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Note, this film and quote is idealist and not based in historical and dialectical materialism. Keep this in mind. This is mostly a motivational post using a socialist sympathetic actor's quote. Discussion is welcome.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

---Chaplin, Charlie, performer. The Great Dictator. 1940.

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[–] redline@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This speech definitely moved me, even a few years before my politics started shifting towards where they are now.

Does anyone know more about chaplin's personal political beliefs over the course of his life?

[–] Imnecomrade@hexbear.net 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

This is from NATOpedia, but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin

Monsieur Verdoux and communist accusations

Chaplin claimed that the Barry trials had "crippled [his] creativeness", and it was some time before he began working again. In April 1946, he finally began filming a project that had been in development since 1942. Monsieur Verdoux was a black comedy, the story of a French bank clerk, Verdoux (Chaplin), who loses his job and begins marrying and murdering wealthy widows to support his family. Chaplin's inspiration for the project came from Orson Welles, who wanted him to star in a film about the French serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. Chaplin decided that the concept would "make a wonderful comedy", and paid Welles $5,000 for the idea.

Chaplin again vocalised his political views in Monsieur Verdoux, criticising capitalism and arguing that the world encourages mass killing through wars and weapons of mass destruction. Because of this, the film met with controversy when it was released in April 1947; Chaplin was booed at the premiere, and there were calls for a boycott. Monsieur Verdoux was the first Chaplin release that failed both critically and commercially in the United States. It was more successful abroad, and Chaplin's screenplay was nominated at the Academy Awards. He was proud of the film, writing in his autobiography, "Monsieur Verdoux is the cleverest and most brilliant film I have yet made."

The negative reaction to Monsieur Verdoux was largely the result of changes in Chaplin's public image. Along with the damage of the Joan Barry scandal, he was publicly accused of being a communist. His political activity had heightened during World War II, when he campaigned for the opening of a Second Front to help the Soviet Union and supported various Soviet–American friendship groups. He was also friendly with several suspected communists, and attended functions given by Soviet diplomats in Los Angeles. In the political climate of 1940s America, such activities meant Chaplin was considered, as Larcher writes, "dangerously progressive and amoral". The FBI wanted him out of the country, and launched an official investigation in early 1947.

Chaplin denied being a communist, instead calling himself a "peacemonger", but felt the government's effort to suppress the ideology was an unacceptable infringement of civil liberties. Unwilling to be quiet about the issue, he openly protested against the trials of Communist Party members and the activities of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Chaplin received a subpoena to appear before HUAC but was not called to testify. As his activities were widely reported in the press, and Cold War fears grew, questions were raised over his failure to take American citizenship. Calls were made for him to be deported; in one extreme and widely published example, Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish HUAC, told Congress in June 1947: "[Chaplin's] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once."

In 2003, declassified British archives belonging to the British Foreign Office revealed that author and social critic George Orwell secretly accused Chaplin of being a secret communist and a friend of the USSR in the 1949 Orwell's list document. Chaplin's name was one of 35 that Orwell gave to the Information Research Department (IRD), a secret British Cold War propaganda department which worked closely with the CIA. Chaplin was not the only actor in America whom Orwell accused of being a secret communist.

Move to Switzerland and A King in New York

I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States.

— Charlie Chaplin's press release regarding his decision not to seek re‑entry to the US

Chaplin did not attempt to return to the United States after his re-entry permit was revoked, and instead sent his wife to settle his affairs. The couple decided to settle in Switzerland and, in January 1953, the family moved into their permanent home: Manoir de Ban, a 14-hectare (35-acre) estate overlooking Lake Geneva in Corsier-sur-Vevey. Chaplin put his Beverly Hills house and studio up for sale in March, and surrendered his re-entry permit in April. The next year, his wife renounced her US citizenship and became a British citizen. Chaplin severed the last of his professional ties with the United States in 1955, when he sold the remainder of his stock in United Artists, which had been in financial difficulty since the early 1940s.

Chaplin remained a controversial figure throughout the 1950s, especially after he was awarded the International Peace Prize by the communist-led World Peace Council, and after his meetings with Zhou Enlai and Nikita Khrushchev. He began developing his first European film, A King in New York, in 1954. Casting himself as an exiled king who seeks asylum in the United States, Chaplin included several of his recent experiences in the screenplay. His son, Michael, was cast as a boy whose parents are targeted by the FBI, while Chaplin's character faces accusations of communism. The political satire parodied HUAC and attacked elements of 1950s culture – including consumerism, plastic surgery, and wide-screen cinema. In a review, the playwright John Osborne called it Chaplin's "most bitter" and "most openly personal" film. In a 1957 interview, when asked to clarify his political views, Chaplin stated "As for politics, I am an anarchist. I hate government and rules – and fetters ... People must be free."

It seems he was an anarchist socialist, a little anti-communist and liberal, but anti-imperialist. Not the perfect role model, but his heart was in the right place most of the time. I believe this film quote can be seen as favorable to communists and against dictatorships of the bourgeoisie specifically.

[–] roux@hexbear.net 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I just checked his Wikipedia page and I guess he's had strong leftist lean all his life but in an interview in 1957, he stated that he was an anarchist.

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

I mean this speech definitely reeks of utopian idealism and lacks any type of systematic solutions so that tracks

I think this is a fine speech that definitely moved me the first time I heard it. I think it's odd people expecting a marxian analysis in a Hollywood film produced during the red scare (Chaplin was banned from the US IIRC).

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The pinnacle of idealism.

Nice sentiments but he only mentions “greed” in passing and never mentions capitalism or political economy.

The premise of the movie is “wot if Hitler but woke and good”. If Hitler was woke and good he would never have been anywhere near power, and the moment he started talking like this he would be deposed by another Nazi.

Appeals to “Liberty” and “Democracy” are always suspect, as the vague appeals to these ideals is a hallmark of Liberalism and even imperialism, with color revolutions often waving these banners.

There’s no systematic or radical analysis here. Only moralism and “let’s just be good” and “time will fix everything” and “just stop being greedy or get rid of the individual greedy guys”.

[–] Imnecomrade@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I do agree, this quote and film is lacking theory and isn't grounded in historical and dialectical materialism, as well as being heavily idealist. I was debating on whether I should post this, but I viewed certain segments of the quote to be inspirational and have helped moved people to the left in the past. I figured it would be a nice, feel-good, motivational post, but do take it with a grain of salt. The post title I believe is the most important from the quote and the main takeaway.

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

Sure it can move some people left if they are Liberals, but in my opinion it kind of leads them into the rough and off the correct path