I went through the communist children's movement at the age of nine, in 1930, and into the Young Communist League in 1936. The Spanish civil war brought me back. I'd already broken with the communists - or the Stalinists, more precisely - in 1935. But the civil war in Spain and the desire to aid the remarkable people struggling against Fascism brought me back to the Young Communist League, so that I could effectively participate, however far removed from Spain, in their struggle. By 1938 I was ready to be expelled. By 1939 I was expelled.
Murray BookchinI think it's terribly important that networks of anarchists establish themselves with a view toward educating people.
Murray BookchinI was a Stalinist in the '30s. I had come from a Russian revolutionary family who simply were elated by the fact that the Czar was overthrown by this group known as the Bolsheviks. My family identified with anybody who overthrew the Czar. So they identified themselves intuitively with Bolshevism.
Murray BookchinThe only conclusion I could arrive at with the death of the workers' movement as a revolutionary force - you know the imagery of the proletarian vanguard, or proletarian hegemony - has been the community.
Murray BookchinI feel that we have some opportunity in North America to go back and say the American Revolution was the real thing.
Murray BookchinTo speak of 'limits to growth' under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society.
Murray BookchinTo speak of โlimits to growthโ under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be โpersuadedโ to limit growth than a human being can be โpersuadedโ to stop breathing. Attempts to โgreenโ capitalism, to make it โecologicalโ, are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth.
Murray Bookchin