The Principle of Self-Emancipation in Marx and Engels

Abstract

There can be little doubt that Marx and Engels would have agreed with Lenin's nutshell definition of Marxism as "the theory and practice of the proletarian revolution." In this violently compressed formula, the key component is not the unity of theory and practice; unfortunately that has become a platitude. Nor is it "revolution"; unfortunately that has become an ambiguity. The key is the word "proletarian"-the class-character component.