Previous: Narodniki, part 10
(vi) Identification of Revolutionary Class
The virtual museum of "Narodnaya Volya", http://narovol.narod.ru/ is perhaps the best source of information (in Russian) about this group. In "A Brief History of Narodnaya Volya" from this site, we read: "First and most important that distinguishes narodniks from Marxists is their identification of peasantry as the main revolutionary class".
Thus, one party is distinguished from another by the identification of a social class which it represents.
This is the reason I can not consider myself a Marxist, as I don't see the proletariat as a modern revolutionary class. I believe the world as a whole has already passed the stage of the Industrial revolution, in the course of which proletariat was one of the leading forces. Today, the world is at the stage of the Information revolution and is moving towards the nanotechnological revolution. Proletariat, the blue-collar workers, the industrial workers, can no longer be considered to be revolutionary class.
A Universal Person
Nor can "professionals", specialists in any one sphere of knowlege can be considered as revolutionary, as in general they are philistines, or even reactionaries.
The future belongs to "universal" men and women, a type of new Renaissance human being, a person who can do, or learn, anything that s/he wants.
Next: Narodniki, Part 12