Atheists

"Gramsci had greater human sensitivity, he was more spontaneous and open. Togliatti, strange as it may seem, was much more intellectual."

"Togliatti was a small, cold man, sharply intelligent, with an amused smile in private, which when speaking in public could turn into scathing sarcasm."

"(Regarding the Sino-Soviet crisis) Togliatti was concerned about relations between the USSR and China, and about the situation between the party and intellectuals that had arisen after Khrushchev had taken a very rigid and harsh stance."

"In the history of the Italian nation, I see few men who qualify as enlightened right-wingers who not only accept but want reforms. [...] And, now I don't want to shock people, but I would say that Togliatti was also a right-wing man because of his concept of the State and power. And this shows that you can be a right-wing man even on the left."

"I knew what the city of Matera was like, this city where three quarters of the population, namely those men who sweat from morning to night, toil incessantly, have no home worthy of the name, live in caves, do not know what a window is, and in those caves in which they live, which were dug centuries ago, families and working animals are crammed together in incredible promiscuity. I knew that from a city where three quarters of the population live in these terrible conditions, a terrible indictment would arise against the ruling classes of our country, the social groups, capitalists, landowners and privileged classes, who are responsible for the fact that in Italy there is still a city where thousands of men and women live in these conditions."

"[...] even in the mane of a noble racehorse, you can always find two or three lice."

"As an intellectual, Togliatti had the heroism to sacrifice his creative, philosophical and cultural potential to the demands of political leadership."

"Togliatti had a certain aristocratic air about him, a nineteenth-century taste that meant he did not always appreciate certain avant-garde artistic experiments."

"At the end of the war, the situation was such that it would not have been difficult for us to seize power and begin building a socialist society. Most of the people would have followed us."

"What enchanted me was his language, which was both popular and understood by everyone, yet every cautious motto, pure Italian, every word an exact reflection of what he wanted to express, every word right to “stir” the hearts and minds of those who listened to him. The square was packed. The rally took place in silence, the emotion acute in everyone. The leader of their enemies, of the Lucchesi, the Bianchi, spoke like a preacher from the pulpit, calmly, with a solemn echo... such precise speech also seemed like a tribute to the people who listened there, under the small stage, and who knew and cultivated the Italian language, the dictation, and who had preserved the beautiful speech, the Italian language, through the centuries."

"Ideas, the great principles of world renewal, do not advance by their own means. They have no legs, said one of the classics of our thought. They advance and impose themselves when, having penetrated the minds of men and the consciousness of a class, they become a force, because the best among men, and first of all in this class, go into battle for them, face danger, sacrifice their freedom and their lives. (chap. VII, p. 69)"

"The source of the organic deficiencies of the socialist movement was also to be found in the fatalistic vision of a revolution that was supposed to come about automatically, when capitalism had reached the final stage of its maturation. (chap. II, p. 24)"

"(To Pietro Secchia) What did Juve do yesterday? [...] And you want to start a revolution without knowing Juve's results?"

"(Last words spoken in Russian, greeting the young guests of the Artek pioneer camp, a few minutes before the illness that would lead to his death) Dear friends, pioneers. I can say very little to you because, in reality, our languages are different. But, comrades, our hearts are the same. The same thoughts, the same ideals live in your hearts and in mine. There are no differences between us because we are fighting for the same goals. You and we are fighting together for the same ends. You and we are fighting together for peace, for the happiness of peoples, for brotherhood among peoples, for progress, for socialism. In this unity of ours lies the guarantee of our victory, young people, pioneers. And you and we, although we are in different conditions and with different means, are waging the same struggle. And therein lies the certainty of our success, of victory over our adversaries, of the victory of peace throughout the world, of the victory of socialism and communism. Thank you very much, dear friends."

"Hence the constant threat of reactionary adventure. Today, large monopolies dominate and clerical hierarchies lay down the law. Instead of having a republic based on work, we have a power based on social privilege, discrimination, corruption and the blatant wealth of a few. [...] the advantage has not gone and does not go to everyone: where large monopolies reign, the benefits of economic progress created by everyone's work do not go to everyone but only to small privileged groups [...]."

"To fight against the left, we must also use the police."

"Bordiga lives peacefully in Italy today as a Trotskyist scoundrel, protected by the police and the fascists, hated by the workers as a traitor should be hated."

"(About Togliatti and what struck him about his personality) His skill, but it was something more, the way in which he managed to impose, in a dialectical sense, the presence of the Communist Party."

