Meetings were an important means of Communist control. They left people no free time, and eliminated the private sphere. The pettiness which dominated them was justified on the grounds that prying into personal details was a way of ensuring thorough soul-cleansing. In fact, pettiness was a fundamental characteristic of a revolution in which intrusiveness and ignorance were celebrated, and envy was incorporated into the system of control. . Jung Chang
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. - Unknown

  2. In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want;... - Karl Marx

  3. The first duty of a man is to think for himself - Unknown

  4. You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker - Malcolm X

  5. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. - Vladimir Lenin

More Quotes By Jung Chang
  1. They were endowed with the qualities of youth- they were rebellious, fearless, eager to fight for a 'just cause', thirsty for adventure and action. They were also irresponsible, ignorant, and easy to manipulate- and prone to violence. Only they could give Mao the immense force...

  2. She was a pious Buddhist and every day in her prayers asked Buddha not ro reincarnate her as a woman. "Let me become a cat or dog, but not a woman, " was her constant murmur as she shuffled around the house, oozing apology with...

  3. Every time she went home she found herself being criticized. She was accused of being "too attached to her family, " which was condemned as a "bourgeois habit, " and had to see less and less of her own mother.

  4. My mother could see that as far as my father's relationship with the Party was concerned, she was an outsider. One day, when she ventured some critical comments about the situation and got no response from him, she said bitterly, "You are a good Communist,...

  5. Dr. Xia was working as a salaried doctor attached to another man's medicine shop, which did not give him much chance to display his skill. But he worked had, and gradually his reputation began to grow. Soon he was invited to go on his first...

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