“In short, only socialism can reconstruct economic life so that the working masses and the poor peasants are no longer totally enslaved to the capitalists. Yes, there are great obstacles on the road to socialism: the illiteracy of the masses and their serious lack of experience. But not trying to overcome these weaknesses to build socialism would mean "contemplating" the enslavement of the masses by the capitalists without doing anything.”
Karl Radek
“A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.”
Will Durant