CONSCIOUSNESS FROM WITHOUT - MARXISM, LENIN AND THE PROLETARIAT

A close textual and contextual analysis of Lenin's claim, in What Is t o Be Done?, that socialist consciousness must be imported into the spo ntaneous working-class movement from without shows that it does not, c ontrary to the conventional wisdom of non-Marxist and most Marxist sch olarship on this question, contradict the basic Marxist thesis of prol etarian self-emancipation. Sense can be made of Lenin's claim only in light of the distinctive logic of his mode of political analysis and, once seen in this light, this claim can be understood as a necessary p rerequisite for Marxist political actors to theorize their situation w ithin the complexity of the class struggle and hence to learn from the struggles of the working class. The thesis of ''consciousness from wi thout'' thus expresses, not only a scientific concern with grasping th e realities of the process of the formation of working-class conscious ness, but also, paradoxically, a theoretical commitment to the politic al autonomy of the working class.