this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Why do Marx and Lenin disregard the lumpenproletariat? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 months ago by CupcakeOfSpice@hexbear.net to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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I have not read every document the two wrote regarding the subject, so I may be misunderstanding; but the ProleWiki makes it sound like Marx and Lenin--and therefore Marxist-Leninists would--disregard the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat. It seems like sex workers and homeless folks and disabled people are all spat on by the bourgeoisie and would be glad to help take them down? I'm disabled and mostly unable to work (I do work a little, but not even enough to be part-time) and I consider myself an ML.

The wiki describes the lumpen as exploitable by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces, but we've seen in the West that the proletariat as a whole is susceptible to these forces. See Zohran run one of the most radical campaigns we've seen in a while and then put on Zionist officials and advocate for changing the system from the inside. The working class is content to sit down and wait for someone else to make change for them. Most disabled people I know, on the other hand, are ready to tear the system down with their own hands. So are we supposed to just gloss over a group of people who've been pressure cooking this whole time? If so, why?

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[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Responding to a comment you made here, it is critical to think of Marxism as not being a moral philosophy. We can talk about moral motivations for one's activism and moral tones in the writing, but the philosophy itself is not grounded in moral assumptions and that is a core feature to what it is. The (imo somewhat unfair) dismissal of lumpen people is not about them being bad people but because another important element of Marxism is the way thay the specific relations of production in society creates a revolutionary class, and in this case that is a relation the lumpenproletariat is mostly alienated from.

But still a third vital element of ML philosophy is that neither Marx nor Lenin were prophets, and being a Marxist-Leninist does not mean following whatever they said, but instead using their basic framework, which one may decide leads them in some respects to different conclusions. It's a common ML stance that the past judgements about the lumpenproletariat were too limited and short-sighted, though their seperation from the rest of the proletariat does also represent a real difficulty in terms of organizing.