CLASS (Social)
“Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy.” —Lenin, LCW 29:421
CLASS ANALYSIS
The determination (or attempted determination) of the actual social classes in a given
society, together with their sizes, their maturity, their relative potential and importance
in the political and revolutionary processes, their sub-sections (strata) and so
forth. A reasonably correct class analysis is an absolutely necessary prerequisite for any
rational revolutionary strategy.
CLASS COLLABORATION
Siding with the ruling bourgeoisie against the interests of one’s own working class, or
coming to an agreement with them for this purpose, etc. Class collaboration can be either
an individual act or an action by a group or party led by those selling out to the enemy.
Either way it is a betrayal of the proletariat.
See also:
BURGFRIEDEN
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS — Proletarian
[Intro to be added... ]
“Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which alone it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?” (1902), LCW 5:422.
CLASS INTERESTS
The collective interests of the members of a particular social
class; the interests which they hold in common; the things which benefit them as a group.
These differ greatly from one class to another. Thus the capitalist class has an essential
interest in exploiting workers in order to generate surplus
value and therefore profits. The working class, on the other
hand, has a strong objective interest in ending this system of capitalist exploitation,
whether or not individual workers are aware of this class interest of theirs at a particular
time.
“[A]n essential condition for such an alliance [between socialists (communists!) and bourgeois democrats in the struggle for democracy] must be the full opportunity for the socialists to reveal to the working class that its interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of the bourgeoisie.” —Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?” (1902), LCW 5:362.
CLASS INTEREST THEORY OF ETHICS
The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory of ethics which explains how different class
moralities are based on the collective interests of the members of different social
classes. [More to be added later.]
[The beginning portion of my book in progress
on this topic is available from the Philosophy
Page on MASSLINE.ORG. —S.H.]
CLASS STRUGGLE
The struggle between social classes with antagonistic (irreconcilable)
interests.
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” —Marx & Engels, first sentence of chapter I of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), MECW 6:482. In a footnote added to the 1888 edition, Engels notes that of course the sentence is only referring to written history, and that by then it was well known that there were no social classes in pre-history (before the advent of the Neolithic Age).
CLASS STRUGGLE — In Bourgeois Society
[Intro material to be added... ]
“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of
feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new
classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old
ones.
“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie,
possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms.
Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into
two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” —Marx &
Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), MECW 6:485.
CLASS STRUGGLE — In Socialist Society
[To be added... ]
CM
An abbreviation used in India for “Chief Minister”, the prime minister heading a state in
India, who performs a function similar to that of the governor of an American state.
CMAS
See: CHASI MULIA ADIVASI SANGHA
CMEA
See: COUNCIL FOR MUTUAL ECONOMIC AID
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