"(In 1953, referring to Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin and Stalin's enemies) He had the characteristics of a presumptuous, vain and scheming professor. Like others, he had the makings of a double-dealer and traitor."

"The greatest fault of television is that it introduced Togliatti and dancers into the hearts of Italian families."

"“'l'Unità”', 23 August 1964, p. 3."

"(From the speech at the Foro Italico on 27 September 1948, for the first time after the attack he suffered two months earlier) Comrades, I have finished. [...] Take my greetings everywhere in Italy, take them to the workers and the unemployed in the factories of Milan, Turin, Genoa, all our industrial capitals; take my greetings to the strong labourers and sharecroppers of the Po plain, to the farmers of southern Italy; take them to the professionals, to the employees who are fighting hard today for bread, a just battle; take them a greeting that will strengthen them in the struggle they must face, which tells them once again that in Italy, within the Italian people, an invincible force has arisen and lives: the force of the Communist Party. No one has yet succeeded in breaking this force, nor will they ever succeed, and it knows that it is called upon to make its decisive contribution to leading the masses of the people in a redemptive struggle, which can only end in our victory. Comrades, to work, to struggle [Communist slogans]. The dark forces of reaction, the hostile forces that have even resorted to murder to break us, these forces will not prevail. Victory will be ours!"

"I am particularly proud to have renounced my Italian citizenship in favour of Soviet citizenship. I do not feel attached to Italy as my homeland, but consider myself a citizen of the world, of the world that we want united in Moscow under the leadership of Comrade Stalin. I am particularly proud to have renounced my Italian citizenship because, as an Italian, I felt like a miserable mandolin player and nothing more. As a Soviet citizen, I feel I am worth ten thousand times more than the best Italian citizen."

"(The Vatican) is the most irreconcilable and organised opponent of greater democratic transformation in Italy."

"(At the conclusion of the commemoration of Stalin on the occasion of his death, delivered in the Chamber of Deputies) The heroic life of the victorious fighter has come to an end. His cause triumphs. His cause will triumph throughout the world."

"The discussion highlighted a new problem, that private schools are becoming a second state school system."

"Our Soviet comrades never put really serious and grave matters in writing."

"The communist sections in city and town districts must become centres of popular life, centres where all comrades, sympathisers and those without a party, knowing that they will find a party and an organisation that cares about their problems and will provide them with guidance, knowing that they will find someone who can lead them, advise them and give them the opportunity to enjoy themselves if necessary."

"We extend [...] our greetings and homage to our country, which we love, for whose good we have worked and fought and to which we want to give and will give, with the victory of democracy and socialism, happiness, well-being and progress, security, independence, freedom and peace. Let us move forward [...], for the emancipation of labour, for the democratic and socialist renewal of Italy, for the triumph of communism."

"Once in a while you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but, when you are right in the midst of it, you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about."

"Progress is man's ability to make what is simple complex."

"Every now and then you find yourself in a strange situation. You drift into it slowly and naturally, but when you're in the middle of it, you're suddenly amazed and wonder how the hell it all happened."

"In building up our army into a modern one, we must absorb and carry on the essence of our army and should on no account throw away our "invaluable assets." In line with the current actual conditions, we should enrich and develop these fine traditions so as to suit the needs of modernizing our army under the new situation and to ensure the smooth development of the modernization."

"For many historical reasons, most of our troop cadres, and particularly high-ranking cadres, are now advanced in years, and they do not have a sufficient knowledge of culture and science or of modern military science. In the past year, we have readjusted leading groups of the army units in line with the principle of promoting outstanding younger cadres and helped PIA men learn science and acquire general knowledge extensively and thoroughly. As a result, the ranks of our army's cadres have made big strides in the four modernizations, yet they still cannot meet the needs of army building."

"Fighting a people's war is a strong point and characteristic of our army. Our socialist system and strategic principle of positive defense decide that any war in which we engage will be a self-defense war against aggression. We must continue to depend on people's war and give play to human subjective activity so as to defeat an enemy with superior equipment with our inferior equipment. However, what we mean by inferior equipment and superior equipment today is by no means the concept of using millet plus rifles to fight against aircraft and guns. Great changes have taken place in "yours" and "ours"; neither should we abandon the idea of people's war and copy indiscriminately the military theory of other countries just because our army is modernized to a certain extent, nor should we keep our past strategy and tactics intact only because we want to engage in people s war. In view of the new characteristics and new requirements of modern war- fare and of the changing situation, we should work hard to explore the law of modern warfare and to study the strategy and tactics of people's war under modern conditions so as to enrich and develop our military thought."

