Rudolf Rocker

About the author

Rudolf Rocker: Voice of Labour Movement

Born on March 25, 1873, in Mainz, Germany, Rudolf Rocker was an influential figure in the anarchist and syndicalist movements. He wrote extensively, advocating for anarchist theories and participating in international anarcho-syndicalist events, despite being mostly self-taught. Although subjected to exile and persecution, he continued to work tirelessly for the cause of workers' rights and freedom, until his death on September 19, 1958.

Rocker's writings, including 'Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice', and 'Nationalism and Culture', contributed significantly to anarchist ideologies, particularly anarcho-syndicalism. His emphasis on trade unionism as a path towards achieving anarchist society shaped the strategies of various labour movements globally. Furthermore, his advocacy for a variety of anarchist approaches, encapsulated in his idea of 'anarchism without adjectives', showcased his versatile thought and inclusivity, enriching the global anarchism movement.

Date of Birth: March 25, 1873

Date of Death: September 19, 1958

Country of Birth: Germany

Political Ideas: Anarcho-syndicalist, Anarchist Without Adjectives

Quotes Available: 24

Quotes by Rudolf Rocker

In Russia the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat has not led to Socialism, but to the domination of a new bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole people.

Power operates only destructively, bent always on forcing every manifestation of life into the straitjacket of its laws. Its intellectual form of expression is dead dogma, its physical form brute force.

Common to all Anarchists is the desire to free society of all political and social coercive institutions which stand in the way of development of a free humanity.

The Anarcho-Syndicalists know that wars are only waged in the interest of the ruling classes; they believe, therefore, that any means is justifiable that can prevent the organised murder of peoples.

Just as you cannot see, at pleasure, with your ears and you cannot, at will, hear with your eyes so too you cannot make the state act in the interests of the working people. As an organ in the social body, its purpose is for the repression of self-determination.

The urge for social justice can only develop properly and be effective when it grows out of man's sense of personal freedom and is based on that. In other words Socialism will be free or it will not be at all.

One who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order at last becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling.

Political rights do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace.

We have come more and more under the dominance of mechanics and sacrificed living humanity to the dead rhythm of the machine without most of us even being conscious of the monstrosity of the procedure.

The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength.

True intellectual culture and the demand for higher interests in life does not become possible until man has achieved a certain material standard of living, which makes him capable of these.

The view which sees in every capitalist only a profit machine may very well meet the demands of propaganda, but it is conceived much too narrowly and does not correspond to reality.

Organization is, after all, only a means to an end. When it becomes an end in itself, it kills the spirit and the vital initiative of its members and sets up that domination by mediocrity which is the characteristic of all bureaucracies.

For two decades the supporters of Bolshevism have been hammering it into the masses that dictatorship is a vital necessity for the defense of the so-called proletarian interests against the assaults of counter-revolution and for paving the way for socialism.

The reaction always begins where one tries to bring life to a certain norm. That is why yesterday's revolutionaries so often become today's reactionaries.

The growth of technology at the expense of human personality, and especially the fatalistic submission with which the great majority surrender to this condition, is the reason why the desire for freedom is less alive among men today and has with many of them given place completely to a desire for economic security.

I am an anarchist not because I believe anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal.

The worst crime of any type of state is just that it always tries to force the rich diversity of social life into definite forms and adjust it to one particular form, which allows for no wider outlook and regards the previously exciting status as finished.

In the pettiest struggle, born of the needs of the moment, there must be mirrored the great goal of social liberation, and each such struggle must help to smooth the way and strengthen the spirit which transforms the inner longing of its bearers into will and deed.

In Russia, the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat has not led to socialism, but to the domination of a new bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole people.

For the machine, because of the way it is built, can work only in a given direction, no matter who pulls its levers.

The deeper we trace the political influences in history, the more are we convinced that the "will to power" has up to now been one of the strongest motives in the development of human social forms.

Modern anarcho-syndicalism is a direct continuation of those social aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First International and which were best understood and most strongly held by the libertarian wing of the great workers' alliance.

Dictatorship, the most extreme form of tyranny, can never lead to social liberation.

Non-Profit Anarchist Clothing Coop ★ Free Worldwide Shipping On ALL Orders!