21
" The influence that Marxism has achieved, far from being the result or proof of its scientific character, is almost entirely due to its prophetic, fantastic, and irrational elements. Marxism is a doctrine of blind confidence that a paradise of universal satisfaction is awaiting us just round the corner. Almost all the prophecies of Marx and his followers have already proved to be false, but this does not disturb the spiritual certainty of the faithful, any more than it did in the case of chiliastic sects: for it is a certainty not based on any empirical premises or supposed 'historical laws', but simply on the psychological need for certainty. In this sense Marxism performs the function of a religion, and its efficacy is of a religious character. But it is a caricature and a bogus form of religion, since it presents its temporal eschatology as a scientific system, which religious mythologies do not purport to be. "
― Leszek Kołakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown
34
" The ideological fantasies of this movement [New Left of the 1960s] … were no more than a nonsensical expression of the whims of spoilt middle-class children, and while the extremists among them were virtually indistinguishable from Fascist thugs, the movement did without doubt express a profound crisis of faith in the values that had inspired democratic societies for many decades.… The New Left explosion of academic youth was an aggressive movement born of frustration, which easily created a vocabulary for itself out of Marxist slogans … : liberation, revolution, alienation, etc. Apart from this, its ideology really has little in common with Marxism. It consists of “revolution” without the working class; hatred of modern technology as such; …the cult of primitive societies … as the source of progress; hatred of education and specialized knowledge. "
― Leszek Kołakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown
35
" If socialism is to be anything more than a totalitarian prison, it can only be a system of compromise between different values that limit one another. All-embracing economic planning, even if it were possible—and there is almost universal agreement that it is not—is incompatible with the autonomy of small producers and regional units, and this autonomy is a traditional value of socialism, thought not of Marxist socialism. Technical progress cannot coexist with absolute security of living conditions for everyone. Conflicts inevitably arise between freedom and equality, planning and the autonomy of small groups, economic democracy and efficient management, and these conflicts can only be mitigated by compromise and partial solutions. "
― Leszek Kołakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown
38
" Communism in its Leninist-Stalinist version seems to have been crushed; 'capitalism'—i.e., the market—seems to be continuing its triumphant conquest of the world. Let us not forget, however, that the most populous country on earth, China, now experiencing a flamboyant, dazzling expansion of the market (accompanied both by gigantic corruption and by an extremely high rate of growth), is in some important respects continuing its insane Marxist past—a past which, unlike the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, it never officially repudiated. "
― Leszek Kołakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown
40
" It may be imagined that, if the invasion had not taken place, the reform movement begun under Dubček and supported by the great majority of the population might eventually have brought about 'socialism with a human face' without shaking the foundations of the system. This of course is a matter of speculation, and depends on what exactly is regarded as fundamental. What does seem clear, however, is that if the reform movement had continued and had neither been suppressed by invasion nor, as in Poland, had disintegrated from fear of invasion, it must soon have led to a multiparty system, thus destroying the Communist party dictatorship and therefore destroying Communism as that doctrine conceives itself. "
― Leszek Kołakowski , Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown