SCIENCE AND THE WORKING CLASS 



of the entire nation, it is necessary that all short- 

 comings of society should be concentrated in an- 

 other class, * * * so that the emancipation 

 of this class may be equivalent to the emancipation 

 of humanity." 



This class is the modern proletariat, recruited 

 mainly from the ranks of the disintegrating mid- 

 dle class and the different strata of the precap- 

 italist working class. This proletariat will find 

 its intellectual weapons in philosophy. " Philos- 

 ophy cannot be realized without the abolition of 

 the proletariat, the proletariat cannot emancipate 

 itself without realizing philosophy." 



This philosophical affirmation of the class strug- 

 gle was followed by a philosophical synopsis of 

 its historical mission. Bauer had declared that 

 the solution of the " Jewish question " was iden- 

 tical with that of the emancipation of mankind 

 from religion. Marx denied this and pointed out 

 that the question of the relation of religion to 

 politics was different from that of political to 

 human freedom. Even with the greatest amount 

 of political freedom possible in a bourgeois repub- 

 lic, the people might still be enthralled in religious 

 superstitions. Political emancipation is not iden- 

 tical with emancipation from religious dualism. 

 Exceptionally, the struggle for political emanci- 



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