• whereisk@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    But he did write quite extensively on Lumpenproletariat.

    vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, swindlers, charlatans, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, intellectuals, organ grinders, rag-pickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars; in short, the entirely undefined, disintegrating mass, thrown hither and yon, which the French call la bohème.

    That is quite a few groups he considered subhuman, where half the ‘cleansing’ operations under communism have derived their theoretical excuses from.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 hours ago

      The point of the Lumpenproletariat isn’t that they’re subhuman, it’s that they lack cohesiveness as a class or revolutionary potential.