Karl August Wittfogel (6 September 1896, Woltersdorf – 25 May 1988, New York) was a German-American playwright, historian, and sinologist. Originally a Marxist and an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, after the Second World War Wittfogel was an equally fierce Anticommunist.
Read more about Karl August Wittfogel: Biography, Playwright, The Asiatic Mode of Production, Selected Works (in German), Interviews, Works (in English)
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“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
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