One of the fundamental characteristics of the proletarian revolution and communism is that they are collective and conscious creations of the working class. Thus we have to answer the following question: ‘What is class consciousness?’ Do we have to go through the same ideological process that accompanied previous revolutions? What does proletarian consciousness have in common with the type of intellectual process characteristic of past societies?
To distinguish class consciousness from all existing ideologies is above all to distinguish it from ideology in general. But we must also take account of the fantastic development of the productive forces, and equally of social thought, from which the communist revolution will be able to draw. We can understand that, just as communism is made possible by the development of the productive forces and the exacerbation of the internal contradictions of capitalism, proletarian consciousness also has its origins in a whole range of ideas developed in past societies. But at the same time, it represents the supercession of these ideas, under the pressure of the economic and social crisis of capitalist society.
The development of proletarian consciousness is thus based on a whole period of previous intellectual development.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth than to consider the history of humanity as an incoherent and ‘natural’ succession of facts, or as a mechanical chain of events. This conception of the determination of human history by the blind and irresistible force of ‘destiny’ must be rejected. What distinguishes the human being from the animal is that while the latter is entirely identified with its own activity, humans make their life activity the object of will and consciousness.
“In creating a world of objects by his practical activity, in his work upon inorganic nature, man proves himself a conscious species being… Admittedly, animals also produce. They build themselves nests, dwellings, like the bees, beavers, ants, etc. But an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young. It produces one—sidedly, whilst man produces universally. It produces only under the dominion of immediate physical need, whilst man produces even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom there from… Man therefore also forms things in accordance with the laws of beauty.” (Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)
Evidently, to speak of a wholly voluntary and lucid transformation of the world by humanity would also be false. Moreover, humans do not make history in an abstract or spiritual fashion.
“Men make their own history, but not of their own free will; not under circumstances they themselves have chosen but under the given and inherited circumstances with which they are directly confronted.” (Marx. Eighteenth Brumaire…)
Actions are determined by circumstances. “Consciousness is determined by existence”. The successive stages reached in the development of the productive forces are reflected in the progress of social thought. The relative degree of consciousness achieved by humans, or more precisely by social classes, in the course of the production of the means of subsistence and the shaping of the natural and social environment, is strictly determined by material circumstances.
The whole history of humanity expresses an increasingly fertile growth of the productive forces along with a growing capacity of human beings to become conscious of themselves, of their relations with others and with the world that surrounds them. The development of proletarian consciousness and the material revolution upon which this is based, continues, enriches and supersedes this legacy.
To attempt to describe the whole history of humanity is obviously impossible! We will limit ourselves here to a summary analysis of the most important stages of the ideological development of this history.
In the first stage of human development, i.e. the primitive community which knew neither production for sale nor exchange, human beings still made no differentiation between their own evolution and that of the natural forces which surrounded them. Evolving in a community which satisfied its needs in a direct manner, where there was no division of labour, where tools were, like food and housing, held in common, human beings conceived of themselves as an integral part of the human and natural milieu. This direct dependence that linked each person to the community and the natural environment led humanity to see and express itself in terms of a magical unity. The signs of this magical unity could be seen everywhere but the unity itself was more than these signs.
Thus language, which appeared early in history, became a magical link between human beings, their community and the forces of nature. This means of communication did not serve merely utilitarian purposes: it possessed a true power over nature of which it was a concrete and immediate expression, through the enforcement of taboos and interdicts. Certain hunting or gathering grounds could not be named or else uncontrollable forces were released. Magical spells were held to exercise a direct control over nature.
Human beings thus established a very close relationship between themselves and the surrounding natural world.
But if it is true that this harmonious relation between the material conditions of existence and the community expressed a fundamental unity between social life and the natural rhythm, between social being and thought, between concrete activity and language, we should not forget that we are still dealing with a society where the productive forces had hardly developed at all, where scarcity exerted its cruel domination over the whole of society. The community was at the mercy of natural forces, cataclysms (drought, storms, famines…), of an all—powerful nature which ruled and commanded. Man’s terror and wonder before the natural world on which he depended led rapidly to a primitive fetishism. Manifestations of nature (rain, heat, the wind, the stars etc), without yet really acquiring a divine nature, were understood as independent forces: active and terrible forces that had to be respected, feared and pacified.
It was not until this moment, when human beings abandoned a nomadic existence and began to cultivate the land, that the transition from simple magic to religious rites occurred.
“The hunter, when he sought to bring himself luck in the hunt, resorted to witchcraft and magic. The peasant, understanding the law which regulated the seasons, perceiving the normal succession from germination to maturity and then death, had to turn to other forms of thought to explain the natural forces. Thus we had the birth of myth and the conception of the spirit. (...) For the agricultural peoples the vital force resided in the natural elements, which contain both birth and death. There were many such elements with no logical link to connect them: they were seen as different aspects of a single force. These were the moon, the sun, woman, water, the snake etc (...) In all of these the vital force appeared as something separate, as existing for itself and real in itself.” (Herbert Kuhn).
This primitive fetishism of natural forces expresses the first attempts of human beings to explain the world and natural phenomena to themselves. But to the extent that they saw themselves entirely dominated by nature, human beings imagined a way to escape from or control nature through religion. Perhaps reality could be encapsulated in a single sacred concept? Agriculture (the first form of the influence of human beings over their natural environment) thus led to the consolidation in social thought of the illusion of the existence of a higher, essentially religious, power. Thus, as Marx explained:
“Religion is the self-consciousness and self esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again.” (Marx, Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of Right).
Later on the development of the social division of labour, the production of means of subsistence exceeding the immediate needs of the community, the appearance of a surplus… all these led to the disintegration of ancient social relations, to the dissolution of the primitive communities through the action of exchange. The communities began to exchange with each other the surplus from their production.
At this stage the development of the productive forces led to the systematic use of labour power and its exploitation through slavery. Thus agriculture, the exploitation of the land and the domestication of animals created a hitherto unimaginable source of wealth. This development led to the creation of social relations on a completely new basis. No longer were products and instruments of labour held in common; they became private property. With the division of labour it became necessary for men to procure the food and the instruments of labour which, naturally, assume the form of property. In the same way men became owners of a new source of food — cattle; and later on of a new means of production — slaves. At his side, woman, who has wholly lost her ancient matriarchal rights, remains merely the owner of the household goods. And parallel to the development of this great social division of labour arises the first great division of society into classes: master and slave, exploiters and exploited.
This growth of private property in the form of herds, slaves, luxury goods, means of production etc, this separation of producers from their products, the beginning of the exploitation of man by man, evidently leads human beings increasingly to become separate from nature and from themselves. The community is no longer a direct expression of the natural environment; it no longer consists of a series of egalitarian and harmonious relationships but on the contrary is now based on particular private property relationships. The individual gradually loses his objective and ancestral links with the community and his direct economic link with the means of subsistence. He becomes a competitor with his fellow man.
