Page 94 - Communism in Ambush

The cold faces
of Lenin,
Engels and
Marx adorning
important
places in every
Communist
regime.

63
s social being that determines their consciousness." Ludwig Feuerbach,
one leading Marxist thinker, summed up the nonsense of materialist
logic when he declared, "a person is what he eats."
Because of their materialist prejudice, Marxists view human society
in terms of material criteria. They concentrate much of their attention on
the idea of "class" as a material concept. Class refers to the various eco-
nomic levels in a society and, for Marxists, is the only important crite-
rion. According to Marxists, for example, workers make up a single class
called the "proletariat"; capitalists compose the "bourgeoisie" class.
Because all workers live in unsuitable conditions, therefore, they must
share the same "proletarian consciousness." In the same way, capitalists
must all share a "bourgeois" consciousness because they all share in the
same wealth. Marxists don't accept that a worker or a factory owner
might possibly have a totally different consciousness arising from his
own independent character or world view. 64
A natural result of this point of view is to divide people into sepa-
rate material categories and evaluate them accordingly. For a Marxist,
the only existing categories—such as the bourgeoisie, the little (or petite)
bourgeoisie, the proletariat, imperialists and compradors—are com-
pletely based on material factors. If a person works in a factory with his
own hands, his existence is determined by the work he does. If a villager