“What could be so important that revolutionaries would join the most reactionary elements in their respective countries, free thinkers would fraternise with priests, socialists and trade unionists would put class antagonisms on hold, anti-militarists would demand that a government call the citizens to arms and force them to go to war, anarchists would collaborate with the State?”

As Marx’s partner, Friedrich Engels, put it, “For socialism, which wants to emancipate human labour-power from its status of a commodity, the realisation that labour has no value and can have none is of great importance.”

“We are the rightful and legal owners of the land. Therefore, we reclaim all the resourceful land that has traditionally been ours, with the exception of that ‘owned’ by private individuals.”

“All this, together with the journalistic campaign made in its support, will create in South American countries a warlike mentality conducive to the imperialist affairs of their rulers, a morbid state of mind, refined by the suspicions and hatreds that are awakened, and predisposed to the outbreak of war.”

“The outbreak of war – the most solemn denial of the principle “si vis pace para bellum” [if you want peace, prepare for war] – was therefore received with the idea that with one evil, a greater evil would be avoided in the future.”

“We have no sympathy whatever with the ‘libertarians’ – be they Socialists, Anarchists or what not – whose philosophic internationalism somersaults into rankest chauvinism the moment it is put to the practical test.”