The debate on the 'pro-revolutionaries in academia' topic went on to the subject of the middle class and the role of middle class people in revolution. This is a very contentious subject and although some people may think its been had enough times already I think a thread dedicated to its discussion would be useful. First, because it is clearly a serious issue for some members of the working class. Middle class people are seen as not understanding their concerns and as potentially counter-revolutionary force within an organisation. Secondly, because many middle class people feel excluded and dehumanized by being judged on their class background, as any working class person would. I also want to write up an essay about it and I'd like to hear what people have to say. Even if its all been said before! I think we need to attain some kind of coherence on this point so that everyone knows how things stand. Personally, I'm somewhere in between the two positions, but then I'm middle class. 
Oct 18 2011 16:07
Oct 18 2011 17:14
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the difference between middle class and working class is one readily recognizable to most people in their everyday lives
Tbh it's often completely unrecognisable to people in their everyday lives, witness the fact that Obama talks about middle class priorities in the US because nobody apart from the very, very poorest identify as working class.
Oct 18 2011 17:33
Malva wrote:
because it is clearly a serious issue for some members of the working class. Middle class people are seen as not understanding their concerns and as potentially counter-revolutionary force within an organisation. Secondly, because many middle class people feel excluded and dehumanized by being judged on their class background, as any working class person would.
This all sounds a bit like identity politics based on privilege guilt from some of those in the movement with a middle class background and possible guilt tripping from some of those with a working class background.
I fucking hate identity politics 
Class is important in terms of the proletariat being the only class with the potential or capable of seizing the means of production and summat we organise within. Everything else (prolier than thou shit, name calling, class pride, etc.) is just for scoring street cred points, posing and general twattery and has no place in a revolutionary movement.
I'll get me tin hat on 
Oct 23 2011 15:16
I agree with Serge, however if you were talking about say liberals from the Guardian and not class-struggle anarchists, i.e. the Polly Toynbees of this world...* Regarding revolutionaries, the issue is only contentious when vanguardism is involved and middle-class people such as Lenin, Fidel, etc. take it upon themselves to lead the 'idiotic' masses, which clearly isn't the case in anarchism. And if there are any informal hierarchies, I'd hazard a guess that it'd be more down to personalities than class.
*George Orwell dedicated the second half of Wigan Pier to this topic:
Oct 18 2011 19:08
British sociology and its mass media culture has reinforced the focus on cultural differences like accent, dress, daily habits, reading matter, etc as the defining aspect of class. Its rubbish! When I was on holiday in Wales 2 years ago I came across a fantastic library built by miners for miners with all sorts of intellectual reading matter in it. That reminded me of my granddad, who worked mending trams between the two world wars and who used to build his own radio sets. As 'The Uses of Literacy' made clear 40 years ago, working class culture of the 'class for itself' variety was a threat and was gradually replaced by commercialised culture specifically aimed at workers and their families. That happened decades before 'dumbed down' culture became a concern. Anyone not wanting to bow to this who wasn't politically aware started to define themselves as middle class, like my mother - a hairdresser!
Pandering to this and to people who have played on their cultural working class origins within the Left takes us nowhere. According to most people who believe in this concept, I was solidly working class and am now solidly middle class. Politically, though, I haven't changed.
The 'middle class' can only exist in advanced capitalist countries benefitting from imperialism. Just look at how the idea of the dying middle class has taken root in the USA over the past year, as the economic crisis has impoverished so many people who bought into the aspirational mirage.
The British Left's marginalization is, in my view, intimately connected to buying into an exclusive, hand-me-down, non-Marxist concept of class which is all at sea due to the changes in class composition which have taken place during the neoliberal era.
Oct 18 2011 19:17
Honestly, my entire argument was going to be that you can't judge people on their background and class 'identity'. You can see that in my posts on the discussion I mentioned. People have done this to me, not in a revolutionary struggle context, but in my life in some very nasty ways. To reproduce this sort of thing in a class struggle context would be horrifying.
