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Alexander Zinoviev

166 quotes

“According to my observation, it is above all the fantastic which prevails in S-F, that is to say these absurdities with scientific pretensions which have absolutely nothing in common with science. p.131”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[...] literature plays a sort of ideological role; it instills in men perspectives of humanity. p. 132”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a sociological law according to which systems which have contact end up looking alike... p. 138 and 144”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not for any ideology, I am for Man, for the Human being with a capital H, I am neither for socialism, nor for communism, nor for capitalism... . 142”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dissident movement in Russia, despite everything, remains compliant with the regime. It is a diet product. For my part, I stay outside of this whole society. I don't fight any diet. p. 143”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I address every man, my writings seek to reach what is human in every living being. p. 143”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The S-F is a very powerful, very modern tool, [...]. p. 143”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Furthermore, if people seek power, it is not for power per se, but for the material advantages that their position and influence could provide them. p. 42”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communist society is a veritable paradise for parasites. p. 42”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I must insist on the fact that communist society does not only have negative aspects. I would even say that its positive aspects are absolutely fundamental and that the negative points result directly from them. p. 48”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Others question the real facts and make mistakes. For my part, I am ignorant of this side of reality and I am hardly wrong. There are several ways to find the truth of things: for me, it's always in my head and in my heart.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The disease of our time is mediocrity.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in The 2012 Alexandre Zinoviev Birthday Book, interview with Alexandre Zinoviev by J.J. Lafaye in 1991 in Munich (trans. Jean-Jacques Lafaye for the journal Connaissance des Arts et "La Marche de l'Homme" (L'Harmattan, …
“Although Russia was the first victim of the global Americanisation, one should realise, that the whole Western Europe is affected. The liberal democracy belongs to the past. So does classical Capitalism. We are already situated in a post-democratic era: The new ruling class has realised that one cannot solve the problems of mankind through democracy.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Der ewige Dissident" in Jungle World 21(1999)
“I discovered a law of social organization that I call the “law of social regeneration” and which can be stated as follows: when a social system collapses, but the men and the political framework remain unchanged, the new social system resembles the one that has just disappeared. Under this law, many elements of Sovietism were preserved or regenerated.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Western societies were not born in a day. They were formed over the centuries, at the cost of devastating wars, fierce social struggles and enormous human sacrifices. Western values did not come from nowhere either: they are based on religious and philosophical doctrines which are not universal and which therefore cannot be applied to just anyone at any time. What's more, it is not the real Western model that has been implemented here, but its propaganda version.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Putin and the West”, Alexandre Zinoviev (comments collected by Galia Arckman) (trans. Galia Arckman), www.politiqueinternationale.com, nº 92, nº 92, 2001, p. https://archives.politiqueinternationale.com/revue/read2.php?…
“the mathematical modeling of social phenomena only makes sense and can only give a positive result under one condition: if the modelers have at their disposal a scientific theory of the objects modeled. The model is not a theory, the model is only one of the means.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“the model gives good and solid results, provided there is a scientific theory.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And people will be mislead in such a way that they will chew what they are given and be satisfied. You see, with modern means of manipulation, manipulative people can do anything. Not to mention medical means. They'll just make and give pills, injections, and any number of people - any number of people can be made into anything.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Alexandre Zinoviev”, Alexandre Zinoviev (comments collected by O. Kozyreva and S. Pudenko) (trans.?), Vostok, nº 5, August 2003, p. http://zinoviev.info/wps/archives/86 (read online)
“It is the characteristic of totalitarian systems to understand nothing about humor.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Communism was an ideal for me. But above all an education system: […]. I was therefore educated and raised as an idealist communist, in the sense that Thomas More, Campanella, Charles Fourier or Saint-Simon understood it, who mean a lot to me. But this communism was perverted and betrayed by the leaders of the Party. The reality I observed did not correspond at all to the ideals of communism.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“F.B._ What is your relationship with Alexander Solzhenitsyn? A.Z. _ I've never had one and I don't want to have one. As a writer, his "work" is mediocre, overvalued. And as a thinker, it's close to nullity. I am looking to the future, and Solzhenitsyn, to the past.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The testament of a sentinel””, Alexandre Zinoviev (comments collected by François Busnel) (trans. Valéry Chemelkine), 'Express, nº online, 01/03/2005, p. https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/le-testament-d-une-sentinel…
“The intellectual level of Westerners has never been very high. This is still the case today: you don't have to be intelligent to have power. Westerners create computer models, but they don't have scientific models.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I argued from the beginning that in the socio-political sphere, Westernism seeks to strengthen the non-democratic aspect of the system of power and administration, to strengthen the role of the state, to introduce non-democratic elements into the system of power and to make democracy a means of manipulating the masses and a camouflage for the totalitarian aspect.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The effectiveness of the Westernist economy is conditioned by three laws: the rational organization of business; brutal work discipline; maximum use of the means of production and labor force.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Western society is undemocratic, totalitarian in its very essence - at the level of production cells. And that is why it is democratic in its superstructure, in its ideology. There is a sort of law of constancy of the sum of democracy and totalitarianism.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...Social laws are immutable. You can destroy a nation, but you cannot destroy the laws by which nations are formed and exist. If the West faces a real threat to its existence, it will not stop at reducing the world's population. I'm pretty sure AIDS, SARS, etc. are all man-made viruses. And I am absolutely certain that in the decades to come, the United States will see China break up into dozens of states. This is all the more inevitable since a billion and a half Chinese are violating the biosociological optimum of humanity.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Biotechnology is likely to play a role in reducing the world's population, eliminating unwanted peoples, etc. But no matter what we invent, the heart of society will remain the natural man with a human body and a human intellect.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Alexandre Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zinoviev by Mikhail Boiko and Alexei Nilogov”, Alexandre Zinoviev (trans. S.L.), Zavtra, nº № 20 (652), 05.17.2006, p. Electronic publication in Center of Humanitarian T…