"An energetic army constantly changes itself. The history of the building of our army is a history of unceasing reform. Since Comrade Deng Xiaoping took charge of the work of the Military Commission, with modernization as the focus of its attention, our army has carried out some reforms with notable success. For example, we have streamlined and reorganized the army, carried out structural reform, attached strategic importance to education and training, restored the military academies and institutions, readjusted army, divisional, and regimental leading bodies, jointly built a socialist spiritual civilization with the people, acquired some scientific and cultural knowledge, trained people to be capable of doing both army and civilian work, revised various rules and regulations, and so on. These reforms have brought about a new situation in all areas of the work of our army. However, the reform of the entire army, we should say, has just begun. In order to build our army into a really modernized and revolutionary regular army with special Chinese characteristics, it is necessary to persistently carry on with the reforms in an even more comprehensive and in-depth manner."

"Following the high automation of operational command and weapons control, the command organizations should be highly efficient and be able to make quick responses. If the organizations are overstaffed and unwieldy, they will not easily deploy them, still less to direct operations. In order to increase our combat strength, we should increase the work efficiency of our troops, streamline organizations, and simplify the administrative structure so that they can be highly trained and flexible. We should abolish some units which should be abolished and amalgamate those which should be amalgamated. Naturally, it is also necessary to establish new units which should be established according to the requirements of modern warfare. The most important thing in the scientific organization of the forces is to strengthen the combination of the forces."

"We should continue to tap this potential and at the same time integrate it satisfactorily with mass technological innovation. The masses are the operators of weapons and equipment. It often happens that a small invention can solve a big problem. We stress the main points and self-reliance, but under no circumstances should we comprehend "distinguishing Chinese characteristics and "low standards" and thus lower the objective of our modernization. At present the modernization level of our troops is not very high, but it should be noted that the development of the national economy in the past few years has been gratifying. According to the Marxist theory of economic strength being the material basis of force, it can be expected that with the development of the national economy, encouraging prospects will certainly emerge in the modernization of the army."

"Only by combining the various arms and services in a genuinely flexible way in various aspects, such as structural establishment, training, command, and management, will it be possible for our troops to constitute a powerful com- bat force. We should explore the new scientific system of combined army units, establish a corresponding command system, and formulate a set of rules and regulations for directing and managing the modernized combined army units. In building the army, we should satisfactorily integrate peacetime with war preparedness and the maintenance of the army with the use of military forces. While reducing the standing army, we should step up the building of the militia and reserve service and build up specialized technical soldiers and reserve officers in accordance with the new military service law promulgated some time ago. China has a large population and is rich in manpower resources. Provided that the people are well-trained, it does not make any difference if we have fewer troops in peacetime. As soon as a war breaks out, we can expand them immediately."

"The key to the modernization of our army lies in training able troops. Without them there will be no modernization of our army. We have all along stressed the human factor in war. Bravery, consciousness, and the spirit of sacrifice are a part of the human factor, on which we must continue to lay due stress, but they are not the whole. The whole of the human factor should include vigor in health, spirit, knowledge, and ability. While training modern military forces, we must pay particular attention to this point. To train modern military forces, the most important approach is to make the ranks of cadres more revolutionary, younger in average age, better educated, and more professionally competent."

"In the past, some political activities organized under the influence of "leftist" ideas, particularly the 10 years of internal disorder, had con- fused important matters of right and wrong in the area of army building. In addition, as the situation kept changing, there was also the question of adapting the good things to the circumstances. If we are to draw lessons from history, we should renew our understanding of the history and tradition of our army. Having carried out construction and fought for decades, what strong points and weaknesses has our army displayed? Which elements of our tradition are still applicable today? Which elements are outmoded? Which elements can still be useful after being transformed? We must have a very clear idea of all this. Otherwise, we will not know what to change and will not be able to find the starting point. The study of history includes the study of the history of the modernization of our army. In the course of modernization, our army has taken crooked roads, achieved success, and learned historical lessons as well. Today, when we propose the building of a modernized army with special Chinese characteristics, we should pay close attention to summarizing experience and lessons."

