Link: https://redelp.net/index.php/renf/article/view/1609/1372
Published in: Enfrentamento Magazine 30 – v. 19 n. 30 (2024)
The discussion about “proletarian consciousness,” which is closely linked to the broader issue of “class consciousness,” is a traditional topic, especially within pseudo-Marxism. The latter is one of the most debated issues within this ideology. This issue, in Marxism, has not received the same attention, which has allowed for confusion and, in many cases, the replacement of the Marxist conception by the pseudo-Marxist one. It is important to clarify the difference between the Leninist conception and its derivatives and the Marxist conception, since criticism of discursive substitutionism (Viana, 2025), the deformation of Marxism, and the memorial rescue of the true character of Marx’s work is part of the cultural struggle, which, in turn, is part of the struggle for human liberation.
Pseudo-Marxism has some different lines of guidance in this process of deformation of the Marxist analysis of class consciousness. The first deforming line is the one that emerges with Kautsky and Lenin, more simplistic and influenced by the positivist paradigm hegemonic at the time when they produced their theses and which would later become a fundamental element of the vanguardist paradigm[1] . The Kautskyist thesis is that workers are too uneducated to liberate themselves and that they are unable to develop socialist consciousness (Kautsky, 1980). At most, they develop a trade unionist consciousness. It is the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals who gather in the Social Democratic Party, who have access to science (positivism and its scientism are also evident here), who develop socialist consciousness and instill it in the working class. This same thesis, as well as the fundamental passage in which it appears, will be reproduced by Lenin (1978). Later, only “social democratic party” will be replaced by “Bolshevik party” or “Communist party.” This will be the basis of Lenin’s “vanguard ideology.”
It is from this line that the idea of “class consciousness in itself” and “class consciousness for itself” will emerge. The first form of consciousness is that which is produced spontaneously by the class, reaching at most trade unionism; the second form is that which the working class internalizes from the vanguard party.
The second line is more complex and emerges from Georg Lukács’ work, History and Class Consciousness. In this conception, with a much more refined and developed philosophical foundation, a distinction is made between “psychological consciousness” and “adjudicated consciousness” (Lukács, 1989). Psychological consciousness is that which actually exists in the minds of proletarian individuals and the proletarian masses. The bourgeoisie aims to keep it at this level. Adjudicated consciousness is that which is attributed to it based on an analysis of objective reality, having a sociological meaning, and it is an “objective possibility” (here we note the influence of Max Weber). This approach will be developed with the idea of “adjudicated consciousness” (not initially used by Lukács, but only after his famous “self-criticism” in which he acknowledges his “errors” before his Leninist critics, uniting his thesis with Lenin’s)[2] .
These two conceptions were disseminated and became hegemonic in the so-called “socialist movement.” The Leninist conception was vulgarized and disseminated worldwide by Russian Bolshevism and later by Stalinism and Trotskyism, among other tendencies, and by the force of the Communist International (Bolshevik) and the Soviet Union, etc. Pseudo-Marxist literature in the Soviet Union and the “West” repeated this litany for decades, and the “Trotskyist opposition” and other tendencies reproduced and disseminated it. Some intellectuals, linked to the communist parties of the “West” or independent, developed and complicated these theses, mainly by combining them with the Lukácsian conception.
The Lukácsian conception, more complex and less palatable to the militant robots of Bolshevism (Stalinism, Trotskyism, etc.), was confined to intellectuals, dissident groups, and a few Leninists who tried to assimilate this conception. Its dissemination occurred more in intellectual and academic circles and minority sectors of the so-called “socialist” movement. From a certain point on, it began to circulate more widely. Some Leninists and even some social democrats sought to unite the theses of Lenin and Lukács and began to disseminate them, as did Theotonio dos Santos (1987) in the Brazilian case.
