ABSTRACT
To identify theoretic knowledge-of-fact with the program-of-action of a special social group—to regard partisanship as “deeper” than objective investigation— is so exactly not the attitude in which science approaches the world, whether it be pure science or applied, that the people would hardly expect to find this thought still living in the minds of educated modern men like Lenin and Trotsky. There are several other facts, however, which make it hard to escape from Marx’s wish-fulfillment system, and yet retain his scientific contribution and hold to his technique of revolution. One is that social science, when it is applied in action on a grand scale, does differ from physical or mechanical. The idea that the socialist thinker, who comes almost inevitably from other classes, is merely “bringing the proletariat a consciousness of its own destiny,” enables him to’ avoid a certain appearance of patronizing, or “putting something over on,” the proletariat.
