ethics from thehypocrisies of bourgeois morality.AsElfriedeAdelberghas docu-
mented in great detail, Marx and Engels usedthe terms“worker”and“proletar-
ian”in line withaparticulartext’stheoretical or political function but did so in-
consistentlyand inconclusively.⁹ In the transition from earlytolate Marx,
“proletarian”lost some of its original charge,with Adelbergnotingahigher fre-
quency in the political commentaries and agitational treatises compared to the
scholarlyeconomic writingsthat favorthe more neutral “workingclass.”
Under these conditions,the proletariatresistedfull determination by the social
and economic conditions of capitalism and ended up being roused by its own
fluid condition, in Lenin’sdismissive word, as an amalgamation of German phi-
losophy, English political economy, andFrench socialism.¹⁰
As asocial type and critical concept,the proletarian in Marxist thought
made an earlyappearance inFriedrich Engels’sinfluential report onDie Lage
der arbeitenden Klasse in England(1845,TheCondition of theWorking Class in
England). His extensive studies in Manchester,the center of the industrial revo-
lution, had allowed Engels to recognize the proletarian asanew kind of worker
who turnsthe experience of suffering into an attitude of struggling. The workers’
hatred of the rich and mighty and their sense of powerlessness in front of the
machinesappear as recurringthemes in his harrowingdescriptions of work-
ing-class lives. Yetevenmore demoralizing than hungerorpoverty,Engels con-
cludes,isthe dailyexperienceofliving hand tomouth, which puts the proletar-
ian“in the mostrevoltinginhumane position conceivable forahuman being.”
Unlikethe slave in the plantation economyorthe serf in tenant farming,“the
proletarian must depend upon himself alone, and isyetprevented from so apply-
ing his abilities asto be ableto relyupon them [...]Heisthe passivesubject of all
possiblecombinations and circumstances,[...]and his character and wayofliv-
ing are naturallyshaped by these conditions.”¹¹In Engels’swords, since“no sin-
gle field for the exercise of his manhood is left him, save his opposition to the
See the useful summary in ElfriedeAdelberg,“Arbeiter,”inZum Einfluß vonMarx und Engels
auf die deutsche Literatursprache. Studien zumWortschatz der Arbeiterklasse im 19.Jahrhundert,
ed. Joachim Schildtetal. (Berlin: Akademie, 1978), 113–172. We can probablytrace asimilar shift
during theVormärzperiod from“socialist”to“communist”as the preferredterm of self-identi-
fication.
See Vladimir Ilyich Lenin,“The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism,”Col-
lectedWorks19:21–28.
Friedrich Engels,“The Condition of theWorking-Class in England,”MECW4: 413. Foracom-
pellinganalysisofthe Engels text through the concept of the proletariat,see StathisKouvelakis,
Philosophy andRevolution: FromKant toMarx,prefaceFredric Jameson, trans. G. M. Goshgarian
(London:Verso,2003), 167–231.
Proletarian Dreams: From Marx to Marxism 55