Aleksandr Zinovyev quotes

Aleksandr Zinovyev was a Russian logician, sociologist, writer, and dissident. His works offered sharp critiques of Soviet society and later of Western civilization, blending satire, philosophy, and rigorous analysis. He became widely known for his books exposing the realities of totalitarian systems and questioning official ideologies. Here are 29 of his quotes:

Gorbachevism, carried out by mediocre but ambitious party bureaucrats, is an attempt not only to outdo the people but also the objective laws of human society.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Perestroika is nothing but a spectacle organized from above.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

The scientific approach uncovers, that Communism does not eliminate the inequality between men, the social injustice, exploitation of man by man and other evils of society - communism merely changes their form and gives birth to new evils, which become eternal fellow-travelers of communism.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Unlike science, an ideology is constructed of conventional ambiguous expressions, which require interpretation. It is impossible to verify or experimentally confirm an ideological statement, one cannot refute these for they are meaningless. [...] While arising, an ideology may have pretensions to be scientific. But having become an ideology, it loses all the major characteristics of science.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Marxism disguises itself as science and owing to this it is easier for Marxism to portray the existing society as acting on the basis of scientific laws of his history, to portray the leadership's selfishness and idiocy as ingenious scientific foresight etc.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

All in all, Engels talked so much rot of every kind, that now all the world's academies of science should be directed to rectify his mistakes and idiocies.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

But the [communist] authorities acquire from Marxism a splendid method and abounding phraseology to justify whatever piggery.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

None of the Marxist concepts (literally – not a single one!) matches the logical rules of scientific concepts.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

When Andropov became First Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, he ordered the town renamed Partgrad. It's hard to guess, how long will that name endure.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

The oblast head of Church disproved the claim in a party newspaper. At the same time he condemned the president of the US as a warmonger.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

They new the old folk wisdom: what has been built might be really crap and therefore it doesn't make any sense to dig it, for the smell could make the life really impossible. They regarded Gorbachev exactly that kind of a fool, who had broken the rule.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Marxism emerged not only with the intention of explaining scientifically everything in the world, but in addition to this, as a representative of the ‘hurt and injured' classes of the world, expressing thus the centuries old dream of an earthly paradise. But dreams and wishes have nothing to do with science.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

The firmest proof that Marxism is not science but an ideology is Marxism's attitude to the experience of the real communist (or socialist) societies.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

She is well known as an ardent supporter of whatever the party's main direction is. She used to be a passionate Brezhnevist. Now she is an even more passionate Gorbachevist.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

The Stalin Square and Stalin Prospect were renamed Lenin Square and Lenin Prospect. The statue of Stalin was remade into statue of Lenin.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

One physicist writes a study on microphysics, but another writes a book on the importance of Lenin's and Engels' works for the development of physics; one mathematician proves theorems, another publishes demagoguery on ingenious mathematical ideas of classical Marxists.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

But the Party had declared merciless war on drinking and that's why those two remarkable party leaders had to confine themselves to the most trivial non-alcoholic drink. Had their fathers and grandfathers lived up to that moment and had they got to know it, they would have regarded it as a betrayal of Russian traditions and a trick by masons and Zionists.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Having taken advantage of the carelessness of the KGB, the true communist ran to Moscow, with the intention of announcing the Western journalists that communism in Partgrad is being built in a wrong way and to begging the Western leaders to exert pressure on Soviet leadership so that the latter would rectify the Soviet communism and he, a true communist would be taken back in the party.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

The first words of the inhabitats of Partgrad were offensive words.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

After the death of Stalin the town was renamed Grazhdansk. But this name didn't hold out more than a couple of years: then was the town given the name of Khrushchev himself. For a certain period after the deposal of Khrushchev the town didn't have any name at all.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Although Russia was the first victim of the global Americanisation, one should realise, that the whole Western Europe is affected. The liberal democracy belongs to the past. So does classical Capitalism. We are already situated in a post-democratic era: The new ruling class has realised that one cannot solve the problems of mankind through democracy.

Aleksandr Zinovyev

Historically, Marxism was born with the ambition of explaining everything in the world scientifically. It is known, that Marx even dealt with mathematics. Although he could not solve problems which are nowadays clear for even asinine pupils, Marx left behind for the future generations his smart tips.

Aleksandr Zinovyev