Proletariat

“ The proletariat fulfils the judgment which private property by the creation of the proletariat suspends over itself, just as it fulfils the judgment which wage-labour suspends over itself in creating alien riches and its own condemnation. If the proletariat triumphs, it does not thereby become the absolute side of society, for it triumphs only by abolishing itself and its opposite. ”

“ The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. ”

“ The proletariat has created a new institution which embraces the entire working class without distinction of vocation or political maturity, an elastic form of organization capable of continually renewing itself, expanding, and of drawing into itself ever new elements, ready to open its doors to the working groups of city and village which are near to the proletariat. ”

“ I said that the social movement has, as its supporters, the modern proletariat, a class of free, lifelong wage-workers. The first condition of its existence is the rise of this class itself. Every social class is the result, the expression, of some specific form of production; the proletariat, of that form of production which we are accustomed to call capitalistic. The history of the rise of the proletariat is also the history of capitalism. ”

“ This bourgeois class now strikes the attitude of a pure soul, misunderstood and abandoned, at a critical moment, by the proletariat, that has been misled by the Socialists. And its cry finds a general echo in the bourgeois world. ”

“ If the proletariat has been unable to seize the control of a single one of the bourgeois revolutions, it has nevertheless in a hundred and twenty years forced its way into all the agitations of the revolutionary bourgeoisie ”

“ We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. ”

“ When capitalist development in a country has reached a point where the most important branches of industry, those of credit and transportation, are controlled by a concentrated, capitalistic group, then the proletariat which has rebelled not only can but must try to take over industry into its own hands, into the hands of the victorious proletariat, a proletariat organized into the governing power. ”

“ In the first place, let us recall the song of the weavers, those bold accents of the struggle, wherein hearth, factory, and district are not once mentioned, but the proletariat immediately gets into the stride of its opposition to the society of private property in the most vigorous, ruthless, and powerful fashion. The Silesian revolt begins just where the French and English Labour revolts end, with the consciousness of the being of the proletariat. ”

“ The Manifesto tells next the manner of growth of the class struggle. "The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. 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. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves." ”

“ The proletariat, functioning at the machinery of modern production and gaining its living by group effort—team work—about that machinery, cannot conceive of a society producing its living properly in any other way. ”

“ The slavery in which the bourgeoisie has bound the proletariat, comes nowhere more plainly into daylight than in the factory system. In it all freedom comes to an end both at law and in fact. The workman must be in the factory at half past five. ”

“ The machine proletariat, recognized its subject position in modern class society, stands squarely on the class struggle, organizes to carry on the class struggle, and prepares itself to direct industry and administer society when that struggle shall have been won. ”

“ In the conditions of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family-relations; modern industrial labor, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. ”

“ By grouping the workers in considerable masses and multiplying their numbers it created the proletariat. By making the workers an immense State within the State it paved the way for their emancipation, and furnished them with the means of conquering power. ”

“ Following the parallelism, it is quite unbelievable that the proletariat—a class having large intelligence and a militant spirit—should continue to submit indefinitely to the dominion of a dwindling few, who, from every practical viewpoint, have become absolutely parasitic. ”

“ Here the Writer challenges all philosophers, both bourgeois and pseudo-socialist, by claiming that—now and hereafter—Wherever it is possible for the bourgeosie to rule the proletariat, it is possible for that proletariat to accomplish its industrial freedom by revolution. ”

“ Ten years later, when the revolutionary risings of the proletariat demonstrated in the streets the darker side of this optimism about capitalist development, none of this Pleïad of Marxist optimists, with but a single exception, was to be found in the camp of the proletariat. ”

“ It absorbs enormous quantities of energy, prevents the bourgeoisie from playing a leading rôle, pushes its antagonist, the proletariat, to the front, gives the workingman decades' experience in a month, makes them the central figures in political struggles, and puts very tight reins into their hands. Strong, determined, knowing no doubts, the proletariat gives events a powerful twist. ”

“ The forces of social evolution have thus already created, as far at least as this country is concerned, that other indispensable factor for the success of the impending Social Revolution. They have created that class, the proletariat, whose mission it is and which is strong enough to free itself and the whole of mankind from exploitation and oppression by the capitalists, the master class of our time. ”

“ The very nature of capitalist production forces him to think and, thereby, his wits are exercised and sharpened. The "Machine proletariat" as this class is now beginning to call itself, is not to be measured by the old slave or serf standards, but by standards of its own. ”

“ By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern Capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage-labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor-power in order to live. ”

“ From this time forward Socialism was no longer an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes—the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. ”

“ The only two classes that really correspond to Marx’s theory, the two pure classes that the entire analysis of Capital brings to the fore, are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. These are also the only two revolutionary classes in history, but operating under very different conditions. The bourgeois revolution is done. ”

“ The Marxian classification broadly and very satisfactorily divides modern industrial communities into three broad sections—the greater and dominant capitalism, which is practically in control; the smaller capitalism which has lost control but which stubbornly and incessantly maintains the fight against the greater capitalism, and the proletariat which is practically, so far, a negligible quantity. ”

“ The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front in the history of the most advanced countries in Europe, in proportion to the development, upon the one hand, of modern industry, upon the other, of the newly-acquired political supremacy of the bourgeoisie. ”

“ In the second place, when it had grown in power and importance, when hope and ambition were stirring in the hearts of the proletariat, when the different revolutionary factions of the bourgeoisie were exhausted or discredited by their internal dissensions, the working class tried to take possession of the revolution and turn it to its own uses, by a sort of coup de surprise. ”

“ In the midst of this strife the proletariat learns its lessons; it learns to know the clubs of policemen and the bayonets and machine-guns of soldiers; it learns to know capitalist politicians and capitalist judges ”

“ Indeed, even among those who have become thoroughly conscious of the necessity of the proletarian class struggle, there are still plenty who cannot escape from the influence of present society, and who doubt or despair of the victory of the proletariat. ”

“ The growth of the consciousness of the proletariat transforms this class struggle, gives it a deeper and more purposeful character, which in its turn calls out a corresponding reaction on the part of the dominant class. The struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie will reach its denouement long before large-scale enterprises begin to dominate in all branches of industry. ”

“ These facts appeal with irresistible force to the proletariat, which finds itself in the midst of a continuous and cumulative economic warfare, requiring the constant and harmonious efforts of all its units. Back of the political skirmishers lies a vast economic army and it can only be opposed with organized economic power. Organization on the field of production is therefore the proletariat's means of expression—there is where it functions—there is where it daily meets its enemy. ”

“ Subjectively, however, this proletariat is still far removed from any practical class consciousness, and this goes not only for white-collar workers but also for blue-collar workers, who have yet to become aware of any perspective beyond the impotence and mystifications of the old politics. ”

“ The importance of the proletariat is based not only on its numbers, but primarily on its rôle in industry. The political supremacy of the bourgeoisie is founded on economic power. Before it manages to take over the authority of the state, it concentrates in its hands the national means of production ”