"Break through the idea of settling things once and for all. The reform of our army cannot be accomplished in one or two attempts. This is because we need a process for the understanding of objective things and it is impossible to achieve the unity of subjective ideas with objective reality in a single stroke. Moreover, objective things are constantly developing and changing, therefore, after acquiring understanding of the past process of objective things, we should continue to acquire understanding of the new developments of objective things. Due to the constant development of military science and technology and the emergence of new characteristics in modern wars, we should deepen our understanding and carry out reform accordingly. Otherwise, we may lag behind. It is thus obvious that we should regard reform as a protracted task."

"Break with the idea of sticking to old ways. As reform is a process of destroying the old and establishing the new, it is bound to encounter obstructions from outdated conventional ideas and force of habit. It usually happens in the history of war that a triumphant army always fondly regards its past successful experience to the hindrance of its progress, thus following the beaten track in the face of development in warfare."

"Now we are carrying out the new struggle of building a modernized army with special Chinese characteristics. Many of our veteran comrades have made their contributions to the life-and-death struggles."

"First of all, we should stress the main points and concentrate our forces on developing the most urgently needed defensive weapons and equipment Second, we should update the equipment in an orderly way and step by step, allowing the coexistence of outmoded and modern equipment and of ordinary and advanced technology."

"We should develop the most urgently needed new types of weapons and equipment as soon as possible. The development of modern science and technology has enormously expanded the destructive force of weapons. In future wars against aggression, we should still stress the decisive role of man but under no circumstances should we neglect the important role of weapons. Without advanced weapons and equipment, we shall pay a higher price and prolong the time for winning the war. We should make the best use of our time and strive to change the backwardness of our weapons and equipment. In the new historical period, the central task of our party is to lead the people in carrying out socialist construction. The modernization of our army must be suited to the development of the national economy. We have a large population, a poor foundation, and limited funds. Therefore, we should not incur huge military expenditures as the superpowers do. Nor should we blindly pursue large-scale and rapid modernization of the army regardless of our national economic conditions. In developing weapons and equipment, we should make overall arrangements and scientific planning."

"Thus, in regard to the important reforms in army building, all units should enthusiastically offer suggestions on the basis of the overall situation. It is necessary to boldly and resolutely reform without delay war preparation work, education and training, instruction in the academies and institutions, and logistical and security work provided that it is our duty to do so, that we make sure that it is necessary to do so, and that the conditions are ripe. Malpractices having to do with ideological style and methods of work, such as bureaucracy and the practices of seeking personal gain by capitalizing on one's powers, of paying lip service, and of holding back unpleasant information, should be reformed immediately and the sooner the better. Reforms in this regard do not affect the overall situation. There is no need to spend much money or to recruit more people. The only thing that counts is our attitude. In the course of reform, it is necessary to emphasize the need to listen to experts and specialists, to give full play to the role of research organs, to perfect the things created by the masses, and to translate the research results achieved by the special organs into actual mass action."

"Despite his growing importance as Deng's right-hand man, however, he failed to make much of an impression on ordinary Chinese. Many, particularly intellectuals mocked his foppish dress, his jovial, often coarse manner, and reputation as an ageing playboy. For many he was a buffoon, a powerful one but hardly a man of weight. Then, in June 1989, the joking stopped. Overnight, Yang Shangkun became perhaps the most hated man in China. He had performed the ultimate act of loyalty - when Deng said open fire he obeyed."

"The modernization of an army is closely related to the political system, economic strength, military strategy, and scientific and technological level of a state. The orientation and path of its building and the focal point of its development are particularly restricted by the politics, tactics, and military strategy of the state, the combat tasks shouldered by the armed forces in future wars, and the conditions on the battlefields. The conditions in our country and in our army differ from those in other countries; therefore, in modernizing our army, we cannot copy the patterns of other countries, but must adhere to a "Chinese pattern," adapt our- selves to China's national conditions, and have our own special characteristics. We will always lag behind others if we copy other people in modernizing our army."

"Taking the modernization of our army as the key task is determined by the history and practical conditions of our army. This is an inexorable demand placed on our army by modern warfare. This is also the road our army should follow in order to advance to a higher stage. Generally speaking, the level of revolutionization of our army ranks first in the world. Armies of capitalist countries simply cannot attain such a high level of revolutionization. This is the absolute superiority of our army. The level of modernization and modern scientific knowledge of our army is not high and its weapons and equipment are comparatively backward. These are the weak links of our army. Modern warfare has manifested unprecedentedly new characteristics, and placed higher demands on the modernization of the army. If we fail to enhance the level of modernization of our army, it is difficult to adapt ourselves to modern warfare, and fulfill the sacred tasks of safeguarding the motherland the defending peace."