However, it remains to be seen what the divergence between this conception and the Marxist one is. Undoubtedly, Marx left room for problematic interpretations by not further developing his theory of social classes and his analysis of proletarian self-liberation. However, it is not possible to deduce these two conceptions from the original Marxist conception. In fact, Marx did not engage in any in-depth discussion of “class consciousness” and “proletarian consciousness.” In The German Ideology (Marx; Engels, 1982), he presents his “theory of consciousness” (Viana, 2024) and makes some useful points for thinking about proletarian consciousness, and he makes further contributions in his subsequent works. But there are several passages in which he discusses the proletariat and its self-liberation. And here lies the key to understanding the Kautskyist-Leninist distortion of Marx’s conception: the replacement of the general discussion of the working class with a conception of “class consciousness.” And to achieve this, the appeal to Hegel and his philosophical reflections, used as an authority because of Marx’s appreciation for his philosophical contribution, took on great importance, especially his idealistic conception of the “phenomenology of spirit” and his distinction between “in-itself” and “for-itself.” The idea of a “phenomenology of spirit” (Hegel, 1992), misunderstood by pseudo-Marxists, offers the key to such a replacement (Viana, 2018a), rather than the more general reflection on “being” present in “The Science of Logic” (Hegel, 1988).
Whenever Marx discussed the self-emancipation of the proletariat, he never restricted it to a phenomenon of consciousness. Marx’s focus was always on union and association. The famous final sentence of the Communist Manifesto (Marx; Engels, 1848) sums this up: “Workers of the world, unite.” Marx never used the expressions “class consciousness in itself” and “class consciousness for itself.” In a few passages, he used “class in itself” and “class for itself.” The class in itself is the class that exists concretely in society and can be defined by its position in the social division of labor and in concrete social relations. The peasantry, for example, is a class that has a “small mode of production,” the peasant mode of production, being a nominal owner of family production, through a process of subordination to the capitalist mode of production, which functions through the form c-m-c (commodity, money, commodity), which differs from the capitalist form, which is m-c-m (money, commodity, more money, and so on). This gives rise to several other relationships, in addition to the obvious link with nature, etc. This is the peasantry as a “class in itself,” and to understand , it is not necessary to refer to their consciousness. Undoubtedly, there is a peasant consciousness, but, to paraphrase Marx, “it is not consciousness that determines class, but, on the contrary, class that determines consciousness.”
This means that when Marx uses the terms “class-in-itself” and “class-for-itself,” he is not referring to “consciousness” as his followers later claimed. Some, idealistically, even say that class only really exists when it has “class consciousness” (Santos, 1987), which is stupid. The “class in itself” is the class that really exists, determined by social relations, regardless of the consciousness of the individuals who are part of it. To better understand this, it is necessary to understand the Marxist concept (the only concept, but one that helps to distinguish it from the constructs of bourgeois ideologies about social class, from the Weberian conception, through the ideology of social stratification, to the most recent sociologists and simplistic research institutes with their definition by income) of social classes. Social classes are made up of a group of individuals who share a common way of life, common interests, and a common struggle, determined by their fixed activity and generated by the social division of labor, which, in turn, is determined by the dominant mode of production (Viana, 2018a). This is a concrete social relationship, independent of the will or consciousness of these individuals. Of course, a certain consciousness emerges from these elements, but this is a derivative product and has other determinants (the dominant ideas, which, in relation to the lower classes, contradict their interests and their perception as a class, as well as state action, etc.).
The fundamental classes are those that emerge directly from the dominant relations of production, that is, from the dominant mode of production. It is the class that produces wealth and the class that appropriates that wealth (slaves and the ruling class, serfs and the feudal class, proletarians and the capitalist class). Derived from this dominant mode of production emerges a complex social division of labor that generates other social classes and subdivisions (class fractions, among others). In the case of capitalism, we have the proletariat as the wealth-producing class and the capitalist class as the appropriating class, and this occurs through the production and appropriation of surplus value, which constitutes capitalist relations of production. This proletariat, determined by concrete social relations, by its position in the social division of labor and specific function within it, is a social class, thus delimited and without having to refer to its consciousness. Before proceeding, it is important to emphasize the need to avoid terminological confusion and overcome expressions that open up this possibility. In this sense, Viana’s (2018a) y suggestion to replace the term “class-in-itself,” a legacy of Hegelianism, with “determined class” is fundamental. This new language expresses the fundamental idea of “class-in-itself”: it is a class as it exists based on social determinations. The proletariat are individuals who have the function of producing surplus value in capitalist society and do not choose or immediately know this.