At this stage of its historic development the social organisation of the human community could no longer be guided by the will of the community as a whole. Rent by internal contradictions and irreconcilable social antagonisms commodity society was obliged to adopt a series of laws and rules which appeared to stand above society and whose aim was the maintenance of social order.
“And this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it and increasingly alienating itself from it, is the state.” (Engels, The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State)
In the same way, linked to the appearance of this political and juridical structure, the dominant mode of social thought became that which represented and justified the interests of the dominant and exploiting class. This thought is no longer the direct reflection of practical activity, no longer maintains the same intimate contact with the collective will; it is characterised, on the contrary, by the distance which it seeks to place between itself and reality. The ideas which in the primitive community were an expression of the language of real life became in commodity society the ideas of the dominant class.
Thus there arose at the same time as the political superstructure an ideological superstructure.
This new division of society into classes was thus justified and declared eternal by the dominant class. The reality of exploitation was veiled; the particular interests of a privileged minority were presented as the interests of society as a whole and as the precondition for progress. The division between manual and intellectual labour led to the creation of specialised strata whose role was the defence and development of these ideas.
In the years to come this justification of the exploitation of one class by another was constantly reaffirmed and strengthened. But the justification put forward was not always the same. With the development of the productive forces humanity acquired a greater capacity to understand reality. Each step along the march of progress, each victory of humanity over the domination of nature went hand in hand with the enrichment of ideas and of social understanding.
“Society developed and, during recent centuries, at an ever greater pace. The forms of labour are modified. The relation of men to each other, their attitude towards work, towards nature, towards the higher forces which dominate them, all these develop as well. And this is the origin of the evolution of our view of life and the world.” (Pannekoek, The Workers Councils)
Unlike any other animal society, even the most organised, humanity is not content with the simple unconscious reproduction of its life—activity.
The social needs of human beings grow with the material capacity for their satisfaction. Unlike animals human beings cannot respond to their needs solely on the basis of immediate satisfaction or on the basis of the infinite reproduction of a single process. They need an intermediary. Human beings must produce their means of subsistence but also make use of the means and instruments of production in an increasingly conscious way. Moreover, to accomplish this, human beings must develop their relationships with each other and transcend, more or less consciously, forms of organisation that stand in the way of progress.
The material transcendence of the old structures, of the old relations of production, is necessarily accompanied by the transcendence of old forms of social thought and of the dominant ideas of the past. This is not only because the development of the productive forces brings with it a development of social thought but also because a revolutionary class can effectively accomplish its historic tasks only by proving to the whole of society — in opposition to the class in power — the social effectiveness of the interests it represents. Thus each improvement of the material infrastructure of society corresponds to a similar development and enrichment of social thought.
Whenever a society reaches maturity from the point of view of material, i.e. productive, development, ideas, science, art and literature all flourish. Each step forward brought about by the development of social relations, all technical progress and social change, are marked by a corresponding revolution in the world of ideas. Thus one can say that capitalism represents an incredible ideological and material advance over all preceding Asiatic, feudal and ancient societies. The extraordinary impetus given by capitalism to technical and scientific progress demanded the systemisation of a rational and materialist analysis of reality if this progress was to be consolidated and maintained.
The triumph of this conception coincided with the zenith of bourgeois economic development.
Impatient to free society, which it had already conquered economically, from its primitiveness and old beliefs, bourgeois society embarked upon a rational critique of the old feudal dogmas. Already during the Renaissance when the bourgeoisie was gaining control of the Italian cities the ideological representatives of the bourgeoisie had challenged the sacred values of feudalism such as the immortality of the soul and the existence of a divine being. But even when bourgeois thought retained a religious character it tried to impose a religion, Protestantism, which was more accommodating to the ideas of usury and interest.
Everywhere the bourgeoisie imposed new relations of production based, not on the direct dependence of the serf on the feudal lord but on the conception of juridical equality, on the existence of individuals who were ‘free’ to sell their labour power on the market. This was the basis of capitalist social relationships which was now conquering the old superstitions… and was to conquer the world.
“Almost overnight the world grew nearly ten times larger; instead of a quarter of a hemisphere the whole terrestrial globe now stretched out before the western Europeans who rushed to take possession of all the remaining corners. At the same time as the narrow boundaries around the country of origin fell away so too did the thousand year old fetters of medieval thought. An infinitely broader horizon opened up to man’s physical and mental gaze.” (Engels, Origin of the Family)
This mental awakening, this increased capacity to understand reality, physical, natural and human phenomena... the origins of all this lie in the economic power of the bourgeoisie; in the impetus given by bourgeois society to the means of production and productive technique. Scientific materialism is the ideological expression of this growing capacity to ‘master’ nature and understand its laws.
“Nature remains a ‘realm of necessity’ on which man depends. But he is capable of regulating this dependence in a rational way inasmuch as his knowledge of its laws improves. And he obtains this knowledge from the socialisation of nature, i.e. from his own practical transformation of nature in production.” F. Jakubowski, Ideology and Superstructure in Historical Materialism)
But this understanding was limited since:
- the development of the productive forces was still insufficient for human beings to satisfy their social needs. Under capitalism the relationship between humanity and nature was broken, soiled and polluted. Capitalism had socialised production but not the mode of appropriation of production.
— the bourgeoisie, being an exploiting class, is forced to conceal the reality of this exploitation. Above all it is unable to recognise the historical and transitory nature of every mode of production. These illusions permeate bourgeois ideology.
“The bourgeoisie were the first to recognise the economy as a total process, operating under a unified set of laws. It was capitalism that had brought about this unity and created a coherent society in contrast to the particularity of all earlier social orders. But these laws appear to the bourgeoisie to be natural laws, which depend on the lack of consciousness of their participants. If the bourgeoisie were to recognise these laws as social and historical this would also mean that it would have to recognise its own domination as historically limited. Class interest and class consciousness contradict each other...
“But this fact alone cannot account for the ideological nature of the consciousness which springs from the social position of the bourgeoisie. There is a much more decisive contradiction which is that between social production and private appropriation. The means of production are produced socially and for society but are in the hands of individual capitalists. ‘Capital is not a personal but a social power’, but the movements of this power are directed by the individual interests of the owners of capital who do not have an overall view of the social role of their activity. The laws and the social function of capital proceed but ‘only over their heads, only irrespective of their will, without their consciousness’ (Lukacs). Private ownership of the means of production means that the only possible view from the position of the bourgeoisie is that of the individual capitalist; and to the individual capitalist the laws which result from the alienation of labour must appear to be independent of man.” (F. Jakubowski, Ideology and Superstructure)
Thus the objective limitations of capitalist production, of commodity production in general are reflected in the limitations of bourgeois thought. It is the recognition of these limits that leads us to differentiate between bourgeois ideology and the class consciousness of the proletariat. Certainly bourgeois ideology expresses an attempt to become conscious of the world. But this consciousness was already limited, and developed grave illusions. This is for the two reasons outlined above: the nature of capitalist production and the inability of the bourgeoisie to admit the transitory nature of capitalist production.
