28	NEW   HUMANISM
a cynical attitude to moral and cultural values, alienated
the middle class, seriously weakening the forces of revo-
lution intellectually. Selfish economism eclipsed the
moral appeal of Socialism.
Lenin saw the mistake of ignoring the middle class,
and tried to rectify it, but only in the field of organisa-
tion. In theory, the proletariat still remained the chosen
people of the Marxist world. Yet, while discussing the
organisational problem of * the revolutionary party, Lenin
admitted that the proletariat by themselves could not
develop a social-democratic consciousness, which must be
brought to them from outside—by middle-class intellec-
tuals. Emphasising this significant view, Lenin further
said that, spontaneously, the working class did not become
socialist, but trade-unionist. That revealed the contradic-
tion between Marxist economism and the theory that the
proletariat was the builder of the new order.
Lenin generalised his theory: Not only in Russia,
but everywhere, the working class was unable to work
out an independent ideology; it followed either the bour-
geoisie or middle-class socialist intellectuals. That was a
clear admission that the ideal of Socialism and the theory
of the proletarian revolution were not born out of the
experience of the working class; the one was conceived
and the other created by middle-class intellectuals.
According to Marxism, the emotions and thoughts of the
middle-class intellectuals must have been determined by
the experience of that class. The glorification of the pro-
letariat as the herald and builder of Socialism was obvi-
ously unwarranted. The crfcdit belongs to the middle