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Political Ideas: Marx and Engels, the Communist Manifesto

Social divisions, the other classes and class consciousness

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 2

Overview

Lumpenproletariat and state how the authors treat it and class consciousness.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How do sections of the ruling class come over to the proletariat?

Process

Trace the stages by which the proletariat becomes organised, as the Manifesto describes them.

Key term

How does the Manifesto explain the persistence of ideas that serve the ruling class?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which classes besides the bourgeoisie and proletariat does the Manifesto discuss?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels discuss the lower middle class of small manufacturers, shopkeepers, artisans and peasants, together with the aristocracy and the lumpenproletariat. Each is analysed by its relationship to modern production.

  2. 2

    Why do the authors describe the lower middle class as reactionary?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels argue that small tradespeople and peasants fight the bourgeoisie in order to save their own existence as a middle class, and so try to roll back the wheel of history. Such groups are conservative rather than revolutionary in their aims.

  3. 3

    When does the lower middle class become revolutionary, according to the Manifesto?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels state that its members become revolutionary only when facing imminent transfer into the proletariat. At that point they defend their future rather than their present interests.

  4. 4

    Define the lumpenproletariat and state how the authors treat it.

    Model answer

    The lumpenproletariat is the layer described as the dangerous class or social scum thrown off by the lowest levels of old society. Marx and Engels argue that its conditions of life prepare it far more to serve as the bribed tool of reactionary intrigue than to join a workers' movement.

  5. 5

    How does the Manifesto explain the position of the aristocracy?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels describe the old landed aristocracy as a class defeated by the bourgeoisie and reduced to attacking it out of resentment. Aristocratic criticism of industrial society is dismissed as feudal socialism, waving a beggar's scrip as a banner.

  6. 6

    How do sections of the ruling class come over to the proletariat?

    Model answer

    Marx and Engels argue that as the struggle nears decision a portion of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, particularly bourgeois ideologists who have understood the movement of history. Marx and Engels were themselves examples of that description.

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