Oct 18 2011 19:28
Malva wrote:
People have done this to me, not in a revolutionary struggle context, but in my life in some very nasty ways.
I've always found a punch up the bracket to be the best response to this sort of malarkey.
Oct 18 2011 19:47
Nice post Pengwern. Malva, I would think about what you mean by "middle class"; is it income, culture, or what? The "middle class" (at least as I hear it talked about in a US context) is largely a self-defined thing, an extremely nebulous concept which obscures class struggle and divergence. I believe polls have found that the vast majority of Americans identify as "middle class", and even that millionaires do not consider themselves wealthy but also identify as middle class! So basically, if you go by self-definition, everyone from millionaires and the owners of medium-sized businesses to people who are quite literally living in poverty is "middle class". Most people would consider me and my family "middle class" (partially because of cultural stuff) but there are "working class" people, such as autoworkers, who have higher incomes than we do... I would suggest unpacking the concept of middle class and what it means in your context rather than assuming it is a stable and universally applicable concept.
Oct 18 2011 19:53
I'll post another more personal bit from my article to make this point. It is very extreme but it genuinely happened to me:
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The first time I remember having some idea that I was middle class, or better off, was a very traumatic experience. I was barely old enough to walk and my mother had been diagnosed with a serious illness. We lived in London at the time and my dad was middle management in his company and had to work long hours. My mum was sent to a hospice so there was no one to look after me and my little sister. My parents hired an aupair at the last minute to look after us during the day. My memories are still vague as I was very young, but I remember that the aupair was French and that she used to beat me and shout at me. She told me that my parents didn't deserve the nice house they had and that my sister and I were spoilt (my sister was a baby). The beatings didn't end until my mum came home from the hospice and, sick though she was, realized something was wrong. She pretended to go out to the corner shop but hung around to see what the aupair would do while she was gone. Seeing the woman hitting me she came back, confronted her and fired her on the spot. This incident was obviously very traumatic for me and it has stayed with me all my life. I don't think my experience in its extremity is typical of most middle class people but it left me feeling extremely ashamed for many years for being from a middle class family and very intimidated by anyone who brought it up or my parents wealth.
I go on to say that while my experience was extreme, a lot of middle class kids I grew up with got picked on in one way or another for the way they spoke and other symbols of being middle class. The same experience that a lot of working class kids get from middle class people! Many middle class people I speak to about my politics don't want to get involved in class struggle because they feel that they aren't welcome. In fact, it was only after reading Raoul Vaneigem in my early twenties that I realised that my feelings of alienation were just as valid as those of anyone else. Equally some working class people I speak to say exactly the same thing about academia or more rarefied cultural stuff.
My essay goes on to suggest that it is possible that non-revolutionary ideas of class or wealth are often just a cloak for the kind of resentment that this women displayed towards me and my family and results in the worst kind of authoritarianism should it ever gain a position of power. Re: the massive slaughter of 'intellectuals' and middle class people in so-called 'communist' regimes.
On a lighter note here is a good Monty Python sketch about how even if you reverse the class signifiers you can have exactly the same kind of relationship.
Oct 18 2011 19:58
@tastybrain. Middle class for me was something people applied to me in the UK to have a go at the fact I went to a private school, I talked posh and I lived in a big house. But I wasn't a victim of the 'working class'. My point is that there are bullies in both the so-called 'working class' and so-called 'middle class'. The point is that this kind of resentment is detrimental to any genuine class solidarity.
Oct 18 2011 20:01
That story's a real shocker, Malva. I don't think that's to do with class, but rather the au pair was a complete nutter.
Oct 18 2011 20:08
@Serge. I cite other examples of middle class friends being set upon because of their school uniform or their accent. I also mention seeing some middle class kids pick on some guys I was friends with from the estate down the road. It works both ways.
Oct 18 2011 22:25
OK, like everyone here I think identity politics and class are problematic. But we have seemed to have all too quickly agreed that the middle class is a myth and that is the end of it. Serge, your right it is all totally guilt politics, and we end up with absurdities where people argue who's parents worked harder for an electric cooker (or whatever the perceived luxury consumer good of your childhood was).
