Decolonial Marxism Quotes

“Besides, at a later point in the analysis, I will go on to suggest that, on principle, the introduction of Marxist factionalism into Third World political discussions in an a priori fashion is usually destructive, and at best is pointless.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“There may be revolutions which have had a revolutionary theory and which have failed. But there has certainly been no revolution which has succeeded without a revolutionary theory.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“This is the task of anybody who considers himself or herself a Marxist. However, because it is fraught with so many difficulties and obstacles, many people take the easy route, which is to take it as a finished product rather than an ongoing social product which has to be adapted to their own society. One finds that in looking at Marxist theory, at its relevance to race, looking at the relevance of Marxist theory to national emancipation, we come up with a very important paradox: that the nationalist, in the strict sense of the word, that is the petty bourgeois nationalist, who aims merely at the recovery of national independence in our epoch, is incapable of giving the people of Africa or the peoples of the Caribbean any participation in liberal democracy.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“At a certain point, a movement becomes irreversible, and all the efforts of the enemy smack of desperation and insanity.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“Wester Modernity is rooted in the looting of a continent,”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“The pressure of this agitation, carried on by manual workers, was sufficient to gain advantages even for the Water Street clerks, though it was not surprising that these white-collar workers never showed real loyalty to the workers’ movement.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“With the help of J. Sydney McArthur, a Georgetown barrister, and Nelson Cannon, a member of the Court of Policy, they prepared a petition to the government. When this failed, militant strike action gained the workers their demands.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“Co-existing with the emphasis on racial identity was a powerful upsurge of class consciousness.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“The Argosy gave prominence to a discourse by an Argentine intellectual on the dangers that were imminent because of US imperialism”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“This new US offensive was a further stage in the decline of European influence in the southern Americas, a process which started with the Haitian revolution.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“As it turned out, the North American financiers and industrialists had the field to themselves.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“He supervised a People’s War of Liberation with great distinction – but only because of the soundness of his scientific worldview and his capacity to apply it penetratingly to the social relations of Guinea-Bissau.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“In Amilcar Cabral, Africa had a giant who bridged the gap between theory and practice, and hence represented the embodiment of revolutionary praxis.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“Cabral was in effect renewing the battle against the concept of revolutionary spontaneity and restating the case for painstaking mobilization by the most conscious elements. Then, and only then, would the peasantry become a revolutionary force.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“For those of us who aspire towards a deeper appreciation of historical dialectics, Cabral’s analyses are models for study; one doubts whether even the sceptic can remain unimpressed by the strength and flexibility of his arguments concerning the role of respective strata and classes within the Guinean revolution.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“He did so through perceiving the difference between a political outlook limited to nationalism and one which encompassed a revolutionary transformation of the people’s lives along Socialist lines.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution

“It is the element of commitment which sets Cabral apart from the common run of intellectuals who boast of being ‘neutral’ and ‘un-biased’, thereby passively accepting the perpetuation of the colonial status quo.”
― Walter Rodney, Decolonial Marxism: Essays from the Pan-African Revolution