The Socialists

“My socialism was natural to me and not adopted from any books. It came out of my unshakable belief in non-violence. No man could be actively non-violent and not rise against social injustice, no matter where it occurred.”

India of My Dreams (1947), Gandhi


“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave [capitalistic] evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an education system which would be oriented toward social goals.”

Why Socialism? (1949), Albert Einstein


“How did I become a socialist? By reading.”

How I Became a Socialist (1912), Helen Keller


“If we are to achieve a real equality, the U.S. will have to adopt a modified form of socialism.”

Letter from the Selma, Alabama jail (1965), Martin Luther King, Jr.


“I was already It, whatever It was, and by aid of the books I discovered that It was a Socialist. Since that day I have opened many books, but no economic argument, no lucid demonstration of the logic and inevitableness of Socialism affects me as profoundly and convincingly as I was affected on the day when I first saw the walls of the Social Pit rise around me and felt myself slipping down, down, into the shambles at the bottom.”

How I Became a Socialist (1905), Jack London



Why I Write (1946), George Orwell


“Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?”

A Man Without A Country (2005), Kurt Vonnegut


“It is true, as I have already stated, that I have been influenced by Marxist thought. But this is also true of many of the leaders of the new independent States. Such widely different persons as Gandhi, Nehru, Nkrumah, and Nasser all acknowledge this fact. We all accept the need for some form of socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of this world and to overcome their legacy of extreme poverty.”

In His Own Words (2003), Nelson Mandela


“Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism; painfully, laboriously we mean to destroy false ideas of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right-dealing and a tradition of right-feeling and action. Socialism is the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men.”

New Worlds for Old (1908), H.G. Wells


“I have become a Communist because our party strives more than any other to know and to build a better world, to make men clearer thinkers, more free and more happy.”

Why I Joined the Communist Party (1944), Pablo Picasso


“If being a communist or being a capitalist or being a socialist is a crime, first you have to study which of those systems is the most criminal. And then you’ll be slow to say which one should be in jail.”

Malcolm X Speaks (1965), Malcolm X


“I am too artistic to deal with money in any way, basically. I am a socialist who just happens to be getting this money.”

The Playboy interviews (1981), John Lennon


“The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label. I certainly proved it…running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to ‘End Poverty in California’ I got 879,000.”

Letter to Norman Thomas (1951), Upton Sinclair



The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1895), Oscar Wilde


“Socialism was reason.”

Timebends: A Life (1987), Arthur Miller


“The Revolution evaporates, and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy. The chains of tormented mankind are made out of red tape.”

To Gustav Janouch in Conversations with Kafka (1971), Franz Kafka


“A completely socialistic result depends on who does the planning and for what ends. A state socialism planned by the rich for their own survival is quite possible, but it is far from the state where the rule rests in the hands of those who produce wealth and services and whose aim is the welfare of the mass of the people.”

If Eugene Debs Returned (1956), W.E.B Du Bois