Noam Chomsky
Linguist and philosopher
I cannot improve on Rosa Luxemburg’s eloquent critique of Leninist doctrine: a true social revolution requires a “spiritual transformation in the masses degraded by centuries of bourgeois class rule . . . it is only by extirpating the habits of obedience and servility to the last root that the working class can acquire the understanding of a new form of discipline, self-discipline arising from free consent”. And as part of this “spiritual transformation”, a true social revolution will, furthermore, create – by the spontaneous activity of the mass of the population – the social forms that enable people to act as free creative individuals, with social bonds replacing social fetters, controlling their own destiny in freedom and solidarity.