> Marx, however, avers that consciousness, including class consciousness -
> does not necessitate theory, i.e., the professional aid of the
> intelligentsia (the dialecticians).
The task Marx assigns to the proletariat requires, for its successful accomplishment, "theoretical consciousness," i.e. the nature of the task is such that it can only be accomplished by those with the developed capabilities required to raise "socialism" in imagination before erecting it in reality. He claimed capitalism would work to develop this.
In The Holy Family, for instance, he and Engels claim that:
"Since in the fully-formed proletariat the abstraction of all humanity, even of the semblance of humanity, is practically complete; since the conditions of life of the proletariat sum up all the conditions of life of society today in their most inhuman form; since man has lost himself in the proletariat, yet at the same time has not only gained theoretical consciousness of that loss, but through urgent, no longer removable, no longer disguisable, absolutely imperative need -- the practical expression of necessity -- is driven directly to revolt against this inhumanity, it follows that the proletariat can and must emancipate itself." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch04.htm
Engels, in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, gives "the theoretical expression or the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism," an essential role in the development of the required "theoretical consciousness," i.e. in the development of "a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish."
"To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm
Ted