I would argue that, ok 'sociologically'* there was a middle class. Against pengwern I don't think imperialism floated this middle class, but finance (arguably in the last instance this becomes in the global context a form of neo-imperialism aside for a moment). And this did fuck up class politics. Once people could afford consumables, class politics went out the window. Now what this crisis has proven (it seems to me) was that the 'middle class' was a total fucking dream, but it did have a kernel of reality which is quite quickly receding from view (at least, 'materially'). But we are still suffering a huge ideological hangover from this period (the blair and clinton years I guess).
There was a specific instance where this hang over has become a problem for me in the last week (not me personally i hasten to add) that i mentioned in the other thread and I will repost here (slightly edited),
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At the occupy london meeting yesterday there was an issue that arose. should this 'movement' be a movement that 'represents' all classes (alongside other 'identity' categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, tick what ever box you want here). I said no. What was the reply? My bringing up class was dehumanizing. By merely mentioning the fact there were classes, it was presumed there wasn't individuals. It is as if the fact that you mention class makes class a problem. Not the problematization of class per se. This 'middle class attitude' as the original poster called it, I think has actually become detrimental to this 'movement'...
They eventually changed class to background, but the problem remains, background is semantic substitution for class here. I think this whole 'class inclusive' approach that these 'revolutionaries' were aiming for actually, in some ways (though i do not want to appear like a reductionist here), reflected the class constitution of the people there. Both in their 'identity' and economically and this is going to have real effects on the successes and failures of this movement.
What I guess I am trying to say here is, yes, we need to look at the class constitution of revolutionary movements in a more nuanced way the bourgeois, and proletariat. Even if it is just for 'mere' politics sake...
*and I don't use sociology in any derogatory term here. A better sociology of classes can be useful to the left-wing project, if only for specific ideological/political reasons.
Oct 18 2011 22:28
Just re-read Malva's post. I liked your use of 'resentment'. I think it needs to be thought of quite a bit, in all its facets (both in its Little Britain form of patent class prejudice, to telling a middle class person to fuck off out of your niche ultra left group because he/she went to a private school).
Oct 18 2011 23:16
Arbeiten, agree with much of what you said - though I still think the middle class is a myth in communist terms, but yes, sociologically, in popular culture and in people's minds, it does exist. The Occupy London example gives a good indication of class as identity politics shite. Seriously, I'd probably have walked out of the meeting and told them to fuck themselves, intolerant get that I am. There's a wealth of difference between arguing class politics and not being nice to someone because of their parents' jobs or what kind of school they went to. The former is what we do, the latter is a cunt's trick.
Oct 19 2011 06:13
I don't really get the whole 'sociological class' is a myth/nonsense approach
I mean quite clearly people have differing levels of income, get different levels of 'status' for the kind of work they do and have different cultural tastes. Just because there are no clear lines in sociological class doesn't mean it does not exist.
This of course does not mean we should promote organisation along such class lines, that would be identity politics, but that doesn't change the fact it still exists - same with race, gender and sexuality for instance.
Oct 19 2011 08:17
It comes down to who owns/controls the means of production (boss class) and who doesn't (working class). The middle class will mostly fit into the non-owning/controlling working class with a minority in the boss class. In economic terms, as far as communists or anyone else interested in destroying capitalism is concerned, the middle class is a non issue. That's not to say the middle class doesn't exist culturally, sociologically, in terms of income or status (if you're looking for a more complex breakdown of class), but for the revolutionary, the key question is, do you own or control the means of production or not? In other words, are you a working class middle class or a boss class middle class? 
And yes, we should organise along class lines according to people's relation to the means of production. After all, the Rupert Murdochs and captains of industry clearly have no place in the revolutionary organisation. This is not identity politics. You can't be a revolutionary if your mam's got two cars, that would be identity politics and consequently shite.
