The proletariat - the class of those exploited - is the only potentially revolutionary subject, inside the capitalist system. Proletarians, being excluded from the possession of the means of production and alienated from the product of their own work, have historical and immediate interests opposed to those of capital. But, the proletariat can be effectively revolutionary, only if it acquire the necessary class unity and the consciousness of its own intimate antagonism in respect to capital. For this purpose, it is necessary that in the sphere of the proletarian class there is an organized vanguard, able to analyze the dynamics of the relations of production, to draw lessons from the experiences of class struggle, to elaborate and advance a program to overcome the capitalist society and to guide, politically, the class on this road.

In fact, a profound difference exists between “class instinct” and “class consciousness”. The first one springs up and develops inside workers’ struggles as a patrimony of workers themselves; it is placed into existence by the antagonism of material interests and it feeds with growing economical and political contradictions, originated by the same antagonism; finally, to exist, it requires that relations between proletarians and capitalists are sufficiently tense to imply a certain generalization of workers’ struggles and a certain hardness of confrontations. The second one, consciousness, springs up from the scientific examination of class contradictions, it grows together with those contradictions; it lives and feeds with the examination and elaboration of data generated by the historical experiences of the class.

With the revolution, the power is up to the whole proletarian class, to its assembly organisms. But the party doesn’t play only a generic role of agitation and propaganda. The party sustains the revolutionary and socialist program in soviets and its militants are ready to assume responsibilities, assignments revocable in every moment, when workers’ assemblies acknowledge the slogans of the party. In conclusion, the “political direction” of the party, the relevance of the communist program, indispensible for the success of a proletarian revolution, is something which cannot be imposed on soviets, but it is to be acquired and defended through political battles.

• leftcom.org Gramsci tra marxismo e idealismo - Premessa
• leftcom.org Classe e coscienza, dalla teoria all’intervento politico