And what is this determination? They are external determinations. The fundamental determination is that of the dominant relations of production, which, in the case of the proletariat, are capitalist relations of production, that is, a set of social relations that constrain proletarian individuals to develop certain social relations with the capitalist class in the production process and outside it, in a derivative and complementary way. Other determinations act on the proletariat and act to keep it in its determined class condition, and it is worth highlighting, because they are many, due to their importance, cultural hegemony (the “dominant ideas”) and the state apparatus. Undoubtedly, cultural hegemony emerges from the power of the bourgeoisie in civil society, but it has a faithful defender and reproducer in the state. Cultural hegemony in capitalism exists through ideologies (illusory systems of thought, such as liberalism, fascism, neoliberalism, Darwinism, evolutionism, particular sciences, etc.), doctrines, representations, currents of opinion, etc. “Active ideologues” produce ideologies and “passive” ones reproduce and disseminate them in society. The state and educational apparatus, the oligopolistic media, spread and guarantee the primacy of these conceptions in a simplified and accessible form for the majority of the population, including the proletariat. The state apparatus is another determination of the proletariat, not only because it produces and reproduces cultural hegemony, but also because it offers legitimacy through the legal apparatus and guarantees “social peace” through its repressive apparatus, which prevents revolts, protests, etc.
But what, then, is the “class for itself”? It is the self-determined class, that is, one that is no longer determined. In the case of the proletariat, it is when it ceases to be determined by capital, which means that it begins to question capitalism, breaking with submission to the process of capitalist domination in production and culture. At that moment, it begins to self-determine, creating its association (self-organization, or autarchic organization of the class), its union, its consciousness. It ceases to be merely a social class determined by production relations and becomes a social class that develops its self-determination, that is, it develops self-organization, its association, its self-consciousness, and its union as a class, assuming a political- character, that is, class struggle[3] . This means that the proletariat, by becoming a self-determined class (which is only possible based on its real and concrete foundations as a specific class), unifies, organizes, and becomes conscious. In this context, the proletariat becomes combative and ceases to fight battles that are not its own (inter-bourgeois disputes, institutional struggles, inter-bureaucratic struggles, etc.) and begins to demand that its interests be met.
A self-determined class only becomes so by associating to “assert its class interests,” and this is different in different social classes. The ruling classes already have their association to assert their interests, the State. So they are self-determined classes from their inception. The lower classes and other social classes already have greater difficulty. The classic case cited by Marx is the peasantry, due to their isolation on small properties. The proletariat, brought together by the bourgeoisie itself, having to face alienated labor, exploitation, domination, and processes arising from capitalist development (inter-bourgeois struggles, periods of wage decreases, crises, etc.), tends to become a self-determined class, but the bourgeoisie, especially through its state apparatus and dominance in civil society, creates counter-tendencies in this regard.
Thus, proletarian consciousness is part of the process of achieving self-determination for the working class. It can develop partially and advance further in some sectors of the working class or individual cases, but its collective and general advancement presupposes organizational advancement, generating autonomous organizations and unity. However, the working class already possesses its class consciousness as a whole, even in times of stability and lack of political action by the proletariat. In this case, it is a matter of determined class consciousness.