That said, I'd do everything I could to exclude Spurs fans from any revolutionary project 
Oct 19 2011 10:06
Here's my understanding of the middle-class issue, I hope it contributes to a greater good 
The significance of the 'middle class' term is how you describe the society. Communist use a totally different definition of class, what Serge mentioned. In the communist sense of the word, middle class doesn't exist. But there's a huge problem with the sociological middle class too. That, this term was coined in the times when the highly educated layer of the society became wage earner in contrast to the previous state, where the most of the highly educated layer was from the ranks of the bosses. As the division of labour intensified, more and more profession with the need of higher education born.
This has a lot to do how the classes are evolving in the communist sense. Marx identified the parallel process of accumulation and crumbling of capital. As the result, there was a way out of the capitalist class through the petit bourgeois downward to the working class. Petit-bourgeois became like the asteroid belt of the capitalist class, and it's size was also controlled by the economic situation. Each big corporation feeds an army of smaller capitalist, and creates an own little social structure within the reach of the corporation management. Highly trained professionals, clerks, small vendors, engineers are not only under the rule of the market, but also under the manipulation of the management (and they constitute part of the management structure too), therefore this layer can be manufactured by the interest of the bosses.
Because of this, the middle class is ideal territory for the big players to make politics in the face of the working class' struggles. The general tendency was to reinforce a new identity which formed a barrier between the class of bosses and the working class and mostly acts and reacts within the gravity of the bosses. The middle class identity became quite popular among the working class, because the middle class was a recognition within the society, whereas the working class, for historical, aristocratic reasons wasn't really considered as human for long (hands). In this way, the growing industrial capacity was able reinforce such an identity, and therefore blocked the way of the direct class struggle.
The important conclusion here I think, that the communist movement should overcome such a manipulation. As the communist movement isn't based on how individuals identify themselves but how they exist within the society, it is hard to reconcile with the identity politics of the capitalist society. The abolition of capital, is a working class interest, and those who are with higher income are gravitated more to the capital by observation. But that doesn't mean, they can't recognise this need and act accordingly.
Oct 19 2011 10:27
That's a very well reasoned post, soc. It also places a lot of importance on the idea of
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overcom[ing] such a manipulation
. What is the best way to achieve this? Propaganda would seem to be the obvious answer.
Oct 19 2011 11:49
D, I likewise am not keen on the idea the middle class is just a myth. Marxists will often denigrate it because it ruins their class analysis, but I think it is possible to have both at the same time as I tried to show in my last post. What i meant by myth was the idea that an inflated middle class would ever be sustainable in the long term. Which, as the crisis has shown, it isn't.
soc, thats a long post and I don't have time to read it all now, I will get back to you later
Oct 19 2011 11:51
Serge, on your reply to my initial post. Yeah I wanted to tear my shitting eyes out. Especially when some guy asked me to prove there were no rich people there. That said. I read a post recently (I think it was on libcom) that said class struggle anarchists shouldn't be so stroppy, so I tried to contain my fury and just got involved in stopping the police putting up a fence perimeter while the assembly voted on the fence perimeter (democracy huh 
)
Oct 19 2011 12:54
Serge Forward wrote:
It comes down to who owns/controls the means of production (boss class) and who doesn't (working class).
Just to be pedantic or maybe innovative, I would say it comes down to who has an effective monopoly on the means of production. A window cleaner might own his own squeegee and bucket but that doesn't make him bourgeois, anyone can own a squeegee and bucket. What makes the window cleaner bourgeois is cleaning your windows without being asked then demanding payment.
Oct 19 2011 13:38
Just to be more pedantic, the window cleaner with their own bucket, ladder, shammy, etc, would be petit bourgeois. Years ago, not long after I left school, I worked as a window cleaner for some Bolton dodgepot/local hard man who owned the round (plus a few other rounds) and tools for the job. He got a cut from my and other window cleaners' takings. Now he was bourgeois but probably perceived himself as working class - even though he did no fucking work whatsoever, apart from threatening to break the fingers of people who owed him money. Anyway, it gave me a clear lesson in how capitalism works. The guy who cleans your windows without asking then demands payment is not bourgeois, he's a prospective hospital patient 
Oct 19 2011 14:41
The guy who says he worked as a window cleaner and doesn't tell us the stories of what he saw (in another thread so as not to derail this one) is mean!