“The essence of commodity — structure has often been pointed out. Its basis is that a relation between people takes on the character of a thing and thus acquires a ‘phantom objectivity’, an autonomy that seems so strictly rational and all embracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental nature: the relation between people” (Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness)
In the same way the social relationships between classes appear as natural relationships between things. Moreover, separated from the fruits of their labour, producers see their social activity as independent of themselves and outside their control.
“All these consequences result from the fact that the worker is related to the product of his labour as to an alien object. For on this premise it is clear that the more the worker spends himself the more powerful becomes the alien world of objects which he creates over and against himself, the poorer he himself — his inner world — becomes. It is the same in religion. The more man puts into god the less he retains in himself. The worker puts his life into the object but now his life no longer belongs to him but to the object. Hence the greater the activity the greater is the worker’s lack of objects. Whatever the product of his labour is, he is not. Therefore the greater this product the less he is himself. The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labour becomes an object an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently as something alien to him and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him. It means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien... Political economy conceals the estrangement inherent in the nature of labour by not considering the direct relationship between the worker (labour) and production.” (Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts)
This alienation must inevitably be reflected on the level of social thought. In fact “the development of thought is merely the reflection of the real development transported and transposed in the brain of man.” (Marx, Capital Vol. 1.) This is why the material limitations of commodity production, which implies the reification of the social conditions of production (that is, they appear as objects, as things), are reflected in a corresponding limitation of social thought. Capitalist alienation is reflected on a social level so that:
— thought and science appear as essentially contemplative activities. Thought is like a ‘glove’ which is made to ‘fit’ reality or a cast that is moulded by, but does not transform reality.
— social relations are studied as phenomena obeying supra—historical laws. Bourgeois ideology has no place for human activity which could transform these laws, or transform humanity itself.
— the natural sciences were the prototype of an ‘exact science’ that, separated from its object, is restricted to the contemplation of reality drawing conclusions on the basis of an empirical assessment of the ‘facts’.
— thought is fragmented into a multitude of ‘specialist studies’ each with its own system of laws, independent of all the others. Totality is conceived of simply as the sum of these individual facts.
All this implies that ideology is incapable of understanding reality or the development of reality in a coherent manner. The different aspects of social life appear as particular facts, or specific situations, unrelated to each other. They appear as fixed entities, independent of human development. Reality is seen as an object and not as the product of human activity, perceptible and concrete. This is why, as Engels put it:
“Ideology is a process which the so—called thinker attains without doubt consciously, but with a false consciousness.” (Engels, Letter to Mehring in Philosophical Studies)What must be asked now is: ‘What interest lies in speaking about the appearance of ideological superstructures? How can the definition of ideology enable us to understand the birth of proletarian consciousness?’
It is obvious that if we linger over the problem of ideological superstructures, we do so in order to understand better the phenomenon whereby the proletariat becomes conscious. What have our investigations so far uncovered?
At present, we know that the tendency for the proletariat to become conscious of its role as a revolutionary class isn’t a totally new phenomenon. Other revolutionary classes in the past have also struggled to impose their own world-view so as to triumph over old dogmas and sclerotic ideas. The struggle to install a new society, to institute a new mode of production, has been accompanied in the past by a struggle between ideas, a struggle between different conceptions of the world. Thus, throughout the course of the development of human society, the class struggle which established new social relations has always been, simultaneously, a struggle for the victory of new general ideas. From the moment that society becomes sclerotic on an economic level, from the time that the relations of production become transformed into a shell inhibiting the life and progress of society, from then on all the ideological forms corresponding to the past evolution of society become uprooted and void of content, openly contradicted by social reality. Optimism and vitality manifested in ideologies, philosophy, and art are replaced by philosophical pessimism, obscurantism and a decline in artistic expression and social thought, once society has entered into a period of senility and decadence on an economic level. A growing disjuncture appears between the existing relations regulating society and the new historical necessities confronting it, as well as the ideas men hold about society.
In such periods, the only ideas which can really be progressive are those which announce a new society. Ideas, foreseeing new types of social relations, surge up and first take on critical, utopian and contestationist forms before becoming revolutionary.
Class consciousness unfolds in the same context. For the working class, the putrefaction of the economic contradictions of decadent capitalism and the process of decline of bourgeois ideology establish the fertile terrain necessary for the development of its own historical consciousness. Another point of comparison exists between the development of proletarian consciousness and the ideological processes that characterised the struggle of revolutionary classes in the past. Proletarian consciousness, just as ideology in general, rests on a totality of material conditions of an economic and social kind. The existence of such a concrete base determines the conscious march forward of the proletariat. The development of class consciousness thus expresses the very real economic and historic antagonisms of two social classes. In the course of this essentially practical movement, class consciousness can establish itself and triumph.
“A massive transformation of men is necessarily verified in the mass creation of communist consciousness, because such a transformation can only become operable in a practical movement, in a revolution. This revolution is not only made necessary because it is the only means of overthrowing the ruling class, but equally because only a revolution will allow the class which has overturned the other class to sweep away all the rottenness of the old system.” (Marx, The German Ideology)
Proletarian consciousness, like revolutionary ideas of the past, can only really triumph at the end of the political and social victory of the working class.
“The religious reflections of the real world can, in any case, vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man and man, and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form. The veil is not removed from the countenance of the social life-process, i.e. the process of material production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control. This however, requires that society possesses a material foundation, or a series of material conditions of existence, which in their turn are the natural and spontaneous product of a long and tormented historical development.” (Marx, Capital, Vol. 1)
The definitive surpassing of the old ideas of the past implies, therefore (and this has always been the case), surpassing materially the old economic contradictions.
“Religion, the family, the state, law, morality, science, art, etc. are only particular modes of production and therefore come under its general law. The positive supercession of private property, as the appropriation of human life, is therefore the positive supercession of all estrangement, and the return of man from religion, the family, the state, etc., to his human, i.e. social existence. Religious estrangement as such takes place only in the sphere of consciousness, of man’s inner life, but economic estrangement is that of real life — its supercession therefore embraces both aspects.” (Marx, The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844)
And yet, despite certain resemblances, we continue to speak of ideologies when speaking of the past and class consciousness when speaking of the proletariat. Is this a simple terminological difference?
In reality, we use these two different terms because of our concern to precisely characterise two fundamentally different processes. What distinguishes the ideological process of revolutionary classes in the past and the development of consciousness in the proletariat is far more important than the few elements that they share in common. Furthermore, the very nature and origin of proletarian consciousness prevents it from being identified with a simple ideology.