This is a limited form of class consciousness, as it springs from their way of life, their struggles (incipient, spontaneous daily struggles), and their interests, but is permeated by the hegemony and culture of capitalist society. The bourgeoisie, for example, generated the natural and human sciences based on its interests and with the aim of contributing to the control of the population and the working class itself, and for this reason they reproduce the characteristics of bourgeois episteme (reductionism, antinomianism, anistorism)[4] and this, in a highly simplified form, reaches the proletariat, especially in the case of proletarians who are more dedicated to study and reflection.
An example of this process was the merging of the originally proletarian idea of socialism with the bourgeois conception of science. Proudhon developed the idea of “scientific socialism” (and Marx, although with a much broader understanding of science, using the term in its Hegelian sense—which, being philosophical, was not the same conception as that of natural or social scientists, ended up reproducing the terminology, opening the way for further confusion), which already shows the strength of bourgeois epistemes and their dominant paradigms and ideologies.
Proletarian consciousness as a self-determined class is therefore contradictory. It brings proletarian elements and concerns mixed with elements of bourgeois hegemony. The everyday representations generated within the proletariat are linked to its way of life and the problem of cultural hegemony. It is a “contradictory consciousness.” The contradiction emerges from its way of life, interests, and struggle that points to confrontation with capital (and, consequently, with the state and the bureaucracy, the main auxiliary class of the bourgeoisie), which predisposes it to questioning and critical thinking, to rebellious values, feelings, and conceptions, but at the same time, it is constituted from the paradigms of bourgeois episteme, the ideologies and cultural production (artistic, political, scientific, etc.) of capitalist society, which provide most of its frame of reference and are considered more “solid” (because they are “scientific,” “proven,” “empirical,” etc.).
Thus, many proletarian individuals are dissatisfied with alienated labor and, as Marx (1983) said, “flee from work as the devil flees from the cross.” However, they need work and constantly hear the ideological discourse that “it is (alienated) work that dignifies man,” and thus a contradictory conception of work emerges in their minds. Proletarian consciousness as a determined class is contradictory, bringing together elements of acceptance and denial of capitalism. The classic example is the proletarian who wants to be “his own boss,” because he denies alienated labor but affirms capitalist property. It is an individualistic denial, which means that it is not a denial based on class unity.
However, in its daily struggle, in its early organizational forms, in the clashes in the production process and in civil society, it advances. The advance, as already mentioned, will be greater in some sectors and moments, and may coexist with a retreat or with a new, even deeper advance. Thus, it is in the class struggle that proletarian consciousness develops. This struggle is encouraged and can be radicalized by the process of intercapitalist struggles, national wars, crises (financial, commercial, political, etc.) and there are still other sectors of society that can collaborate with this, such as sectors of the intelligentsia and youth, individuals who abandon their class conception and join the revolutionary project, and revolutionary individuals and groups that bring “elements of culture” to the working class and other lower classes. When this struggle, in a certain context, allows for a broader advance of the class as a whole, self-determined proletarian consciousness becomes a reality. It emerges on a large scale in revolutionary moments, in times of attempts at proletarian revolutions (with greater or lesser progress, depending on the case). Contradictions are overcome and an advanced and revolutionary consciousness emerges, even if, in certain contexts, it still has limitations and problems, but tends to go further (at this moment, the biggest obstacle is the supposed allies, such as the radicalized bureaucracy that claims to be on the side of the proletariat, but really wants to lead and replace it).
However, there is an inseparability between self-determined class consciousness and self-determination. Without the total advancement of the working class, class consciousness does not become self-determined. Without the struggle that generates solidarity against the daily competition of capitalist sociability, which shows the strength and capacity of the proletariat to transform and manage the production process, without the emergence of new organizations (autarchic, that is, non-bureaucratic), new values, self-determined proletarian consciousness is something of minorities, inside and outside the class. For it to become an effective force, it goes hand in hand with class unity and association.