Oct 19 2011 15:08
Sidney Huffman wrote:
The guy who says he worked as a window cleaner and doesn't tell us the stories of what he saw (in another thread so as not to derail this one) is mean!
Curtains
Oct 19 2011 15:12
I personally prefer to stick with a basic marxist definition of working class for some of the reasons already sighted (and because I think that, in the long run at least, this broader class has a genuine common material interest in a libertarian communist society), but this doesn't really get us much further when it comes to how working class unity can develop in practice, given the material basis of divisions within the working class include some of those associated with definitions or use of the term 'middle class', namely those associated with the different levels of control that some workers have over others and the (mostly limited) priveleges which these bestow on those exercising that control.
These divisions are real and are not overcome by simple anstract calls for unity based on the marxist schema. Rather they can be overcome only in the context of collective struggle in pursuite of material interests, in which a certain level of contestation and conflict between different sections is both necessary and unavoidable, so that people, whatever their role in present day class society, begin to challenge (by being challenged) in those roles. Experience suggest this process to be a hesitant one, involving major advances and retreats both day to day and historically.
Our theory needs to recognise, analyse and understand these divisions in our everyday life if we are to try and overcome them in our practice.
This is the discussion we had on a number of other threads here, including the ones on teachers and managers, but the principle is the same whether we are considering the role of different levels of management in industry or, for instance, the controlling aspects of men in relation to women in the persisting patriachal nature of capitalism.
Oct 19 2011 16:29
Serge Forward wrote:
And yes, we should organise along class lines according to people's relation to the means of production. After all, the Rupert Murdochs and captains of industry clearly have no place in the revolutionary organisation. This is not identity politics. You can't be a revolutionary if your mam's got two cars, that would be identity politics and consequently shite.
That said, I'd do everything I could to exclude Spurs fans from any revolutionary project
yh, completely agree. when I said organising along 'such class lines' would be identity politics I meant organising along sociological class lines, hence the 'such'
But of course we also cannot ignore arsenal fans in any decent class analysis, and the debate of whether to throw them all in jail or simply shoot them is a very important one for communists to have.
Arbeiten wrote:
D, I likewise am not keen on the idea the middle class is just a myth. Marxists will often denigrate it because it ruins their class analysis, but I think it is possible to have both at the same time as I tried to show in my last post.
I agree with this. I think Marxist concepts of class and sociological concepts of class refer to completely different things so it doesn't follow that one being true means the other is completely false.
Oct 20 2011 12:32
I think changes in overall class composition are real and always need to be understood and incorporated into Marxist theory. I don't think sociological theory is particularly good at this, as it is too often de-linked from any changes within the forces & relations of production which might help explain changes and the new conflicts arising from them.
I am interested in the point made about how big capitalists are surrounded by smaller capitalists in the chains of production and distribution, as I come originally from the Black Country, where small firms in which the boss is often no better off than the workers supply parts for big car factories, foundries (in the past), which often left the Left absent from trying to find ways of including them. Unsurprisingly, most became working class Tories.
I think the Tories (and Blairism) have focused, unopposed and very cleverly, for most of the twentieth century on winning those parts of the so-called middle class to 'aspirational', stakeholder perspectives, whilst a largely Leninist Left has pointed relentlessly to the trade unions as the only arena of struggle worth pursuing. This has played its part in the confusion about class and its relation to struggle which we are trying to come to terms with now.
Oct 21 2011 20:44
Below is an excerpt that will help you with the paper you're writing.
I also want to insert my own opinion on the term "middle class."
In my view, the "middle class" if it exists would be the petite borgeousie and middle management. But I think what you're referring to is people of middle or upper middle income and/or socioeconomic status (SES), even though such people are often working class.
