Masses - From an idealistic to a materialistic point of view? Aspects of Marxian theory of the class

Rammstedt O. Masses - From an idealistic to a materialistic point of view? Aspects of Marxian theory of the class. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology. 1980;17(3/4):55-79.The article presents information about the aspects of Marxian theory of the class. Material for a theory of class is to be found throughout scholar Karl Marx's works. The term 'class' served him well, for critical commentary on the existing social-political conditions; for judging the state of social structural development in different societies; for explaining social conflict; for analyzing capitalist society and for a prognosis of social dynamics. There are to be found in Marx some considerations of the implications of this class theory and its assumptions, but they are scattered and, at best, only loosely related; so, for example, the economic determination of the classes, their organization and structure, the form in which their interests are represented, the course of conflict between the classes and the immanent purpose of class conflict: the negation of all classes. Masses stands for the un-structural multitudes, characterized-for the time being-by alienation. And with increasing stress on this aspect, masses comes to be equated with species. When Marx equates the masses and the proletarian class in his Paris texts, this is not something new. For the French socialists it: was self evident that the proletariat should be regarded as a class and their masses seen as a vital social force