In this sense, the struggle of revolutionaries is for the proletariat to create its autarchic organizations and to question obstacles and false allies (broadening its perception of the real meaning of bureaucratic organizations such as parties and unions, which are counterrevolutionary) and develop a more advanced consciousness, creates a sense of belonging and unity in the struggle against the bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy, develops new values and feelings, knows that solidarity is a necessity within the class and that war is the only way to relate to the ruling class and its auxiliary classes, recognizes the need to abolish capital and the state apparatus (as well as all bureaucratic organizations), and that understands that the project for a new society can only be one of generalized self-management. Thus, they can contribute to the workers’ struggle by emphasizing the need for autonomous organizations (self-organization), revolutionary consciousness (self-determined class), and the unity of the entire class (as well as the support of other lower social classes and other sectors of society).
Thus, the process of transition from determined class consciousness to self-determined class consciousness is complex, as it takes place in the class struggle, and there the bourgeoisie, its auxiliary classes (bureaucracy and intelligentsia), its apparatuses (state, educational, communicational, etc.), its financial strength, its repressive force, act to prevent this. On the other hand, the needs and interests of the class point to another path, and revolutionaries (individuals and groups), existing political and social struggles, crises, among other processes, encourage its advancement. And it is in the struggle that progress becomes more firm and radical. In these struggles, advances and retreats, the reproduction of capitalist sociability and its rejection, the rescue and development of revolutionary theory, among many other elements, mix and point to a complex social fabric. The possibility of the emergence of self-determined class consciousness appears, to a large extent, when the class becomes self-determined and attempts at proletarian revolutions, rarely predicted, show their concrete possibility.
We can conclude these reflections on proletarian consciousness by returning to the critique of the idea of class consciousness “in itself” and “for itself.” What they have in common is that both conceptions recognize that there are two forms of class consciousness. The difference is that the first is reductionist and reduces the problem to the level of consciousness alone. The second already posits that the issue is broader, that it is social, involving class struggle, that is, society as a whole. Both conceptions recognize that there is a transition from one to the other, but the first thinks of this as a product of the “vanguard party” or the “revolutionary party,” while the second revives Marx’s conception and affirms that this is a product of the workers’ struggle. It is thanks to the workers’ struggle that the proletariat develops its revolutionary consciousness and the young people, intellectuals, and militants who join the proletariat become aware of the revolutionary struggle of this class and begin to support it. This vanguard conception is reactionary and bureaucratic. Marx himself, when it was still emerging and soon after became ideology (that is, an illusory system of thought), criticized it:
For almost forty years, we have placed class struggle at the forefront as the direct driving force of history and, in particular, the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as the most powerful lever of social revolution. Therefore, it is impossible for us to walk alongside people who tend to suppress this class struggle from the movement. When we founded the International, we clearly stated its war cry : ‘the emancipation of the working class will be the work of the working class itself’. We obviously cannot walk alongside people who declare to the four corners of the earth that workers are too uneducated to emancipate themselves and that they must be liberated by the elite, by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois philanthropists. If the new party organ takes a stance that corresponds to the ideas of these gentlemen, if this orientation is bourgeois and not proletarian, we will have no choice, however regrettable it may be, but to debate openly and break the solidarity we have shown until now as representatives of the German party abroad.” (Marx, 1978, p. 30, emphasis added)[5] .
The Leninist (and its derivatives) and Lukacsian conceptions, as well as similar ones, are bourgeois and must therefore be fought. The spontaneous consciousness of the proletariat contains contradictions that must be overcome, and to do so, it is necessary to strengthen the workers’ struggle and carry out a broad cultural struggle to contribute to this process. No bureaucratic dirigisme, no bureaucratic organizations, always moderate and when they radicalize, it is only in the sense of using social struggles to gain state power rather than destroy it.
