http://www.revleft.com/vb/reformism-...html?p=1489170

I posted this reply in the thread above:

There are three or four types of consciousness: tred-iunionizm and left populism, class consciousness, socialist consciousness, and perhaps a fourth consciousness that I can't name.

In my experience, socialist consciousness is spread through "education" in "educate, agitate, organize."

Class consciousness is a different animal from the first type, because this involves posing the question of political power (usually by means of a party and not through syndicalism).

The fourth type of consciousness, if it can be even called that, would indeed refer to your "action" musings, which come directly from Bakunin and Sorel, not from Marx. This is based on "agitation" in "educate, agitate, organize."



The most contentious part, of course, deals with Bakunin and Sorel and the whole notion of "moving the masses into action" (Macnair). Thoughts?

As with theory, some insights can only be found through practice (action).

You're reading that "scandalous passage" the wrong way.

There are two or three kinds of consciousness that need to be considered, and "from without" needs to be put into perspective:

1) So-called "class consciousness," which if understood from a traditional Labour perspective does come from inside the class as a whole;
2) "Socialist" or "revolutionary" consciousness which can come from inside the class but originates outside the class movement (outside the class as a whole means coming from sources like tenured professors who are coordinator intellectuals and not proletarians) - I wrote my theoretical and programmatic works thus far as a "schoolmaster" outside the class movement; and

3) Political consciousness/awareness, which is something not addressed in previous theoretical works of mine. This is because, at that time, I never fully understood how to fully define Broad Economism. The trick is to recognize that the "struggle for socialism" is economic and not political, thus meaning that proper class struggles (derived from real class consciousness being part of political consciousness/awareness), ordinary labour struggles up to and including radicalization towards mass labour unrest, and "socialist struggles" are three different animals. Today's deficit of political consciousness/awareness is what prevents ordinary folks from being more politically active beyond marching to the voting booth every few years. Until now, I never fully understood just how more profoundly true and important the Orthodox Marxist concept of "false consciousness" is than Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Where does this political consciousness or awareness come from? All I know so far is that, like socialist or "revolutionary" consciousness, generally it comes from outside any potential worker-class movement but not necessarily the class as a whole.

BTW, Lars Lih's excellent commentary on Lenin's pamphlet, which explains away my first two points above, can be found on Google Books:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC

I didn't know about my earlier position on four types of consciousness, so let me reconcile the two viewpoints above (the second being a repost from my History thread critique of spontaneous workers councils).

Generic political consciousness/awareness is the "fourth consciousness that I can't name." From this, however, stems actual class consciousness - "posing the question of political power (usually by means of a party and not through syndicalism)."