“From “Interview with Karl Marx”, in ‘Chicago Tribune’, January 5, 1879.
“Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism, do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?”
“No great movement”, Karl answered, “has ever been inaugurated without bloodshed. The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country gives proof of this, and as for assassination,” he went on to say, “it is not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; kings have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted before socialism was born”. [Marx Karl, a cura di Saul K. Padover, On History and People]