Class and Party

It has often been said that one would seek in vain a theory of class or of the party in Marx. This is true; except for the fact that the problem of class is present throughout his work in such abundance and depth as to make possible the reconstruction of the theory which his analysis implies. The case is entirely different in regard to the party. This of course is not because the problem of the "organization" of the working class was ignored by Marx. He confronted that problem as soon as he lost his illusions-immediately after The Holy Family and The German Ideology-about the efficacy of exclusively intellectual action, divorced from concrete political action inside the working class; and he reflected upon it between 1845 and 1848, while he was involved in the work of the secret societies and in the German workers' associations, and through his acquaintance with the Utopian Communist Weitling. None of these contacts-with the possible exception of the bonds of esteem and occasional action which linked him to Blanqui-led Marx to accept a definite "commitment" : he already had a theoretical position which cut him off radically from the secret societies, with their nebulous programmes, and which also placed him in immediate opposition to Weitling. The question, for him, was a practical one: it was necessary to establish links with the workers, and the fact that the secret societies and their conspiracies tended in those years to assume a proletarian character was much more important for Marx than ideological quarrels with the societies