What are the distinctions between ideology and class consciousness?
Ideological superstructures express, at the level of social thought, the existence of an economic infrastructure based on the exploitation of man by man. The social class which is dominant within this infrastructure and which possesses economic power, the means of production and material force, equally possess the ideological means necessary to justify its rule. It is in this sense that one can speak of an ideological “reflection”. Even if the ideas of the ruling class contain realities and are not just murky notions without substance, they still must passively follow a much more determinant reality, that of the economy and its laws. Thus, even in the course of the revolutionary struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism, the critical action of bourgeois ideas, in the last analysis, only constituted the visible tip of the iceberg. The real revolutionary action took place lower down, at the base of society.
Although it is true that the writings of philosophers during the Enlightenment - the work of the French Encyclopaedists, books by Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Kant, Locke, etc — contributed to weakening seriously the ideological superstructure of feudalism, while giving credibility to the revolutionary struggle of the bourgeoisie and the imposition of its political rule, it is also true that their contributions always followed slightly in the wake of the process of economic transformation already underway in society. All the geniuses who were the precursors of the bourgeoisie (Roger Bacon, Pomponazzi, Leonardo da Vinci, Erasmus, Thomas More, etc) expressed the more and more flagrant contradictions existing between the degree of development of the productive forces and the social relations of feudalism, and the still timid advance of the bourgeoisie on the economic level. Despite its revolutionary role, bourgeois ideology only appeared as a justification after the fact of the gradually acquired economic power of the bourgeoisie.
“Capitalism succeeded in determining concretely the historical programme of its struggle only in the nineteenth century, in other words at the end of its historical trajectory. Right up to the eve of its victory, the historical intelligence of capitalism was gradually realised to the extent that its economic position developed and cleared a path for its further development within the old society.” (Bilan, no. 5, March l934, our emphasis).
Conversely, the consciousness of the proletariat doesn’t rest on any economic infrastructure. The proletariat has absolutely no economic power; it cannot have as its objective the establishment of a new form of exploitation. Even when it affirms itself as the ruling class of society, the proletariat will not become an exploiting class. No economic considerations force the proletariat to forge an ideology to justify the continuation of exploitation. And even if it wanted to, the proletariat couldn’t create an ideological superstructure. The instant the political gains of class consciousness freeze into absolute ideas, into ideologies, they lose their revolutionary character and become integrated into the overcrowded edifice of bourgeois prejudice.
The consequences of this situation are the following:
1. Contrary to the past progress of social thought, the consciousness of the proletariat is not bound by, and does not passively follow, the economic transformation of the old society. Since it possesses no economic privilege whatsoever, the proletariat is obliged from the start to assert itself through a conscious, political movement before passing on to the material overthrow of the existing order. Class consciousness, the revolutionary programme of the proletariat, must proceed and condition the overthrow of existing society.
“Like capitalism, the proletariat too will need to establish a base of principles particular to itself as a class, which can absorb the oppositions, commotions and upheavals produced by capitalist society and direct them toward the installation of the proletarian dictatorship (...) However, if capitalism could proceed with the elaboration of its historic programme in a non-systematic, disorderly, contradictory fashion, the proletariat, on the contrary, finds itself forced to pre-establish the political basis necessary for the growth of its revolutionary struggles.” (Bilan, no. 5 March 1934)
Communist consciousness doesn’t content itself with reflecting a state of fact, but must express itself as an active element in the revolutionary process.
2. Ideology tends to preserve the ruling, social order by maintaining it in place and declaring it immutable. Once in power, the exploiting class has every interest in perpetuating mysticism and dogmatism. This is why the bourgeoisie delights in alienation and recognises in it its own power. Reality is masked; the historical character of social relations is veiled. But the social situation of the proletariat is totally different from that of the bourgeoisie. Its situation gives it other possibilities of ‘understanding’ than those of the bourgeoisie. As a result, it is obliged to revolt against its situation and tear apart capitalism’s complacent ideological mask, which would have everyone believe in the eternal nature of capitalist society. One of the first conditions needed for the transformation of the situation of the proletariat and for the end of its exploitation is precisely its recognition of the transitory, historical, transformable character of capitalism.
The proletariat wouldn’t launch itself head-on against exploitation if it were not partially convinced that the economic and social laws which regulate its exploitation are not laws of nature operating independently from human action, but are laws which reflect a concrete, transitory reality.
“Only such a comprehension renders possible the transformation of this reality, by giving to man through the suppression of the separation existing between the producers and the means of production, the mastery of his own strength, which in economy is opposed to him like a thing. The dissolution of the ‘reified’ appearance of reality and the suppression of its material basis is of vital interest to the proletariat.” (F. Jakubowski, Ideological Superstructures in the Materialist Conception of History)
Behind this somewhat abstract language lies the following idea: since it possesses no economic interest which can aid it in its struggle against the bourgeoisie, the proletariat must develop a demystified understanding of its own situation in order to be able to transform it. Class consciousness allows the proletariat to realise that the relation between capital and labour in which it lives is not a relationship between abstract things, established once and for all, but is a very living social relation which can and must be changed. All ideologies, of whatever hue, are absolutely incapable of arriving at this global understanding.
3. What is the starting—point of ideology? The means of production held as private property isolate the individuals who belong to the bourgeoisie. Single capitalists, nations, competing individuals, the individual possessor of commodities, such is the starting—point of bourgeois ideology. Ideology, even if it expresses very well the domination of a social class, is never a truly collective product. Like a mirror broken into a thousand fragments which all reflect the same image, ideology imposes itself on all individuals. Society submits to the ruling ideology just as it submits to an economic situation which it does not control and which appears to be an external force. The competitive individuals of capitalist society all submit to the same ideological bludgeoning, to the same illusions, to the same prejudices and dogmas. Yet despite this, each regards the other as a stranger, as a competitor, and each imagines that he himself has a very original personality and set of ideas. Real solidarity in action and thought is impossible from the point of view of capitalist society and capitalist ideology. And this is because the collectivisation of the means of production and the socialisation of human relations are impossible from the capitalist point of view. The individual in capitalist society is irremediably alone; his ideas and his way of life — both products of bourgeois rule — cannot enter into a really collective movement.
The
proletarians, on the contrary, are associated in the process of production.
They are pushed toward union and solidarity by their condition of life. Only
their association in struggle, the fruit of their association in the process of
work, allows them to bring pressure to bear on their common enemy - capital.
Thus, throughout the history of their struggle, the workers have pushed for the
unification of their forces.
“At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them (...) But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses (...) The collision between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes.” (The Communist Manifesto)
Only the proletariat is able to constitute itself into a class based on international solidarity. This solidarity is a forerunner of what social relations will be like in a communist society, and it springs up spontaneously in the struggle. It is an unbelievable phenomenon. Workers, who scarcely spoke to each other yesterday because of the infernal pressure of work, who even sometimes felt in competition with each other, suddenly find themselves talking together in the heat of the struggle, closing ranks and helping each other, feeling so united that it takes all the power of the bourgeoisie with its unions and police to break apart their iron solidarity. This is the starting—point of class consciousness!
