The title of this post was found on page 88 of "Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions" by authors Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec.  Published this year, I discovered the book to be concisely written and well-sourced.

The volume succinctly summarizes leftist rebellions against civilized societies throughout history as well as the commonalities found in each conflict. In the book, an upheaval in ancient Rome and The French Revolution are described as "proto-communist", obviously, because these revolutions predated the writings of Karl Marx.  However, the designation is a good reminder of how Marxism is, in fact, a mere reiteration of age-old rebellions; of envious greed and nihilistic savagery rising against civilized society in a continually cyclical attempt to permanently subvert natural law.

To be sure, it is far easier to steal and destroy than it is to create and produce; and cause and effect has rippled down through history, like gravity, over and again.

Without stealing any thunder from the book, a commonality identified within previous proto-communist and Marxist revolutions are herewith described in the words of Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008):

… the uprising went unresisted, to a man – even as those men and soldiers saw what was coming. And yet they did not respond accordingly.  Terror has that effect. By the time it's felt, it's too late…

Every man always has handy a dozen glib little reasons why he is right not to sacrifice himself.