Class consciousness

Class consciousness, in Marx's near-technical sense, is the moment workers grasp both that the bourgeoisie exploits them and that nothing short of worldwide violent revolt will end it.

Put simply Marx: "class consciousness" is the moment workers realize that the factory-owning class exploits them and that only a worldwide, violent uprising of workers will end it.

In the text In his speech at Amsterdam (September 8, 1872), Marx says that in some countries, such as America and England, "the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means"; for most of the Continent, he says, force must be the lever.

Where to read it Marx, speech at Amsterdam, September 8, 1872; The Communist Manifesto, Part IV.

Consciousness derives from one's objective place in the socioeconomic structure (being precedes consciousness, as Shore renders Marx and Engels), so for Marx workers will naturally become class conscious.

Put simply Marx: how you think follows from where you stand in the economy ("being precedes consciousness", as Shore renders it). So workers will come, on their own, to see how the whole system fits together, not just that they are exploited.

Where to read it Marx and Engels, The German Ideology, Part I; The Communist Manifesto, Part I.

Left to its own efforts, Lenin argues, the working class develops "only trade union consciousness": better pay, shorter hours, cleaner workplaces, never a grasp of the whole system.

Leninism is a method for speeding history up, not steering it elsewhere: workers are slow to reach class consciousness unaided, so it must be carried to them from outside.

Put simply Lenin: history's destination is fixed, but it can be sped up. Workers are slow to grasp their situation as a class on their own, so that understanding must be brought to them from outside.

Other readings Lars Lih (Lenin Rediscovered, 2006) reads What Is to Be Done? as an expression of the orthodoxy of Karl Kautsky's German Social Democracy, resting on confidence in workers' revolutionary inclinations.

Against Lenin, Luxemburg holds that any elite eventually turns conservative; genuine revolutionary energy lives in the proletariat, which must be trusted to reach consciousness by itself.

History's logic runs ahead of those living it: "the unconscious comes before the conscious." Against Lenin, Luxemburg argues that history's stages must be respected and that party leaders turn conservative.

Put simply Luxemburg, against Lenin: history moves by its own logic before people grasp it ("the unconscious comes before the conscious"). So its stages must be allowed to run their course, and party leaders turn conservative.

Where to read it Luxemburg, "Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy" (1904), Part I.

The Party understands the workers' true class consciousness, perhaps before they do; what proletarians empirically happen to think is another matter, and confusing the two is "opportunism."

Put simply Lukács: the Party knows the workers' true understanding of their place as a class, perhaps before they do. What workers actually happen to think is another matter, and confusing the two is "opportunism."