ABSTRACT
FOR [Marx] the revolution is an historical certainty. From this translation of the dramatic into the “scientific” arise the essential ambiguities of Marxism. Accepting the revolutionary proletariat as an hypothesis, we should look for the emergence of this heroic image in the finite struggles of the working class, in its poetry. Each such struggle would then appear as laden with suspense and pathos. Of more practical importance, we could be aware whether the values attached to this image were in the way of being realized. But with Marx all finite efforts of the workers are subsumed under the concept of the class-conscious proletariat. Thus, though he thinks of the revolution as a tragedy, he does not behold its incidents as tragic, and his work lacks the pathetic tonality appropriate to its notion of the workers transforming themselves through constant risk of their lives.…
