50 Communist Quotes For The Equitable Distribution Of Wealth

By Clifton Sankofa

School Leader, Language Arts Expert & Master Quote Curator

Published December 16, 2022

Please take a moment to check out our communist quotes.

We have communist sayings from various scholars, political figures, and leaders.

What is communism?

Communism is a philosophy based on the equal distribution of wealth among a nation’s citizens.

It calls for shared ownership of all property and, in theory, puts the control of production, agriculture, and manufacturing in the hands of the working class or proletariat.

Below are some key takeaway points about communism:

Communism rejects capitalism
Communism advocates public control of production
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are considered the pioneers of communism.

Many people have heard of the word communism but are unfamiliar with what it means.

Communism became popular in Europe and spread to other nations across the globe.

People confuse communism and socialism all of the time.

Communism and socialism have some things in common but have different core values.

Communism is a philosophy that aims for a classless society.

In the ideal scenario, all community members would be equal, with no class divisions.

The government is at the center of the means of production and distributes goods/services/resources equally among the people.

In the past, countries have implemented communist systems.

Critics of communism suggest its lack of success is because it is a flawed system.

Advocates for communism blame human error as the reason it is not more popular.

Communism today

Today, China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos, and Vietnam still practice communism.

To learn more, check out our communism quotes below.

Short communist quotes

Here are some brief quotes about communism.

1. “Let’s not talk about communism.” — Boris Yeltsin

2. “Communism forgets that life is individual.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

3. “For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog.” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn

4. “Reforming communism is like baking snowballs.” — Leszek Kolakowski

5. “Communism was just an idea, just pie in the sky.” — Boris Yeltsin

6. “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” — Frank Zappa

7. “Communism was a very defective answer to some very good questions.” — Tony Judt

8. “How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin.” — Ronald Reagan

9. “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” — Margaret Thatcher

10. “How do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” — Ronald Reagan

Communist quotes by Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx

Lenin and Marx are well known for their push to spread communism.

11. “The goal of Socialism is Communism.” — Vladimir Lenin

12. “If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.” — Karl Marx

13. “A specter is haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.” — Karl Marx

14. “We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us.” — Vladimir Lenin

15. “Atheism is the natural and inseparable part of Communism.” — Vladimir Lenin

16. “Give us the child for eight years, and it will be a Bolshevik forever.” — Vladimir Lenin

17. “Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labor.” — Karl Marx

18. “Communism is Soviet government plus the electrification of the whole country.” — Vladimir Lenin

19. “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.” — Karl Marx

Communist quotes about work

Labor is at the center of any economic philosophy.

20. “Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.” — Karl Marx

21. “The ultimate weakness of Communism is that it robs man of that quality which makes him man.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

23. “Communism and socialism programs for intellectual control over society. Fascism a program for the social control of intellect.” — Robert M. Pirsig

24. “In communism, you’d threaten a dog into compliance, while in capitalism, obedience is obtained through bribes.” — Adam Johnson

25. “The principle of communism is the enrichment of the idle at the expense of the provident; it is plunder legalized.” — Mary Trimmer

26. “If communism ever reestablishes itself successfully upon earth, it must be on a foundation of soul’s brotherhood and the death of egoism.” — Sri Aurobindo

27. “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” — Helder Camara

28. “A Communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth, you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up.” — Winston Churchill

29. “God is on your side? Is He a Conservative? The Devil’s on my side; he’s a good Communist.” — Joseph Stalin

30. “The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.” — Bertrand Russell

Communist quotes about capitalism

These quotes demonstrate how life is impacted by the economies we have.

31. “You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths.” — Karl Marx

32. “You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.” — Karl Marx

32. “I have one question for those rulers: If communism is the wave of the future, why do you still need walls to keep people in and armies of secret police to keep them quiet?” — Ronald Reagan

33. “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.” — Ayn Rand

34. “Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.” — Thomas Sowell

35. “Everyone may be called “comrade,” but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.” — Thomas Sowell

36. “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck

37. “Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, while Marxism is the opposite.” — Henri Jeanson

38. “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.” — Ronald Reagan

39. “Communism is a society where each one works according to his abilities and gets according to his needs.” — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

40. “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” — Winston Churchill

More Communist quotes

Here is a diverse collection of quotes about communism.

41. “What Marxism, Leninism, and Stalinism failed to accomplish, we shall be in a position to achieve.” — Adolf Hitler

42. The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christians.” — H.L. Mencken

43. “Communism is inequality, but not as property is.” — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

44. “Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak.” — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

45. “Communism is a form of government under which every citizen at election time enjoys the privilege of voting Yes.” — Evan Esar

46. “The problem with Marxism is the proletariat isn’t going to rise up against capitalism and consumerism. The only time they’ll rise up is during a commercial break to either go to the bathroom or grab more beer.” — Jarod Kintz

47. “Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

48. “I have never been to the Right, nor have I been a Communist, because I have experienced, personally, both forms of totalitarianism. It is those who have never lived under tyranny who call me petit bourgeois.” — Eugene Ionesco

49. “The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.” — Bertrand Russell

50. “I went to Communism as one goes to a spring of fresh water, and I left Communism as one clambers out of a poisoned river strewn with the wreckage of flooded cities and the corpses of the drowned.” — Arthur Koestler