People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.
ATTRIBUTION:
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), German social philosopher. repr. In Karl Marx: Selected Works, vol. 2 (1942). Introduction to 1891 edition of Karl Marx, The Civil War in France (1871).