The starting—point of political reflection in the proletariat doesn’t lie with the individual as an individual, but the individual as a part of a whole, as a part of a class. In this sense, it’s not important what this or that worker thinks. What is important is what the proletariat as a class will be compelled to do and what it must become conscious of doing. Class consciousness starts off from the totality and is a highly collective process.
4. But the totality, the class in which proletarian consciousness arises, is not a characterless mass, an ordinary part of all that makes up bourgeois society. There are also sects, convents and religious groupings which claim they have attained a total community in their life and thought. The bourgeoisie itself is obliged to ‘solidarise’ when faced with the attack of the proletariat; the peasantry can also constitute a greater or lesser collectivity, etc. In reality, none of these other classes, strata or sects can attain the degree of solidarity reached by the proletarians for the simple reason that the proletariat constitutes an historic class, the bearer of a new type of social relation. The proletariat constitutes an historic class antagonistic to the bourgeoisie; it is the living negation of capitalist society. Class consciousness also possesses this historic dimension. It is not a simple ideological reflection of a given situation.
Is it enough for the proletariat merely to imagine the destruction of capitalism? Is the class struggle the fruit of an unbridled imagination? On the contrary! Class consciousness, which is acquired by the workers and which pushes them always further in their struggles, is a completely concrete and practical process. It is an active force that materialises in a very precise manner; it requires the living experience of the struggle to subsist and grow. In its practice, the proletariat cuts through problems that hadn’t been solved theoretically, raises others, while discarding old, used—up ideas and revitalising others. And for a qualitative stage to be once more passed beyond, the proletariat must draw the political and theoretical lessons of its past experiences.
The revolutionary wave of the 1920’s confirmed the living, eminently practical character of class consciousness. The Russian, the German, the Hungarian revolutions all saw the flourishing, the intense outburst of ideas within the class. At the same time as the struggle develops, everywhere workers’ councils and general assemblies surge up; everywhere impromptu meetings, earnest discussions and innumerable exchanges of ideas and propositions take place. Workers, who yesterday were stagnating in the crass ignorance imposed on them by capitalism, become orators who show their practical intelligence and unbelievable audacity. Millions of workers, who had previously submitted silently to the yoke of capital, break into speech and provide living proof of their initiative and ingenuity in exchanging a thousand ideas and a thousand thoughts, gathering information and political discussions together from everywhere... The political milieu is brought to a white-hot pitch, a thousand channels of exchange and reflection are created... Class consciousness begins to live collectively and practically.
But it is not necessary to wait for insurrectional and revolutionary periods to see the development of this process. When it is the fruit of real struggle, the proletariat’s daily resistance to its exploitation equally constitutes a fertile terrain for the expansion of class unity and consciousness. You see the same phenomenon produced, but on a more reduced scale, as that which marked the revolutionary period of the 1920’s — a sudden bubbling—up of ideas, of discussions, all intense and living.
It should be well—understood that this process isn’t mechanical or homogeneous. The level of consciousness attained by the workers’ assemblies, by these struggles of daily resistance to capitalism, doesn’t lead in general to an overall questioning of capitalist society. The class struggle, just like the process of coming to consciousness within the proletariat, is a fluctuating movement, a wave which unceasingly renews itself but which can also go into reflux.
Nevertheless, one thing is certain: the historic strength and practice of the proletariat remains dormant as long as the workers remain subjugated to bourgeois ideas. It is class consciousness which transforms their potential power into effective strength. Through their practice, the workers discover that they form a particular class, one exploited by capital, and that they must-fight against it to liberate themselves from exploitation. Their struggle obliges them to understand the economic system, to know the society in which their enemies and allies are to be found.
“The real education of the masses can never be separated from the independent, political, and particularly from the revolutionary struggle of the masses themselves. Only the struggle educates the exploited class. Only the struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizons, enhances its abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.” (Lenin, ‘Lecture on the 1905 Revolution’ delivered 22 January 1917, reprinted in The Revolution of 1905)
5. Class consciousness begins from the struggle of the proletariat itself. Contrary to the ideology which assumes that a division exists between the ‘economic’, the ‘social’ and the ‘political’, class consciousness is based at one and the same time on economic and political struggles, because they are inseparable.
“Political and economic strikes, mass strikes and partial strikes, demonstrative strikes and fighting strikes, general strikes of individual branches of industry and general strikes in individual towns, peaceful wage struggles and street massacres, barricade fighting — all these run through one another, run side by side, cross one another, flow in and over one another — it is a ceaselessly moving, changing sea of phenomena.” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions)
Only the intimate liaison between economic strikes and political strikes, whether partial or generalised struggles — allows for the later development of the struggle, its international generalisation and the enriching of class consciousness.
“An outstanding feature was the manner in which economic strikes were interlaced with political strikes during the revolution. It is quite evident that only when these two forms of strikes are closely linked up with each other can the movement acquire its greatest power. The broad masses of the exploited could not have been thrown into the revolutionary movement had they not seen examples of how the wage workers in the various branches of industry compelled the capitalists to improve their conditions. This struggle imbued the masses of the Russian people with a new spirit.” (Lenin, ibid.)
By resisting the degradation of their living conditions, workers thus acquire a sense and consciousness of their own force. Its struggle and its consciousness expand when the proletariat sees its social gains torn from it once again by the bourgeoisie. It is progressively obliged to take into account that the capitalist crisis is a mortal crisis, that this putrefying system can no longer grant anything to the working class, that capitalism has ceased to be a progressive system. But the proletariat cannot really become conscious of this except by struggling in a more and more radical way, by refusing to accept austerity and capitalism’s drive towards war, by seeing the partial ‘defeat’ of its struggles so long as they remain on a strictly economic level. These series of ‘defeats’ on the level of demands made in struggle (i.e. what’s granted by the bourgeoisie today is taken back tomorrow) gradually become transformed into victories on the level of class consciousness and political unity within the proletariat. The movement of the struggles orientates itself little by little toward a political and revolutionary questioning of the whole of society.
The fact that class consciousness is essentially the fruit of experience, of the practical struggle of the class, truly implies that the activity of the entire class is irreplaceable. Revolutionary consciousness, like the political emancipation of the proletariat, is the work of the workers themselves. It has nothing to do with a collection of rigid ideas, of ready made recipes developed exterior to the class. Similarly, the consciousness which the proletariat has about its situation is not an awareness about an object external to itself, but is a consciousness of what it is itself. Proletarian consciousness is the consciousness of the proletariat of itself as a class. This means, quite simply, that in becoming conscious of its own situation in the process of production, the proletariat becomes conscious of the nature of the capitalist system in all its complexity and barbarity. And this development of consciousness is always synonymous with the class struggle. Class consciousness is, then, the affirmation by the proletariat of its nature as a revolutionary class, as conscious being.
