broad use of state in Hegelese presents translation problems. Marx’s early formulations, in the Hegelian spirit, often come close to counterposing the state concept (the ideal state) against what we would now understand by the term.”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I

“More specific material relating to the bourgeois state will be found in subsequent volumes. This approach is of a piece with Marx’s. One must remember that most of the states that Marx had occasion to discuss were not capitalist states—as yet—even in Europe, let alone throughout the rest of the world. From the standpoint of theory this is a good thing, since no phenomenon can be thoroughly understood if only one specimen or type is available for examination. The literature of Marxism and marxology is unfortunately full of statements about Marx’s views which actually apply only to capitalism and the bourgeois era, and which require at least considerable qualification as soon as the focus is widened to include most of the world and world history. It is a form of ethnocentrism.”
― Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution I