And so we have to set up a special classroom for the poor, to teach the poor some bloody lessons from the past—all the crimes committed by the violent rebels, the followers of Marx. Shove the lessons of history down their throats. History, history. The crimes. The oppression. The famines. The disasters. Teach the poor that they must never try to seize power for themselves, because the rule of the poor will always be incompetent, and it will always be cruel. The poor are bloodthirsty. Uneducated. They don't have the skills. For their own sake, it must never happen. And they must understand that the dreamers, the idealists, the ones who say that they love the poor, will all become vicious killers in the end, and the ones who claim they can create something better will always end up by creating something worse. The poor must understand these essential lessons, chapters from history. And if they don't understand them, they must all be taken out and shot. Inattention or lack of comprehension cannot be allowed.
This is a quote from the play The Fever by Wallace Shawn. The play depicts a person who becomes sick while struggling to find a morally consistent way to live when faced with injustice, and harshly criticizes the United States' record in supporting the murder of communists and socialists. The play ends by saying that only blood spilled on their doorsteps will bring the complacent rich to change their selfish ways (which the NYT didn't like for being too radical).
Wallace Shawn is a socialist, Jewish actor and playwright who has:
supported whistleblower Chelsea Manning
worked as a speaker for Jewish Voice for Peace in October 2023 as an anti-Zionist Jew
narrated a political ad in April 2024 denouncing AIPAC influence