It's important to distinguish between class, income, and SES. I rarely if ever refer to "the middle class" in conversation because most people have what I think is a false interpretation of this, so instead I say "middle income." I tend not to say "middle socioeconomic status" because it's too many damn sylabels.
That experience sounds traumatic and awful. My heart goes out to you.
Excerpt from the last half or last third of chapter nine of ABC of Anarchism by Alexander Berkman
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The actual, positive work of the social revolution must, of course, be carried on by the toilers themselves, by the labouring people. And here let us bear in mind that it is not only the factory hand who belongs to labour but the farm worker as well. Some radicals are inclined to lay too much stress on the industrial proletariat, almost ignoring the existence of the agricultural toiler. Yet what could the factory worker accomplish without the farmer? Agriculture is the primal source of life, and the city would starve but for the country. It is idle to compare the industrial worker with the farm labourer or discuss their relative value. Neither can do without the other; both are equally important in the scheme of life and equally so in the revolution and the building of a new society.It is true that revolution first breaks out in industrial localities rather than in agricultural. This is natural, since these are greater centers of labouring population and therefore also of popular dissatisfaction. But if the industrial proletariat is the advance-guard of revolution, then the farm labourer is its backbone. If the latter is weak or broken, the advance-guard, the revolution itself, is lost.
Therefore, the work of the social revolution lies in the hands of both the industrial worker and the farm labourer. Unfortunately it must be admitted that there is too little understanding and almost no friendship or direct co-operation between the two. Worse than that - and no doubt the result of it-there is a certain dislike and antagonism between the proletarians of field and factory. The city man has too little appreciation of the hard and exhausting toil of the farmer The latter instinctively resents it; moreover, unfamiliar with the strenuous and often dangerous labour of the factory, the farmer is apt to look upon the city worker as an idler. A closer approach and better understanding between the two is absolutely vital. Capitalism thrives not so much on division of work as on the division of the workers. It seeks to incite race against race, the factory hand against the farmer, the labourer against the skilled man, the workers of one country against those of another. The strength of the exploiting class lies in disunited, divided labour. But the social revolution requires the unity of the toiling masses, and first of all the co-operation of the factory-proletarian with his brother in the field.
A nearer approach between the two is an important step in preparation for the social revolution. Actual contact between them is of prime necessity. Joint councils, exchange of delegates, a system of cooperatives, and other similar methods, would tend to form a closer bond and better understanding between the worker and farmer
But it is not only the co-operation of the factory proletarian with the farm labourer which is necessary for the revolution. There is another element absolutely needed in its constructive work. It is the trained mind of the professional man.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that the world has been built with hands only. It has also required brains. Similarly does the revolution need both the man of brawn and the man of brain. Many people imagine that the manual worker alone can do the entire work of society. It is a false idea, a very grave error that can bring no end of harm. In fact, this conception has worked great evil on previous occasions, and there is good reason to fear that it may defeat the best efforts of the revolution.
The working class consists of the industrial wage earners and the agricultural toilers. But the workers require the services of the professional elements, of the industrial organizer, the electrical and mechanical engineer, the technical specialist, the scientist, inventor, chemist, the educator, doctor, and surgeon. In short, the proletariat absolutely needs the aid of certain professional elements without whose co-operation no productive labour is possible.
Most of those professional men in reality also belong to the proletariat. They are the intellectual proletariat, the proletariat of brain. It is clear that it makes no difference whether one earns his living with his hands or with his head. As a matter of fact, no work is done only with the hands or only with the brain. The application of both is required in every kind of effort. The carpenter, for instance, must estimate, measure, and figure in the course of his task: he must use both hand and brain. Similarly the architect must think out his plan before it can be drawn on paper and put to practical use.
"But only labour can produce," your friend objects; "brain work is not productive."
Wrong, my friend. Neither manual labour nor brain work can produce anything alone. It requires both, working together, to create something. The bricklayer and mason can't build the factory without the architect's plans, nor can the architect erect a bridge without the iron and steel worker. Neither can produce alone. But both together can accomplish wonders.