We have seen what
distinguishes ideology from the development of consciousness in the
proletariat. Earlier, we tried to understand why the characteristics of
communism make the consciousness of the proletariat indispensable. Now we must
pose the following questions: ‘How is it possible for the class to become
conscious? How is class consciousness manifested?’
The
first element which makes class consciousness possible is the revolutionary
class nature of the proletariat. The proletariat, like other revolutionary
classes of the past, is obliged to organise itself consciously if it is to
overthrow the old economic and political order.
“Like
all human activity, and particularly because it is a social movement, the
action of a class is necessarily an organised action. In fact, every class, and
above all a revolutionary class, only manifests its own living reality when it
engenders within itself a tendency towards self-organisation. This tendency
corresponds both to immediate, practical, material necessities and to the more
general necessities for reflection, understanding and consciousness about its
own being, its existence and its future.” (‘Class consciousness and
Organisation’, a document presented by the ICC to the IInd International
Conference organised at the initiative of Battaglia Comunista, October
1978; see the pamphlet Second Conference of Groups of the Communist Left)
For
the proletariat, its organisation and consciousness are the only weapons it
possesses.
“Unlike
these previous classes, the proletariat is the only class called upon to take
over the whole of society which does not dispose of any economic basis of power
within this society, as a prelude to its future domination. The only material
strength that the proletariat has is its organisation. This is why organisation
constitutes for the proletariat, still more than for other classes, a decisive
and fundamental condition for its struggle, Its capacity for self—organisation
is the measure of its passage from a class—in—itself to a class—for—itself,
from a simple economic category within capitalist production into an
historical class. For the same reasons, consciousness is an even more
fundamental element for the proletarian struggle than for the struggle of
previous revolutionary classes.” (‘Class Consciousness and Organisation’,
ibid., p.52)
As
Marx said, “the only social power possessed by the workers is their numbers,
but that power is broken by disunity. The dispersion of the workers is
engendered and maintained by their inevitable competition”. To overcome
disunity and competition in order to finally triumph over capitalism, the
workers have but one choice: to organise and struggle together for their common
interests. The place which they occupy in the process of production makes it
possible for them to organise on the basis of unity and solidarity. Such
organisation is, in fact, a formidable force.
“The
community spirit has always been the principal, necessary force for the
progress of the revolution. This progress is embodied in the development of
solidarity, of mutual relations between workers, of unity. Their organisation
and their growing power are the new characteristics which are forged in the
struggle (...) The virtues of solidarity and zeal, the impulsion to act as a
solid unity engendered by the social struggle, are the very basis of the new
social system which will rest on work in common.” (Pannekoek, The
Workers’ Councils, 1941)
But
organisation and solidarity on their own can’t determine the collapse of
capitalist society. It remains necessary for them to be maintained and welded
together by combative will and collective consciousness.
“The
workers have in their hands one element for success: their numbers. But numbers
don’t tip the scales unless unified by means of association and guided by
consciousness. The experience of the past has shown us that fraternal links
must exist between the workers of different countries and must incite them to
hold out together, shoulder to shoulder, in their struggles for emancipation.
Ignoring these links will be punished by a common defeat of all their dispersed
attempts.” (Marx, The Address of the International Workingmen’s Association
to all Workers in the World, 1864)
United organisation, collective functioning, the living,
active participation of the workers, political consciousness, solidarity are
all so many elements welded together in the tendency to the proletariat to
constitute itself into a revolutionary class. Organisation and class
consciousness are, thus, not only linked together, but are inseparable. It is
the development of political comprehension which reinforces the organisation
of the proletariat into a revolutionary class. The progress the class makes in
self—organisation allows it to enrich its consciousness. This is why a
proletarian organisation which has lost its last spark of revolutionary life by
taking on the views of the bourgeoisie, thus becoming an organisation which can
no longer defend the final goals of the movement and which is no longer infused
by new blood coming from the participation of the workers — this is why such
an organisation is nothing but a cadaver for the proletariat, and as such must
be swept aside and replaced in the new revolutionary wave of struggle.
The organisation of the class
“The type of organisation
that the working class creates in the course of history is necessarily linked
to the different stages that capitalism itself goes through, and varies
according to the objectives that these stages give birth to, and impose upon
the struggle of the proletariat.” (‘Class Consciousness and Organisation’,
ibid.)
At
the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the workers had got accustomed to
distinguishing machinery from the use capitalism made of it (the first riots by
the workers had destroyed machines), and hence no longer directed their attacks
against the material means of production but against the social system itself,
their first attempts to regroup themselves really appeared. The first struggles
for the right of association appeared at this time. The utopians were the
theoreticians produced by these first class battles. They tried to intervene in
the movements, organised by the proletariat in order to accentuate their
political dimension. But their theories ran aground because of their utopian
character and the state of the class struggle itself.
“The
first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, made in times
of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown, these
attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the
proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its
emancipation (...) The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called,
those of St. Simon, Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the
early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat
and bourgeoisie.” (The Communist Manifesto)
Later,
by coming in contact with the Chartist movement and by becoming influenced by
the progress of trade unionism, the proletariat and its most conscious elements
were able to establish the basis for historical materialism. Historical materialism
is the basis of a method of action and struggle in as much as it is an
instrument for understanding reality in a demystified way. The strengthening of
such consciousness allowed the proletariat in 1847 to transform the Society of
the Just, a secret, conspiratorial society, into a revolutionary organisation
of propaganda and combat.
One
year later, the Communist Manifesto launched the idea of the necessity
for an autonomous organisation and political movement of the proletariat. As a
result of the combined efforts of its trade union and political organisations,
the working class progressively demarcated its struggle within the political
movement, distinct from the democratic organisations of the bourgeoisie and
their ideas.
Nevertheless,
the proletariat and its revolutionary elements still lacked a crucial element
of understanding. The First International, because it thought that the period
of its own constitution (1864) was also the period of “social revolution” which
would bring with it the imminent conquest of power, didn’t understand the
necessity of struggling essentially for economic demands while always keeping
the final goal in sight. To do so would have required attributing tasks to the unitary
organs of the class that were distinct from those of the revolutionary
organisation. Its limited understanding of the period thus caused the
International Working Men’s Association to organise around political currents
as well as workers’ associations and unions.
“One
had to wait the development of the IInd International before the consciousness
of this reality (that revolution was still not on the agenda) really passed
into the practice of the workers’ movement, and two forms of organisation
adapted to the necessities and possibilities of the movement could at last be
consciously and systematically constructed”. (R. Victor. ‘The Proletariat and its Vanguard’, in Revolution
Internationale, no. 17, 1975)
With
the IInd International, the understanding of the period, and the distinction
between the unitary and political organisations of the proletariat, were made
more precise. The definitive overthrow of bourgeois rule couldn’t be the
immediate aim of the struggle. The task of that time was to prepare for the
final struggle through the struggle for political and economic reforms. In
order to accomplish this task, the proletariat had to provide itself with, on
the one hand, a unitary, economic organisation in which every worker
could belong on the simple basis of being a worker, while on the other hand,
creating a political organisation whose criteria for membership had
nothing to do with the social origin of its adherents, but was based on their
political agreement. This organisation was also a parliamentary
organisation. It was a question of creating unions, co—operatives, etc, and a
mass party.
Certainly,
the economic and political character of the workers’ struggles were still tied
to one and the same process. This is why the distinction made between ‘the
economic’ and ‘the political’, and the rigid separation erected between the
‘minimum’ and the ‘maximum’ programmes, came to constitute a real barrier to
the development of class consciousness after some theoreticians of the IInd
International made these divisions into principles (for Bernstein the movement
was everything, the goal nothing). This conception ‘facilitated’ the passage
of the Social Democracy into the capitalist swamp the instant the material
conditions necessary for the communist revolution were realised. From that time
on, a new process of maturation of class consciousness was called for, as were
new forms of class organisation.
“The
revolutionary movements which sprang up at the end of the First World War,
especially in Russia and Germany, confirmed there and then the possibility of
the immediate realisation of the ‘maximum programme’, by creating the new forms
of organisation adapted to the new task which had at last arrived on the
historical agenda: the definitive destruction of bourgeois rule.
“The
workers’ councils, which arose spontaneously for the first time in the class movements
of 1905 in Russia, showed themselves to be the specific form of class
organisation, a form of organisation which would be systematically recreated by
all workers in struggle against the capitalist state. The workers’ councils —
assemblies formed in the factories and working class neighbourhoods —
constituted the form of organisation which allowed the proletariat itself to
lead its own struggle. The councils physically regrouped the whole of
the working class, and simultaneously took up the economic and political
character of the struggle. These two aspects of the struggle, henceforward,
became impossible to separate, even momentarily.” (R. Victor, ‘The Proletariat and Its Vanguard’,
ibid.)
But
in all of this, what part is played by revolutionaries?
The
‘mass party’ form of organisation loses its essential basis in decadent
capitalism. That basis is the possibility and necessity for the proletariat to
participate in bourgeois Parliaments, so as to impose on capitalism reforms
beneficial to the workers. In decadence, the bourgeois state must be destroyed
in all its forms, and this act of destruction cannot be the work of a minority
or fraction of the class, no matter how enlightened it may be; it must be the
work of the ENTIRE working class, that is to say the WORKERS’ COUNCILS.
Thus,
in such a situation and period what role do revolutionaries have? Why must they
exist when the councils bring together the economic and political struggle,
class consciousness and organisation? It’s even possible to say that it is the
councils which allow the class to surmount, both theoretically and practically,
capitalist exploitation and its ideology.
“The
organisation of councils permits the working class to liberate itself
progressively from the yoke of capitalism, and particularly from the yoke of
bourgeois ideology. Within them gradually materialises the proletariat’s
consciousness of itself and its will to give class consciousness a concrete and
real expression”. (Theses presented to the IIIrd Conference of the General
Workers Union of Germany (AAUD) in 1920)
Why
does the proletariat in the period of decadence continue to develop a minority
organisation composed of its most combative and most conscious elements — the
communist vanguard?
The
reply to that question must be located within the overall process of
self—organisation and development of class consciousness. Immediately, the
term ‘process’ indicates that class consciousness doesn’t appear finished and
perfect on such and such a day. It doesn’t appear from nowhere or descend on
the workers like a revelation. Class consciousness must be forged gradually,
and this process is long and painful.
Class consciousness as a process
Even if it’s true that it’s
the entire proletariat, organised in councils, which has the task of carrying
out the communist revolution to its end, this doesn’t mean that the consciousness
of this necessity exists in a constant and homogeneous manner among all the
workers. Moreover, the unitary organisation of the proletariat in councils is
also not a constant phenomenon.
To
arrive at communism, at a consciousness of the necessity to organise itself in
councils, the proletariat must travel a difficult road. Even the simple will to
struggle, to go on strike, to resist capitalist exploitation, doesn’t exist in
a constant manner within the working class. Periods of lull or discouragement
or illusions can mar a wave of struggles and cause it to fall back. And if the
bourgeoisie can profit from such refluxes in the struggle by drowning the
workers’ movement in a blood—bath, then the perspective for revolution is put
back to a more distant future.
The
process of the class struggle, the process through which the proletariat forms
itself into a revolutionary class, unfolds in a progressive, uneven, jostling
manner. Hence, you rarely see important strikes and struggles flaring up across
the world all at the same time. The internationalisation of workers’ struggles
proceeds gradually under the pressure of the internationalisation of the
capitalist crisis. Neither does the proletariat have a homogeneous
consciousness about how to struggle and how to lead its strikes towards the
revolution. Certain sectors, certain workers will be more decided, more
combative; others will continue to hesitate, unprepared to commit themselves to
a battle to the end.
What
causes this? The answer is evident. Within capitalist society, the proletariat
is a class in which alienation is pushed to the limit. It’s a class which the
bourgeoisie strongly impregnates with its ideology and divides through
competition. The goal towards which the proletariat moves when it constitutes
itself into a conscious and unified class is in contradiction to the capitalist
conditions which give rise to it as a class. Between the revolutionary proletariat,
and-the proletariat atomised into units of competing individuals, or just
beginning its first struggles for economic demands, there is a dialectical
contradiction, which must culminate in the class acting voluntarily and
consciously, and in an organised way.
“The
fundamental difficulty of the socialist revolution remains this complex and
contradictory situation. On the other hand, the revolution can only realise
itself through the conscious action of the great majority of the
working class; on the other hand, the development of class consciousness comes
up against the conditions of the working class in society, conditions which
prevent and unceasingly destroy the consciousness of the workers regarding
their historic, revolutionary task.” (‘On the Nature and Function of the
Party’, Internatioalisme, no. 38, 1948, reprinted in the Bulletin
d’etude et de discussion, no. 6, 1974)
The
proletariat, whatever the unity attained in its struggle, never acts in the
same way as an individual acts. It never acts like a single person mechanically
directed towards a goal. Since it is unable to develop its consciousness
according to the stable, frozen principles of an ideology, or according to a
series of ready—made recipes, the proletariat can only become conscious of its
situation in a real and practical process linked to the material conditions of
its social existence. It is essentially in the course of its struggles that it
forges its practical and theoretical weapons. But these struggles themselves
have their source in a very long and complex social process.