“Communism was so organic for Russia and had so powerfully entered the way of life and psychology of Russians that the destruction of communism was equivalent to the destruction of Russia and of the Russian people as a historic people. [...] In a word, they [the anti-communists] aimed at communism but killed Russia.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I consider him [i.e Stalin] one of the greatest persons in the history of mankind. In the history of Russia he was, in my opinion, even greater than Lenin. Until Stalin's death I was anti-Stalinist, but I always regarded him as a brilliant personality.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“New knowledge [of] the objects of investigation comes not through observation and experiment (as happens on the empirical level) but through logical judgments in the framework of a given or newly developed theory (i.e., special groups of concepts and statements united by rules of logic)”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foundations of the logical theory of scientific knowledge (Complex Logic). Reidel Publishing Company. trad : Guidi Kûng and David Dinsmore Comey. 1973. page VII. part editorial introduction
“Today, fear of the truth is not a fear of the unknown, but a fear of something we know very well. People are afraid of themselves because they know who they are. p. 302”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“School is not only a preparation of men to receive an education and a specialty. School is a sphere of social life which is subject to the same laws as the whole. It reflects in itself the whole society with all its properties and problems, which only transform in relation to the age and position of citizens. p. 502”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marxism emerged not only with the intention of explaining scientifically everything in the world, but in addition to this, as a representative of the ‘hurt and injured’ classes of the world, expressing thus the centuries old dream of an earthly paradise. But dreams and wishes have nothing to do with science.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All in all, Engels talked so much rot of every kind, that now all the world’s academies of science should be directed to rectify his mistakes and idiocies.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One physicist writes a study on microphysics, but another writes a book on the importance of Lenin’s and Engels’ works for the development of physics; one mathematician proves theorems, another publishes demagoguery on ingenious mathematical ideas of classical Marxists.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“None of the Marxist concepts (literally – not a single one!) matches the logical rules of scientific concepts.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The firmest proof that Marxism is not science but an ideology is Marxism’s attitude to the experience of the real communist (or socialist) societies.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the [communist] authorities acquire from Marxism a splendid method and abounding phraseology to justify whatever piggery.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historically, Marxism was born with the ambition of explaining everything in the world scientifically. It is known, that Marx even dealt with mathematics. Although he could not solve problems which are nowadays clear for even asinine pupils, Marx left behind for the future generations his smart tips.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Marxism disguises itself as science and owing to this it is easier for Marxism to portray the existing society as acting on the basis of scientific laws of his history, to portray the leadership’s selfishness and idiocy as ingenious scientific foresight etc.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unlike science, an ideology is constructed of conventional ambiguous expressions, which require interpretation. It is impossible to verify or experimentally confirm an ideological statement, one cannot refute these for they are meaningless. […] While arising, an ideology may have pretensions to be scientific. But having become an ideology, it loses all the major characteristics of science.”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the present case, historical judgment furthermore obstructs the scientific understanding of the society that interests us, because the stories here impose functions foreign to this society. p. 40”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historical judgment focuses attention on phenomena from which we must above all abstract ourselves if we want to understand what this new society born in a given historical context really is. The historical process is also, of course, a reality, but it is a reality which disappears into the past. The new society which has matured within him quickly got rid of a historical covering which encumbered it and had become foreign to him. It constitutes another historical environment more in keeping with its nature. Sociological reality is designed to remain. She is looking to the future. p. 41”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Historical consciousness is condemned, for its part, to take everything at face value; she sees the origin of communist society in the action of supporters of communist doctrine and links the development of opposing forces to the action of its enemies. She is, for example, incapable of understanding that without the help of representatives of the privileged strata of the old Russian society the new society would not have been able to last a year. p. 41”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the present case the man who reasons as a historian is only a petty bourgeois in disguise. p. 42”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From a petty bourgeois point of view something normal and natural is "something" good. this type of thinking makes no difference between the subjective appreciation of phenomena and their objective qualities. p. 35”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who thinks like a petty bourgeois notices directly observable facts and immediately draws hasty generalizations without the slightest analysis. His judgments are subjective, that is, they bear the mark of his personal inclinations. p. 35”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who thinks like a scientist seeks not only to note the facts, but also to analyze them taking into account their chance or their necessity, he tries to analyze the laws that immediate observation does not discern and to 'eliminate the influence of one's own inclinations on the results of one's reflections. 35”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Petty-bourgeois thought claims to see its results directly confirmed by observable facts. Scientific thought, on the contrary, knows that its results do not directly coincide with observable facts. They only provide means by which concrete facts can be explained and predicted. p. 35-36”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The petty bourgeois is inclined to pass off what he feels as the truth. p. 36”
Alexander Zinoviev (1922–2006) said by 2006 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source