Furthermore, do not fall into the error of believing that only productive labour counts. There is much work that is not directly productive, but which is useful and even absolutely necessary to our existence and comfort, and therefore just as important as productive labour.
Take the railroad engineer and contractor, for instance. They are not producers, but they are essential factors in the system of production. Without the railroads and other means of transport and communication we could manage neither production nor distribution.
Production and distribution are the two points of the same life pole. The labour required for the one is as important as that needed for the other.
What I said above applies to numerous phases of human effort which, though themselves not directly productive, play a vital part in the manifold processes of our economic and social life. The man of science, the educator, the physician and surgeon are not productive in the industrial sense of the word. But their work is absolutely necessary to our life and welfare. Civilized society could not exist without them.
It is therefore evident that useful work is equally important whether it be that of brain or of brawn, manual or mental. Nor does it matter whether it is a salary or wages which one receives, whether he is paid much or little, or what his political or other opinions might be.
All the elements that can contribute useful work to the general welfare are needed in the revolution for the building of the new life. No revolution can succeed without their solidaric co-operation, and the sooner we understand this the better. The reconstruction of society involves the reorganization of industry, the proper functioning of production, the management of distribution, and numerous other social, educational, and cultural efforts to transform present-day wage slavery and servitude into a life of liberty and well-being. Only by working hand in hand will the proletariat of brain and brawn be able to solve those problems.
It is most regrettable that there exists a spirit of unfriendliness, even of enmity, between the manual and intellectual workers. That feeling is rooted in lack of understanding, in prejudice and narrow-mindedness on both sides. It is sad to admit that there is a tendency in certain labour circles, even among some Socialists and Anarchists, to antagonize the workers against the members of the intellectual proletariat. Such an attitude is stupid and criminal, because it can only work evil to the growth and development of the social revolution. It was one of the fatal mistakes of the Bolshevik; during the first phases of the Russian Revolution that they deliberately set the wage earners against the professional classes, to such an extent indeed that friendly co-operation became impossible. A direct result of that policy was the breaking down of industry for lack of intelligent direction, as well as the almost total suspension of railroad communication because that was no trained management. Seeing Russia facing economic shipwreck, Lenin decided that the factory worker and farmer alone could not carry on the industrial and agricultural life of the country, and that the aid of the professional elements was necessary. He introduced a new system to induce the technical men to help in the work of reconstruction. But almost too late came the change, for the years of mutual hating and hounding had created such a gulf between the manual worker and his intellectual brother that common understanding and co-operation were made exceptionally difficult. It has taken Russia years of heroic effort to undo, to some extent, the effects of that fratricidal war.
Let us learn this valuable lesson from the Russian experiment.
"But professional men belong to the middle classes," you object, "and they are bourgeois-minded."
True, men of the professions generally have a bourgeois attitude toward things; but are not most workingmen also bourgeois-minded? It merely means that both are steeped in authoritarian and capitalistic prejudices. It is just these that must be eradicated by enlightening and educating the people, be they manual or brain workers. That is the first step in preparation for the social revolution.
But it is not true that professional men, as such, necessarily belong to the middle classes.
The real interests of the so-called intellectuals are with the workers rather than with the masters. To be sure, most of them do not realize that. But no more does the comparatively highly-paid railroad conductor or locomotive engineer feel himself a member of the working class. By his income and attitude he also belongs to the bourgeoisie. But it is not income or feeling that determines to what social class a person belongs. If the street beggar should fancy himself a millionaire, would he thereby be one? What one imagines himself to be does not alter his actual situation. And the actual situation is that whoever has to sell his labour is an employee, a salaried dependent, a wage earner, and as such his true interests are those of employees and he belongs to the working class.