In short, proletarian consciousness exists and is permeated by contradictions (with varying levels depending on various divisions within the class, such as education, class fractions, region, the strength of the influence of ideologies, religions, scientific discourses, representations, divisions of race, sex, political conception, traditions, etc.) and capital knows very well how to exploit this to maintain division and internal competition. The unity of the proletariat is its most powerful weapon, which is why capital’s fundamental strategy for dismantling the workers’ struggle is to promote disunity. However, due to its interests, way of life, struggle, and situation in today’s society, the proletariat tends to achieve revolutionary consciousness. Thus, bourgeois hegemony (and bureaucratic hegemony in sectors of society) acts to prevent its development, and the revolutionary bloc (with some ambiguous sectors contributing partially) and the spontaneous tendency of the proletariat, reinforced by other contradictions and crises of capitalist society, tend to emerge and become widespread.
That said, what remains for us is to wage a cultural and political struggle to promote the development of the workers’ struggle and, along with it, the emergence of their association, revolutionary consciousness, and unity, bringing the seeds of a radical and total social revolution that will bring about human liberation through the establishment of a self-managed society.
References
HEGEL, G. F. Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences of Epitome. Vol. 1. Lisbon, Edições 70, 1988.
HEGEL, G. F. Phenomenology of Spirit. Part 1. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1992.
JENSEN, Karl. What Is To Be Done? Goiânia: Edições Redelp, 2020.
KAUTSKY, Karl. The Three Sources of Marxism. São Paulo: Global, 1980.
LENIN, W. What Is To Be Done? São Paulo: Hucitec, 1978.
LUKÁCS, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. 2nd edition, Rio de Janeiro: Elfos, 1989.
MARX, Karl. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. In: FROMM, Erich. The Marxist Concept of Man. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1983.
MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. The German Ideology (Feuerbach). 3rd edition, São Paulo: Ciências Humanas, 1982.
MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. Letters. In: MARX, Karl et al. The Party Question. São Paulo: Kairós, 1978.
MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. Communist Manifesto. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1988.
REICH, Wilhelm. What is Class Consciousness? Lisbon: Textos Exemplares, 1976.
SANTOS, Theotonio dos. Concept of Social Classes. 4th edition, Petrópolis, Vozes, 1987.
VIANA, Nildo. The Theory of Social Classes in Karl Marx. Lisbon: Chiado, 2018a.
VIANA, Nildo. Dialectical Analysis of Discourse. Vol. 01. Goiânia: Edições Redelp, 2025 [in press].
VIANA, Nildo. Marx’s Methodological Writings. 4th edition, Goiânia: Ragnatela, 2024.
VIANA, Nildo. Bourgeois Hegemony and Hegemonic Renewals. Curitiba: CRV, 2019a.
VIANA, Nildo. Self-Management Manifesto. 3rd edition, Rio de Janeiro: Rizoma, 2019b.
VIANA, Nildo. The Bourgeois Way of Thinking. Bourgeois Episteme and Marxist Episteme. Curitiba: CRV, 2018b.
Translated from Portuguese (Br.) by F.C. with help of Deepl.com
[1] The positivist paradigm was predominant from the second half of the 19th century until 1945, that is, during the regime of extensive accumulation (Viana, 2019a). The avant-garde paradigm, its heir, was in force in countries with state capitalism, under a regime of state accumulation (Viana, 2019a). Leninism, an ideology linked to the avant-garde paradigm, was influenced by the positivist paradigm, but is linked to avant-gardism, with some differences from positivism and assimilation of some of its aspects.
[2] Reich’s conception (1976) is not very different from these conceptions, and its novelty consists in inserting psychoanalytic elements—which are quite problematic, as it rescues from Freud the most questionable aspects of his conception and reproduces his mechanistic view. Reich’s merit lies only in recognizing the existence of contradictions in the workers’ consciousness, but he maintains the division between the consciousness of the leaders and the consciousness of the “masses.”
[3] On the phases of the workers’ struggle, cf. Marx and Engels (1988), Jensen (2020), Viana (2019b).
[4] On bourgeois episteme, cf. Viana (2018b).
[5] https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/marx/works/1879/09/18.htm [add – Crítica Desapiedada]
Faça um comentário