Mohan J. Dutta: Critical Insights on Culture and Society

The term proletariat assumed a new meaning in Engels’ document on communism. The miserable working conditions which inspired him to write, …“ But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today; in other words, there have not always been proletarians …”; those miserable working conditions have deteriorated even more. As per the definitions advanced, a classic proletariat would be someone who lives only by his/her salary and “whose life and death, therefore, depend on the alternation of times of good and bad business; in a word, on the fluctuations of competition” (Engels, 1847). So, one could say, in today’s world, a factory worker, a bus driver, a pizza-delivery man, a professor , a multinational executive all could qualify to the sobriquet as long as they do not invest and live on its profit. No…the meanings have become more complex. Engel’s conceptualization was in a certain frame of reference and as situations change, so the interpretati...

So, since most of us seem to be in a tizzy as to what the format of this blog is supposed to be, I'll just start off with a question. While I am reading Engels and Lenin, some of my very basic misconceptions of Communism are being unraveled. So, Engels claims that it is proliferation of the 'big industry' (as exemplified by the steam engine, the power loom, etc.) that has created this class of people called the proletariat. But he also articulates the fact that it is only within a 'big industrial' system that the seeds for a proletariat revolution can be sown. Which is in effect saying that a Communist revolution can only exist within a capitalist system. This gets further clarified in Lenin, where he differentiates the Socialist from the Communist, in saying that the idealistic utopian ideals of the Socialist envisage an overthrow of Capitalism per se, which the Communist thinks is unproductive . So here are my questions. 1. If Communism operates within a 'ca...