As a matter of fact, the intellectual proletarian is even more subject to his capitalistic master than the man with pick and shovel. The latter can easily change his place of employment. If he does not care to work for a certain boss he can look for another. The intellectual proletarian, on the other hand, is much more dependent on his particular job. His sphere of exertion is more limited. Not skilled in any trade and physically incapable of serving as a day labourer, he is (as a rule) confined to the comparatively narrow field of architecture, engineering, journalism, or similar work. This puts him more at the mercy of his employer and therefore also inclines him to side with the latter as against his more independent fellow-worker at the bench.
But whatever the attitude of the salaried and dependent intellectual, he belongs to the proletarian class. Yet it is entirely false to maintain that the intellectuals always side with the masters as against the workers. "Generally they do," I hear some radical fanatic interject. And the workers? Do they not, generally, support the masters and the system of capitalism? Could that system continue but for their support? It would be wrong to argue from chat, however, that the workers consciously join hands with their exploiters. No more is it true of the intellectuals. If the majority of the latter stand by the ruling class it is because of social ignorance, because they do not understand their own best interests, for all their "intellectuality." Just so the great masses of labour, similarly unaware of their true interests, aid the masters against their fellow-workers, sometimes even in the same trade and factory, not to speak of their lack of national and international solidarity. It merely proves that the one as the other, the manual worker no less than the brain proletarian, needs enlightenment.
In justice to the intellectuals let us not forget that their best representatives have always sided with the oppressed. They have advocated liberty and emancipation, and often they were the first to voice the deepest aspirations of the toiling masses. In the struggle for freedom they have frequently fought on the barricades shoulder to shoulder with the workers and died championing their cause.
We need not look far for proof of this. It is a familiar fact that every progressive, radical, and revolutionary movement within the past hundred years has been inspired, mentally and spiritually, by the efforts of the finest element of the intellectual classes. The initiators and organizers of the revolutionary movement in Russia, for instance, dating back a century, were intellectuals, men and women of non-proletarian origin and station. Nor was their love of freedom merely theoretical. Literally thousands of them consecrated their knowledge and experience, and dedicated their lives, to the service of the masses. Not a land exists but where such noble men and women have testified to their solidarity with the disinherited by exposing themselves to the wrath and persecution of their own class and joining hands with the downtrodden. Recent history, as well as the past, is full of such examples. Who were the Garibaldis, the Kossuths, the Liebknechts, Rosa Luxemburgs, the Landauers, the Lenins, and Trotskys but intellectuals of the middle classes who gave themselves to the proletariat? The history of every country and of every revolution shines with their unselfish devotion to liberty and labour.
Let us bear these facts in mind and not be blinded by fanatical prejudice and baseless antagonism. The intellectual has done labour great service in the past. It will depend on the attitude of the workers toward him as to what share he will be able and willing to contribute to the preparation and realization of the social revolution.
Oct 23 2011 13:20
My twopenneth:
I'd say that the middle class is a concept or label like any other, which, being a bit Wittgensteinian, I tend to see as a constellation of various overlapping attributes which cluster into a soft-edged and finally context-dependent organism. To try and pin down the meaning of 'the middle class' is as silly as trying to pin down the meaning of 'truth' or 'game' or anything else that actually exists. We can list attributes which e.g. a game has, but there are always exceptions and modifications and vagueries.
In otherwords, if we take these attributes:
1. Certain level of income, job.
2. Certain vocabulary, register, idioms
3. Tendency towards rational atheism, tendency towards abstract art, tendency towards Guardian, Independent or, if edgy, communism and anarchism.
4. Tendency to excessive right-on eco-friendly, gay-friendly, language-policing moral correctness.
5. Tendency to idolise certain products (apple computer, fixie bikes, berkenstocks, etc), wear certain clothes.
6. Management (rather than ownership) of means of production.
7. Tightness, sexual inhibition, deep aversion to social-risk, anality.
None of these are exclusive to the middle class, any more than attributes are to abstract ideas about complex things in the real world, but together they form a vague club in which degrees of middle-classness can be said to exist and which, personally, I'd like to strip naked, spike with magic mushrooms and send to the moon.
Can comment on articles and discussions
This is my current opening paragraph to give an idea of what I am getting at: