"As she explained to Joel Gardner a few months after she had resigned from the Communist Party: “If I were to write a book, I'd make the title of the book... a phrase out of the Communist song "The International." . . . The phrase goes, "No more tradition's chains shall bind us." Well, I would make the title of my book "Tradition's Chains Have Bound Us," because my argument would be that just as... capitalism operates through the false consciousness that it gives the majority of people who aren't able to perceive the reality of their own lives..., so the same thing happens with Marxists. . . . They, too, substitute a false consciousness for a real consciousness . . . . A real revolutionary party [has] to be able to constantly keep alive that challenging, questioning and probing of the real scene around it. . . . Our theory never will quite match the reality, but at least one strives to approximate it, to see what is the substance, and not just the form. (p 13)"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Jews from the United StatesFeminists from the United StatesWomen activists from the United StatesCommunists from the United StatesPeople from Denver
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Ray_Healey
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Dorothy Ray Healey
Dorothy Ray Healey September 22, 1914 – August 6, 2006) was a long-time activist in the Communist Party USA, from the late 1920s to the 1970s, and later became a national vice-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. In the 1930s, she was one of the first union leaders to advocate for the rights of Chicanos and blacks as factory and field workers.
29 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Dorothy Ray Healey →
Related Quotes
"My concept of what it meant to be a revolutionary was based on a montage of the organizers from the Sinclair novels, …"
"It seems to be that Lincoln's definition of democracy, "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people,"…"
"Hitler's triumph made terribly clear the danger of our earlier notions, as well as the very stark differences between…"
"Our dream ticket would have been one consisting of Martin Luther King and Benjamin Spock, linking the issues of civil…"
"The great irony of the McCarthy period is that we did almost as much damage to ourselves, in the name of purifying ou…"
"The challenge for American socialists will be to come up with ways to make use of modified market principles and coor…"
"Socialist politics should mean more not less debate; socialist democracy will involve an ongoing debate over all the …"
"I won't see socialism in my lifetime; I don't know if my son will see it in his, or even my grandchildren in theirs. …"
"People must have a channel through which they can express themselves if there is to be any hope that they will transc…"
"Corporations couldn't care less about welfare-community welfare, the nation's welfare. In the absence of any counterv…"