Lumpenproletariat Quotes

“what is the actual role of Anarchism in the Russian revolution? It has become the sign of the common thief and plunderer; a large proportion of the innumerable thefts and acts of plunder of private persons are carried out under the name of 'Anarchist-Communism' - acts which rise up like a troubled wave against the revolution in every period of depression and in every period of temporary defensive. Anarchism has become in the Russian revolution, not the theory of the struggling proletariat, but the ideological sign-board of the counter-revolutionary lumpenproletariat, who, like a school of sharks, swarm in the wake of the battleship of the revolution. And therewith the historical career of Anarchism is well-nigh ended.”
― Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike

“Every human being, no matter how 'ignorant' or submerged in the 'culture of silence' he may be, is capable of looking critically at his world in dialogical encounter with others.”
― Richard Shaull, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“The vast Lumpenproletariat, the product of the devastating Thirty Years’ War, the masses of morally depraved people, of beggars and tramps, accustomed to easy pickings—such was the reservoir from which the Prussian army recruited its soldiers.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,