Alexander Zinoviev

“L'Occidentisme - essai sur le triomphe d'une idéologie, Alexandre Zinoviev (trad. Galia Ackerman et Pierre Lorrain), éd. Plon, 1995 (ISBN 978-2259-183-178)”

“Intending to improve the economic situation, the Gorbachevites put the economy itself into a state of crisis. p. 108”

“The best study of these capitalist crises remains, from my point of view, the work of K. Marx, which it is fashionable today to judge to be erroneous. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. p. 106”

“The crisis of the communist economy has nothing in common with the economic crises of capitalist societies. At the basis of the capitalist crisis is anarchic production.[…] At the basis of the crisis of the communist economy are the very principles of its organization. […] This crisis is relative, in the sense that it is only perceived in comparison with the standard of living and technology of Western countries. The real crisis comes from the fact that we have moved away from communist methods applied in economics, to try to overcome difficulties and stagnation by capitalist methods. p. 107”

“It follows that, to make a communist country, it is not enough to take power, collectivize the economy or impose a state ideology. We need deeper transformations, namely: organizing the masses differently, in accordance with community laws to which all aspects of life must be subject. (…) p. 14-16”

“Communism, in a word, is the organization of millions of people into a whole, according to community laws. This naturally implies the establishment of many things that did not exist in the previous non-communist society, or in society of another type. The pre-existing community elements, the beginnings of communism, are transformed in the newly created conditions, sometimes so radically that they no longer seem to have any connection with their former manifestations. Hence the erroneous impression that communist-type relations are absolutely new. p. 14-16”

“Whatever the case, the community phenomena themselves are general, universal. They are determined by the simple fact that a fairly large number of individuals find themselves forced to live, over generations, forming a whole, a community. (…) These community phenomena are in turn governed by certain objective laws. p. 14-16”

“The roots of communism existed and exist, in one form or another, in the most diverse societies. They also existed in pre-revolutionary Russia. They exist today in Western countries. Without them, no large-scale or even slightly developed society is conceivable. They represent social phenomena that I would describe as “community phenomena”. These only become dominant and can generate a specific type of communist society - or "real socialism" - under very specific conditions. (…) p. 14-16”

“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”

“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”