> I see in a later post that you answer your own questions to me, no ?
For Marx, "socialism" is the penultimate stage in the development of rational self-consciousness. The central role given to the labour process in this development results from Marx's sublation of Hegel's account of this development in the Phenomenology. This explains the claim in The Holy Family that:
> It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the
> whole proletariat, at the moment _regards_ as its aim. It is a
> question of _what the proletariat is_, and what, in accordance with
> this _being_, it will historically be compelled to do.
> <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm>
This is the claim that the capitalist labour process works to develop the degree of rational self-consciousness required for its transformation into a labour process from which all barriers to the full development of this self-consciousness will have been removed. So, even though "the whole proletariat" may not now have the degree of rational self-consciousness this will require, it is of the essence of the wage labour/capital relation that it develops this.
The idea that the "being" of the proletariat is constituted by this process is the ontological idea of "being" in general as "activity" within "internal relations." This is identical to Whitehead's idea of "being." In fact, Whitehead's own account of the development of rational self-consciousness shares essential features with Marx's (though it doesn't emphasize the labour process). One of these features is the characterization of the process of development as a movement from "force to persuasion" (the title of chap. V in Adventures of Ideas) in human relations. Another is the linking of the actualization of "freedom" to the development of "forces of production" understood as an expression of the development of rational self-consciousness. The link arises from the fact that "the essence of freedom is the practicability of purpose." Whitehead himself says of this understanding of "freedom" and its prerequisites that "in modern thought, the expression of this truth has taken the form of 'the economic interpretation of history'." (Adventures of Ideas, p. 66)
Penultimate social relations (those constituting "socialism") have to be brought into existence self-consciously by the vast majority of individuals whose relations they are to be. They must be its architects and builders. This necessity derives from the essential character of such relations. They can't be created _for_ individuals by a "vanguard." (In one sense, this is obvious from simple inspection of the essential features of such relations pointed to in The Civil War in France). This truth doesn't originate with Marx. It can be found expressed poetically, for instance, in the last part of Goethe's Faust.
In the third thesis on Feuerbach, Marx associates the mistaken idea that a "vanguard" could do this with the mistaken idea of "materialism" the theses are rejecting. His own answer as to how the vast majority acquire the degree of rational self-consciousness required for the penultimate transformation - "revolution" - of their social relations is "revolutionary praxis" where "praxis" means human "activity" within internal "relations of production." For the reason given above, this activity is taken as developmental of the requisite degree of rational self-consciousness in the individuals making up this vast majority. The interpretation of "praxis" as a pragmatic doctrine of truth (e.g. Lenin proved his ideas through "practice") is mistaken.
The idea that Russian peasant self-consciousness could create "socialism" is, for these reasons, mistaken. The idea that this self-consciousness could develop the degree of rationality required for "socialism" through the policies of Lenin and Stalin is also mistaken. The initial policy of land redistribution, for instance, reinforced the material basis of peasant social relations and the self-consciousness associated with them. This was the ground of Marx's objection to such a policy.
Marx's own suggested policies (which are, in contrast to Lenin and Stalin's, at least consistent with the ideas I've just elaborated) would themselves have been inadequate because they underestimate the obstacles in the way of transforming peasant self-consciousness. They do this because they are based on a very inadequate understanding of the process required for the development of rational self-consciousness.
To avoid treating texts as "bibles," they need to be approached as making arguments. The first, itself very difficult, task is to figure out what the texts mean i.e. what are the arguments they make. This itself requires a fairly well developed capacity for autonomous thought. You have to allow texts to put your own foundational ideas in question. Failure to do this produces e.g. Marx interpreted as a Leninist.
Ted