On the other hand, no leftist intellectual, even those like Marx and Lenin who were clearly from the bourgeois intelligentsia, simply emerges from heaven riding on a chariot. They, too, are as much a product of the social and economic relations of the milieu in which they exist. Marx & Engels write in the CM:
"Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole." (Ch. 1)
I don't think we've exactly reached that time, quite yet.
I think part of it is dialectic, too. To a certain extent leftists can always see where they are in a dialectic (for instance, the fact that Bush's new war policy reflect the inherent contradictions of the capitalist state), but one never knows how far the dialectic will go one way or the other. It seems pretty clear to me that the sway will become a little more violent in the coming years, but who really knows. It's certainly foolish for leftists to try to predict when the dialectic will completely break things open and replace it with a fundamentally different reality.
But, in the end, I think it's important that Leftists continue to take the pulse of domestic and international affairs and attempt to take leadership by organizing workers around certain issues. If they don't, then that hole in leadership could easily be filled by reactionaries and fascists.
Best, David