The theory of class consciousness and the theory of class structure do not have the same frame of reference. This is obscured by the fact that one theory borrows language from the other, and thus refers linguistically to the same frame of reference. But except for terminological similarities, the two theories have nothing in common. Both theories refer to the working class, the proletariat, as the revolutionary class—but the same terms do not in reality refer to the same subjects in the two theories. Those who are revolutionary according to one theory are not necessarily proletarians according to the other, and those who are proletarians according to the second theory are not necessarily revolutionary according to the first.
According to the theory of class consciousness, individuals can be considered class conscious revolutionaries even if they would not be classified as proletarians by the theory of class structure, namely in terms of their relation to society's means of production. In fact, the most class conscious of revolutionaries, the leaders of the revolutionary organization, the representatives of revolutionary proletarian internationalism who have embodied in their policy the idea that is motivating countless working people all over the world, would not be defined as proletarians by the theory of class structure. These class conscious revolutionaries have been educated representatives of the propertied classes, intellectuals; by their social status they belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. Furthermore, the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop…nothing more nor less than consciousness in an embryonic form. In other words, according to the theory of class consciousness, those who are conscious revolutionaries are not only themselves not members of the working class, but the working class itself cannot become fully conscious. In fact, in the theory of class consciousness, the relation of individuals to the means of production is completely irrelevant. With the theory of consciousness it is possible to characterize the proletariat as actually becoming more and more bourgeois, as prisoners of bourgeois ideology, and even as having deserted to the bourgeoisie. Such characterizations would be meaningless in the theory of class structure, since in the frame of reference of this theory a proletariat that had deserted to the bourgeoisie could only have done so by appropriating the means of production, an event that cannot take place without the whole superincumbent strata being sprung into the air.
According to the theory of consciousness, whether or not an individual or a class is revolutionary depends on the presence or absence of revolutionary consciousness in that individual or class. At first glance this appears to be a form of idealism. However, this appearance is only another result of the confusion between the theory of class structure and the theory of consciousness. It is only
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