head, but by the extent to which the individual is a follower of the organization, by the real, concrete activity of attending meetings and demonstrations, carrying out assignments, obeying orders. The more regularly the individual attends organization meetings and events, the more unflinchingly the individual carries out assignments, the more unquestioningly the individual obeys orders, the higher the individual's level of consciousness. The level of consciousness of a social class is measurable, not by the number of revolutionary thoughts protruding from heads, but by the number of individuals of the class who are Party members, by the extent to which the members of a class adhere to the revolutionary organization.
Class consciousness may be an attribute of an individual or a social class. It refers to the presence or absence of ideas. But its presence or absence can only be determined by the social practice of the individual or class, by the presence or absence of concrete social relations. These social relations are specific relations between an individual and a revolutionary organization, and between a class and a revolutionary organization. The individuals who have the highest level of consciousness, the representatives of proletarian internationalism, the leaders, are not themselves members of the revolutionary class but are educated representatives of the propertied classes. The class itself is able to develop nothing more than consciousness in an embryonic form. The class depends on the leaders for its level of consciousness, its revolutionary essence, which in practice means that the revolutionary essence of the working class depends on the extent to which workers submit to the will of leaders.
The social relations behind class consciousness are social relations between leaders and followers, social relations of subordination and control. They are dependence relations. What is meant by class conscious masses is people who submit to the will of a revolutionary leader, people who cannot dispense with subordination, control and managers. Class consciousness is a euphemism for the mass psychology of dependence.
The theory of class consciousness is a theory of social relations which describes the real conditions for the seizure of State power by a revolutionary organization. It describes as necessary conditions precisely those conditions which correspond to the mass psychology of dependence. In spite of its linguistic obscurities, the theory is a very precise instrument for locating the conditions for the seizure of power, for identifying followers of the revolutionary organization, for distinguishing the revolutionary leader's friends from the leader's enemies—which is the question of fundamental importance to the revolution.
We have seen that the theory of class consciousness explicitly defines followership, submission, the mass psychology of dependence,
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