“The
sudden general rising of the proletariat in January under the powerful impetus
of the St. Petersburg events was outwardly a political act of the revolutionary
declaration of war on absolutism. But this first general direct action reacted
inwardly all the more powerfully as it for the first time awoke class feeling
and class consciousness in millions upon millions as if by an electric shock.
And this awakening of class feeling expressed itself forthwith in the
circumstances that the proletarian mass, counted by millions, quite suddenly
and sharply came to realize how intolerable was that social and economic
existence which they had patiently endured for decades in the chains of
capitalism. Thereupon there began a spontaneous general shaking of and tugging
at these chains (...)
“Only complete thoughtlessness could expect that
absolutism could be destroyed at one blow by a single ‘long drawn’ general
strike after the anarchist plan. Absolutism in Russia must be overthrown by the
proletariat. But in order to be able to overthrow it, the proletariat requires
a high degree of political education, of class consciousness and organisation.
All these conditions cannot be fulfilled by pamphlets and leaflets, but only
by the living political school, by the fight and in the fight, in the
continuous course of the revolution. Further, absolutism cannot be overthrown
at any desired moment in which only adequate ‘exertion’ and ‘endurance’ are
necessary. The fall of absolutism is merely the outer expression of the inner
social and class development of Russian society.
“This apparently simple and purely mechanical
problem may therefore be stated thus: the overthrow of absolutism is a long
continuous social process, and its solution demands a complete undermining of
the soil of society; the uppermost part must be placed the lowest and the
lowermost part highest, the apparent ‘anarchist’ chaos must be changed into a
new order.” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike)
The development of proletarian consciousness
requires the rotting of material and economic conditions, the laying bare of
the contradictions and horrors of capitalism, the worsening of social tensions.
But this fertile terrain must not be left fallow.
It’s necessary for the proletariat to sow the seeds of its struggle by drawing
sufficient lessons from its past actions in order to use such a favourable
situation to generalise its political understanding. It must bring about this
generalisation of its experience even in times of lull in the struggle. In such
periods, the proletariat can reflect upon its past experience and draw up a
balance—sheet of the victories and defeats it has lived through, thus preparing
itself for the future. It is, in this sense, that the development of class
consciousness is not the immediate reflection of a given situation.
The proletariat isn’t content with sitting waiting
for the next wave of its struggle before beginning to carry out its theoretical
work. The development of its consciousness, even though it can’t subsist
constantly and in a homogeneous fashion within the majority of the class,
requires a work of incessant, theoretical reflection, criticism of past
experience. It involves the constant refining of the communist programme, of
the proletariat’s historical interests.
How does the proletariat carry out this work of
constant reflection, of active generalisation of its political gains?
One thing is clear: given the contradictory
situation which it finds itself, the proletariat cannot entrust this task to
all of its members. In periods of social calm, the great majority of workers
submit to the pressure of bourgeois ideology. The task of generalising
political gains and homogenising class consciousness falls to the most decided,
the most combative elements of the class. Thanks to this fraction, to this part
of itself (defined from a political point of view), the proletariat can
collectivise its gains in consciousness by raising itself above immediate
contingencies and partial experiences. Because this fraction has arrived sooner
at an understanding of the goals of the movement, it enables the working class
to reinforce the tendency to break down the isolation and divisions which
fragment and weaken its struggle. In this way, a powerful and conscious class
can oppose itself to capitalism and triumph over it.
In order for these elements of the class to carry
out their tasks properly, they must regroup themselves into revolutionary
communist organisations. And they will have an essentially active role to play
within the struggle of their class.
“Revolutionaries are those elements within the
class who through this heterogeneous process are the first to obtain a clear
understanding of the ‘line of march, the conditions and the ultimate general
results of the proletarian movement’ (Communist Manifesto), and because in
capitalist society ‘the dominant ideas are the ideas of the ruling class’,
revolutionaries necessarily constitute a minority of the working
class. As an emanation of the class, a manifestation of the process by which it
becomes conscious, revolutionaries can only exist as such by becoming an
active factor in this process.” (The Platform of the ICC. Published in
English as a separate pamphlet entitled Platform and Manifesto of the
International Communist Current)
Thus, when revolutionary organisations arise within
the working class, they arise on the same basis, and out of the same necessity
which forces the proletariat to organise itself in councils. Revolutionaries
are, then, a spontaneous and voluntary product of their class. Spontaneous,
because their existence is a product of the struggle and is enriched by the
practical experience of their class. Voluntary, because they come from the historic
necessity of the class struggle and not just from simple, limited,
mechanical, economic factors.
“It is only the international understanding of
the working class, which can guarantee its definitive triumph. This need has
given birth to the International Working Men’s Association. It isn’t a child of
a sect or a theory. It is the spontaneous product of the proletarian
movement, engendered itself by the natural, irrepressible tendencies of modern
society (...) The aspirations and general tendencies of the working class
emanate from the real conditions in which it is placed.” (Marx, ‘Letter to
Paul Lafargue’, 1870, our emphasis)
The spontaneous and historic movement of the
proletariat truly constitutes the base, the only base for the existence of
revolutionaries. Revolutionaries don’t appear in order to satisfy their own
aspirations through the pursuit of machiavellian goals or dreams of
dictatorship. They arise because the unitary organisation of the class can’t
fulfil, by itself the complex needs for conscious self—organisation by the
majority of the workers. Revolutionaries also appear because right up to the
time when the working class has realised its final revolutionary aim, it will
still exist in capitalist society and continue to suffer from its
contradictions and humiliations, its depraved atmosphere and seductive lies.
The proletariat cannot liberate itself from the heritage of thousands of years
of slavery and obscurantism from one day to the next. Therefore, up until a
communist society exists, the process whereby the class develops its consciousness
will remain a heterogeneous phenomenon, although tending to generalise and
develop more and more.
How can one conceive of the generalisation of class
consciousness, if the whole of the class collectively loses its ‘memory’ of
theoretical and political gains in consciousness made in the struggle’ after
each strike, after each partial defeat or victory in its struggle? How can the
homogenisation of class consciousness be possible if the proletariat, after
each combat, must re-travel the historical road that leads from the struggles
of the weavers of Lyon, past the struggles of the Russian workers of 1917, to
the struggles of workers today in 1982? Where will it get the political lessons
of its struggles? Are these lessons to be found in the clouds or the collective
unconscious?
No! If these lessons exist (and they constitute one of the guarantees
for the victory of the revolution), they must exist in a material human form.
Communist consciousness isn’t a mystical affair, but a highly concrete and
human fact. And communist consciousness and action are inconceivable without a
revolutionary programme and a revolutionary organisation. This necessity is
imposed by the very nature of communism and proletarian consciousness. If it is
to make the communist revolution and transform society, the proletariat cannot
do without a qualitative development in the way it understands its historical
interests.